They Would Have Died To Pray As We Do

In addition to being grateful for prayer, we should be grateful for the types of prayer we can offer:

And when we look back, we have so much more to say than they [the pre-Christian Israelites] did, don’t we? Our past is even better than their past, because we know Jesus. They could remember what God did in Egypt, in the wilderness, and in Canaan, but we have Bethlehem and Calvary. We can pray,

Jesus, you came into our world, born in a manger.
For our sake, you were obedient to the point of death/on a cross.
You were pierced for our transgressions.
You were crushed for our iniquities.
You were wounded so that we might be healed.
You were poor so that we could become rich.
You suffered, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring us to God.
And three days later, you rose to conquer death and give us life.

The Sons of Korah couldn’t say that yet, so they said, “You restored. You forgave. You covered.” They would have died to pray the kinds of prayers we get to pray, the prayers we pray every day — in Jesus’s name.

(Marshall Segal)