What is Look at the Book?

You look at a Bible text on the screen. You listen to John Piper. You watch his pen “draw out” meaning. You see for yourself whether the meaning is really there. And (we pray!) all that God is for you in Christ explodes with faith, and joy, and love.

Audio Transcript

‘White-hot worship.’ What is it? Pastor John likes to use the phrase. And for those of you from a certain charismatic background, it’s a phrase that carries all sorts of unintended baggage, things Pastor John doesn’t intend by it. So, what is ‘white-hot worship’?

Lisa asks the question today: “Pastor John, hello and thank you for this podcast! I’m currently listening to your audiobook Reading the Bible Supernaturally. Wonderful book, thank you! Dozens and dozens of times throughout the book you mention ‘white-hot worship.’ When I hear that phrase, certain images come to my mind. I come from a Pentecostal background where this was the focus every Sunday morning, expressed with jumping up and down, screaming, running around, waving flags, twitching, falling to the ground, shaking, making unnatural sounds, speaking in tongues, and, yes, feeling for angels and electricity in the atmosphere. This is how thousands of us have always understood ‘intense worship.’ When you saw someone ‘going crazy’ it seemed they were deep in the Spirit, worshiping intensely.

“Now I have left that mindset and practice behind, and I know this is not at all what worship is about. Can you explain what you mean by ‘white-hot worship’ for those of us coming from this background? And thank you for always making Scripture clear!”

Well, thank you, Lisa, for reading Reading the Bible Supernaturally. I think your question is a very, very important one flowing from that book and gives me a chance to make some important distinctions.

Destiny of Worship

You’re right — the phrase “white-hot” occurs in that book 27 times. I counted them. And it’s important that I give you a couple examples, because the context matters in the way I think about that phrase.

“I have proposed that our ultimate goal in reading the Bible — according to the Bible itself — is that God’s infinite worth and beauty would be exalted in the everlasting, white-hot worship of the blood-bought bride of Christ from every people, language, tribe, and nation” (102). So, notice the phrase “ultimate goal.”
“God created human emotion for the ultimate purpose of white-hot worship of his worth and beauty. In this ultimate experience, we will be supremely satisfied, and he will be supremely glorified” (104).
“The cosmos will reach its final purpose when the saints enjoy God in it and through it and over it with white-hot admiration for the Creator and the Redeemer” (174).
One more: “Seeing and savoring Christ . . . [is] the key to the transformation that prepares the bride for her destiny of white-hot worship . . . moving ever closer to the white-hot intensity we will know when we see face-to-face and know even as we are known” (225–226, 348).

So, the main reason I read all those quotes is to give the context that my emphasis on white-hot worship is when it reaches its fullest experience in the age to come. For now, in this age, we see in a glass darkly; then we see face-to-face. Now we know in part, then we will know fully, even as we are fully known (1 Corinthians 13:12). So, for now, our worship is often frustratingly inadequate to what we know he deserves. But when we have our new minds, our new hearts, our new bodies, our new emotions, then the worship will be as it ought to be.

Why Use ‘White-Hot Worship’?

There are at least three reasons why I use the phrase “white-hot” to describe our final aim in worship.

“God is infinitely worthy of our fullest responsiveness from mind and heart.”

First, simply to emphasize the fact that authentic worship is in fact a matter of the emotions as well as the intellect. Thinking right thoughts about God is not in itself worship. Feeling intense emotions that are not rooted in a true sight of the way God really is, is also not true worship. We worship “in spirit and truth” (John 4:24). We worship with lips and heart. So, that’s the first reason — to stress the emotional reality that worship includes.

Second, I use the phrase “white-hot” to emphasize the fact that a lack of earnestness or a lack of intensity or a lack of zeal is a detraction from the beauty and worth of God. He is infinitely worthy of our fullest responsiveness from mind and heart. “White-hot” calls attention to the full, intense engagement of our emotions as we respond to him with the joy of admiration.

The third reason for using the term “white-hot” is to try to capture what the Bible itself is getting at when it says, for example, “Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord.” That’s Romans 12:11. That phrase “Be fervent” literally means boil. It’s the word for boil. Simple, straightforward, “boil in the spirit.” Now, my phrase “white-hot” is an effort to capture the meaning of boil; boil in the spirit.

