PASSWORD!

It is estimated that 32% of one’s waking hours is spent typing passwords and usernames and all that stuff. The remaining 68% is spent trying to remember what on earth the password was for this or that website or service.

(Of course, 79.36% of all statistics is concocted without any respect for reality, so you can’t trust any of these numbers.)

But the fact remains that waiting to log on is the story of our lives.

Those sage and sapient experts warn us never—never!—to write down our passwords. Excuse me? I had, at last count, 87 passwords. Most of them meaningless permutations and combinations of characters (e.g., 3Oa%1*M@sT) and I’m expected to carry them all around in my head? Yeah, right!

Having forgotten yet another password the other day, and as I was thinking about my sermon this weekend on prayer, I thanked God that I didn’t need a password to access the throne-room of Almighty God. Or I’d forever be staring at a blank monitor.

… through Him [Christ] we … have
our access in one Spirit to the Father.
Ephesians 2:18

Free access to God the Father, through Christ, in the Spirit. And no password needed!

On second thought, while no password is necessary, there is a username we need in order to gain access to God: Child of God.

Nothing to pay. No email address to give out. Last 4 of your SSN not required. Color of skin, hair, and nails irrelevant. But you do need a username—the username: Child of God.

And that is obtained when one places one’s trust in Jesus Christ, an act of faith, believing that the penalty of our sin has been paid, fully and finally, by His sacrificial death on the cross.

Everyone who believes
that Jesus is the Christ
is born of God.
1 John 5:1

No more is sin a barrier between the child and the Father.

… Christ Jesus our Lord,
in whom we have boldness
and confident access
through faith in Him.
Ephesians 3:11–12

And so we can pray about our ailments, our jobs, our patients, our families, our churches, our society, our nation, our world. We can pray about little Johnnie’s future, Aunt Sue’s job, Jake’s car, and everything else we can think of and are concerned about—terrorism, economy, elections, weather. For our God is a prayer-hearing God.

O You who hear prayer,
to You all men come.
Psalm 65:2

What a terrific verse and a marvelous encouragement to us. No hurdle to climb, no obstacle to remove, no wait to enter. So keep praying!

In fact, the Bible commands us to do so.

Pray without ceasing.
1 Thessalonians 5:17

And we have a model to follow in prayer—our Lord. He prayed at His baptism. He prayed at the beginning of His ministry. He prayed at the Transfiguration. He prayed in Gethsemane, sweating blood. His last words on the cross were an address to God, in the throes of death. In fact, the Bible tells us that Christ continues to intercede for us before the Father.

… we have an Advocate
with the Father,
Jesus Christ the righteous.
1 John 2:1

If He, the only-begotten of the Father and the Son of God, the sinless Second Person of the Trinity prayed so often, how much more we?

Therefore let us draw near
with confidence
to the throne of grace,
so that we may receive mercy
and find grace to help
in time of need.
Hebrews 4:16

Keep praying!