READ: Is. 55:1-6
Seek the Lord while He may be found, Call upon Him while He is near. – Is. 55:6
God Himself wants a confidential relationship with us as His children. Confidential is hidden and intimate: with all your inner-self, your heart. His Father’s heart goes out to us. He wants to give us the good in abundance. He wants to give us peace, perspective and hope, for nothing, without money or merits, all by grace alone. This is all based on the atonement work of Jesus Christ. But then He wants us to love Him too, and for our hearts to be open to Him.
Now that we know His thoughts for us from His Word, He wants our thoughts to go out to Him and for us to have a cordial relationship with Him. God comes to us and speaks to us in His Word, so let us come to Him and answer Him, realizing that He is near and not far away! That is prayer: calling on God after we have come to Him, obeying His call to listen to Him.
Isaiah 55:2 reminds us that our hearts are more likely to go out to the things of this world, that we like to give our time and energy to things that do not nourish us spiritually and do not bring us true happiness. No, prayer is not something that we choose by ourselves. Instead, it is the Lord who calls us to covenant fellowship with Him. For the sake of this relationship we will leave other things if they are of no use in the eyes of the Lord.
Listening and speaking both require a reverent, humble and attentive attitude. Our confidential relationship with God does not mean that we have an equal relationship. As creatures, we depend on God in everything. All that He does for us is the result of His undeserved grace for sinful people. This determines the tone and content of our prayer as a covenant conversation.
What does it mean that God is near?
Singing: Ps. 25:7