“Do I pray to Jesus or to God?”

Steve Brown:
Do I pray to Jesus or to God? The answer to that question and others, on Key Life.

Matthew Porter:
If you think laughter isn’t spiritual or that faithfulness to God means conformity to Christian stereotypes, then this program probably isn’t for you. But if you’re looking for honest, Biblical answers to honest questions, welcome to Key Life. Here’s our host, author and seminary professor Steve Brown, along with Pete Alwinson from ForgeBibleStudy.com.

Steve Brown:
Thank you Matthew. Hi ya’ Pete.

Pete Alwinson:
Hey man. Happy Friday.

Steve Brown:
Happy Friday. It really is. We’ve said it numerous times, you know, back when Pete and I were both pastors, Friday was not a pleasant time. Now, we look forward to the freedom and the joy of the week-end, unless we’re preaching somewhere,

Pete Alwinson:
I’m doing a Sunday morning class at a church that I attend. And, it puts a little bit of that.

Steve Brown:
Yeah. You remember.

Pete Alwinson:
I remember what this was like.

Steve Brown:
I’m going to be going down to the Keys this week-end and preaching.

Pete Alwinson:
Wow. Really?

Steve Brown:
Yeah, I’m doing it. I don’t want to, I don’t like going to the drug store, much less to drive six hours to the Florida Keys, but I’ve got a good friend who has some dirt on me and he’s threatened to reveal it, if I don’t show.

Pete Alwinson:
Well.

Steve Brown:
But it’s not great anxiety. You know, if it bombs, I get the leave. I don’t care.

Pete Alwinson:
It’ll be good. It’ll be great.

Steve Brown:
By the way, that’s Pete Alwinson. And go too, by the way, if you haven’t gotten his book Like Father Like Son, that’s a life-changing book. Is the audio out yet?

Pete Alwinson:
Audio book is there. So, if you’d rather listen to it, go get it, New Growth Press or Key Life.

Steve Brown:
Okay. Check it out. If you’re a person who would rather drive and listen to the book, you can check it out at Key Life or New Growth Press. You can Google it and find both. Pete comes in as you know, on Fridays. And we answer questions together. And we love your questions. You can call 1-800-KEY-LIFE, 24 7, when you have a question and we record your voice and then sometimes put it on the air. You can send her a question to

Key Life Network
P.O. Box 5000
Maitland, Florida 32794

or in Canada, it’s

Key Life Canada
P.O. Box 28060
Waterloo, Ontario N2L 6J8

or you can e-mail your question to [email protected]. And if you can help us, please do, financially. We are a member of ECFA in the States and CCCC in Canada. And they oversee our books to make sure that we’re ethical and we’re faithful with your gift, even if they didn’t, we would be. But if you can help us, do. If you can’t, we understand. Pete, why don’t you lead us in prayer and we’ll get to these questions.

Pete Alwinson:
Great. Let’s pray. Our great Father, we come into your presence today, so thankful that we belong to you and that we’re your daughters and beloved sons, and what a joy to know that we’re forgiven and that we have a powerful life because you’re with us, Lord, you know us and you know exactly what we went through this week, you know the challenges, you know what happened at work or in our neighborhood or in our home, with our kids and our marriages, Lord, you know, the loneliness, the fear, the anger, the need for forgiveness. You know everything about us, so we come to you. We don’t want to play a game, we just ask that you would do your work of grace in our heart and bring us one step closer to you, even this week-end as we go to church. So, we do pray for our leaders and so thankful for them Lord, the worship leaders, pastors, priests, teachers, leaders of all kinds. And we ask that you would empower them by your Spirit to minister to us. We commit this time of Q&A to you, right now, as we pray in Jesus name. Amen.

Steve Brown:
Amen. Pete, let’s go to our phone lines.

Caller 1:
I have heard from different people that you’re supposed to pray to God and then in the name of Jesus Christ. I had thought and heard also that you could pray to Jesus directly. And that’s what I have believed. What I would like to know is, could you give me a few Bible verses that allow us to pray directly to Jesus Christ?

Steve Brown:
Good question. I guess people wonder about that sometimes. I think first, we’ve got to say that there’s no jealousy in the Trinity. And so, don’t be uptight about it. Jesus doesn’t say, you should have talked to the Father, not to me. He’s the boss because they’re one. And vice versa, the Father says, I’m too busy, would you talk to my son? Or would you talk to the Holy Spirit, I’m trying to run the world. That’s not going on, but there’s something to be said.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah. You know, I think our theologians have helped us see that generally speaking, we pray to the Father, through the merit of the Son, by the power of the Holy Spirit, who enables us.

But you know, sometimes in the New Testament, I mean, like when you’re walking up to preach sometimes, what do you say?

Steve Brown:
Jesus have mercy on me.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right. Help me. And you know, sometimes at the end of the day, I’ll sit down and I’ll just go, I’m on relational overload, you know, and I’ll go Jesus and it’s not a cuss. It’s a prayer. And then there are times. I’m going to preach and I go, Holy Spirit, I’m not sure I know exactly how to put all this, you know? And so we say, Spirit of the living God, fall afresh on me, you know.

Steve Brown:
And interpret my prayers, which Scripture says he does.

Pete Alwinson:
And there’s not a lot of, so there’s not verses that really say it’s okay to preach, to pray to Jesus.

Steve Brown:
Well, you get the conversion of the apostle Paul. It was Jesus who knocked him off his horse. And the conversation was between Jesus and Paul, so it’s possible.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right. That’s right.

Steve Brown:
But listen, it’s not a big deal and you shouldn’t lose sleep over it, but give that mantra again, that’s good.

Pete Alwinson:
That we pray to the Father, in the merit or in the name of Jesus, by the power of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit helps us pray, Paul says. So anyway, there it is, but like you said, I love what you said. Don’t worry about it, really. But Jesus does teach us in the Lord’s prayer to pray, Our Father. That’s generally the mode.

Steve Brown:
This is an e-mail. Is there more than one way to get to God the Father? What if I had never heard about Jesus?

Pete Alwinson:
Alright, so no, I’ll answer the first part. No, there’s only one way to Jesus. You get to answer the second part.

Steve Brown:
One way to God.

Pete Alwinson:
One way to God is through Jesus. Right?

Steve Brown:
That’s right. We have on our talk show and if you haven’t discovered that you might want to check it, by going to our website, KeyLife.org. The talk shows on a couple of hundred radio stations and it’s also videoed. So you can, you can check it out. And we have great guests on that. We interviewed the head of Search Ministries, who deals with those kinds of questions all the time. And that came up in our discussion with him. And, he said something really good. He said that God never leaves himself without a witness. And that if you make the decision, like you’re making an idol, you’ve never heard of Jesus. And you looked at the idol and said, this is crazy. Somebody made the hand, my hand that carved this dumb idol, that’s the beginning of a movement in the right direction. And then there’s a book and I wish I could remember the person who wrote it, Eternity in Their Hearts.

Pete Alwinson:
Right, right, right.

Steve Brown:
That book gives dozens of examples.

Pete Alwinson:
Don Richardson.

Steve Brown:
Don Richardson. That’s right.

Pete Alwinson:
He talks about redemptive analogies that every culture, has some analogy that leads people.

Steve Brown:
And it’s incredible. And he gives specifics, Chinese, for instance, they have in the written language, there is a lot of hints to the gospel. I grew up in the mountains of North Carolina, near Cherokee and the Cherokee Indians had a Trinity belief, before any missionary ever talked to them. And so, there are strong Cherokee Christians, who didn’t hear the gospel, but were prepared for it.

Pete Alwinson:
God is a great communicator. God is the great communicator. I know Ronald Reagan was given that title, but God is a communicator. He communicates all the time, through nature, through Jesus, through us. I like that line, He never leaves without a witness of himself.

Steve Brown:
And Paul said, you have no excuse, whoever you are. And bottom line, God is fair, he’s just, he’s kind. If you say, look, I didn’t have a chance. If God says, I didn’t have a chance to send a missionary to you. So, you’re going to hell, deal with it. That’s not the way God works. He prepares and he moves. English evangelicals, have a great by-in-large, this is what they believe, that everybody’s given an opportunity to make a decision. If you make the right one, you’ll get the rest. And there’s something to be said for that, God is moving right now in cultures that have never heard of him

Pete Alwinson:
Absolutely. Absolutely.

Steve Brown:
So, but there isn’t but one way, I mean, if Jesus doesn’t hug you, you’re not going to make it.

Pete Alwinson:
So whatever witness he leaves of himself, is going to lead to Jesus. And we know it’s supernaturally happening to Muslims around the world.

Steve Brown:
There are thousands of stories of Muslims. What do you mean by regeneration of the Holy Spirit being essential for salvation?

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah. Good question. You know, here’s how I would look at that. I’d say, bottom line, what it means is that it is the Holy Spirit who touches our hearts and applies the work of redemption accomplished by Jesus. It’s the Holy Spirit who puts the truth in our hearts, and enables us to embrace him and believe.

Steve Brown:
That’s so true. And sometimes we worry too much about it. If we’re there. If we show. If we know him. And the Holy Spirit begins to do his work, you ever tried to lead somebody to Christ when Jesus had left the building?

Pete Alwinson:
It’s like this blank stare.

Steve Brown:
I just want to say. Look, you don’t want to, they go, yeah, yeah, yeah. And you think, look, I don’t want to tell you something you don’t want to hear, so let’s go get an ice cream cone together or something. And if he ever come to the point. And what I mean is if you ever come to the point where the Holy Spirit is moving in your heart and you have some questions, I’ve got some answers. Of course you don’t say it that way. If you ever get in trouble, you need some help, I’m here. If you’ve got some questions, I’ll answer them for you, but right now, I’m going to spend my time with people who want to hear what I have to say.

Pete Alwinson:
Jesus says, do not cast your pearls for the swine.

Steve Brown:
And he also said, shake the dust off your feet.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah. And, yet we both know situations where people have, like walked into our office and we shared the gospel and they were ready to go. Okay, well, what do I do? You go, right, Jesus is here. The Spirit is at work. They’re already born again. They just don’t know it. That’s regeneration of being born again.

Steve Brown:
That’s right. And it’s a good thing. And it takes the pressure off. I think we have to be faithful, but you have people that stay awake at night because they’re sure their relatives are going to hell because they didn’t tell them about Jesus. So, we’re outta here. Key Life is a listener supported production of Key Life Network.