Or Matthew 24:12 warns about a time when lawlessness will be increased, and the love of many will grow cold. So, the Bible itself puts our love on the scale of hot and cold, and warns about cold and pleads for hot. Like Revelation 3:16: “Because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth.”

And surely Jesus is getting at the same thing when he sums up all of Godward living with the Great Commandment: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” (Matthew 22:37). I think these all’s — all your heart — mean nothing less than a white-hot engagement of the heart with God.

Discerning Genuine Worship

Now, Lisa wants to know what the difference is between my meaning of “white-hot worship” and her past experience of people “jumping up and down, screaming, running around, waving flags, twitching, falling on the ground, shaking, making unnatural sounds, speaking in tongues, and yes, feeling for angels and electricity in the atmosphere.”

“For emotions to have spiritual significance, they have to be stirred by truth about God, not just music or hype.”

My first response is to point out that the actions of the body are no sure sign of any intensity in the heart. That’s a big mistake people make — that if the body can somehow feel a certain thing physically, that the spirit is, therefore, more engaged with spiritual intensity. That’s just not true. There’s no necessary correlation between what the body does and what the spirit does. Surely the body is going to be affected, but the body can do many things that are peculiar without it being any sure sign of a spiritual reality.

The second thing I would observe is that the movements of the emotions themselves are no sure sign that God is being worshiped. For emotions to have spiritual significance, they have to be stirred by truth about God, not just music or hype. Romans 10:2 says, “They have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.” In 1 Corinthians 14:19, Paul says, “In church I would rather speak five words with my mind in order to instruct others, than ten thousand words in a tongue.”

And the third thing I would say is that we should want our corporate gatherings not to be so chaotic that people would say, “You’re all out of your mind.” First Corinthians 14:23: “If, therefore, the whole church comes together and all speak in tongues, and outsiders or unbelievers enter, will they not say that you are out of your minds?” He doesn’t want that to happen, so he regulates how tongues and prophecy are to be used.

Maybe the best guideline I can give to help us distinguish between intensity, hotness, that honors God and intensity that doesn’t honor God is the guideline Jonathan Edwards gave himself in his preaching. And I’ve always felt this is a healthy, wise, biblical guideline. He said, “I should think myself in the way of my duty to raise the affections” — and he means spiritual emotions — “of my hearers as high as I possibly can, provided that they are affected with nothing but truth, and with affections that are not disagreeable to the nature of what they are affected with” (Works of Jonathan Edwards, 4:387).

So, that’s the guideline I think would help guide all of us as we try to discern what aspects of corporate worship are helpful in honoring God with our intensity, and what aspects are not helpful.

What is Look at the Book?

You look at a Bible text on the screen. You listen to John Piper. You watch his pen “draw out” meaning. You see for yourself whether the meaning is really there. And (we pray!) all that God is for you in Christ explodes with faith, and joy, and love.

Audio Transcript

By far the hardest part of my work on this podcast is reading the sorrow-filled emails we get, and especially those from parents who have lost young children. Some of you who are listening are enduring tremendous pain, which is so evident in the stories you share with us. And the sorrow of losing a child is only made heavier when that loss may be connected to a parent’s own decision, as is the case in this email from an anonymous woman. “Pastor John, I have been passing through a very dark and hard time since the recent loss of my unborn baby girl. My expected delivery date passed, and I was told to go to the hospital for an induced labor. I delayed that decision, trusting that I would eventually deliver my baby girl without any forced labor needed. A week later, I was told my baby died in the womb.

“I was shattered by the news. I feel directly responsible for my child’s death. I feel God should have given me a sign or something. Why did he allow my baby to die? It’s been seven weeks, and it still feels like yesterday. The pain is fresh every day. My heart is broken. I cry whenever I remember the whole scenario. I find it hard to pray. When I do, I now doubt if God still hears me. I am weighed down to the point that I feel my faith failing.”

When I was in Africa in 1996 visiting missionaries, I met a young Quaker missionary couple who had been there for fifteen years. The year before I got there, their eighteen-month-old daughter was backed over in a car and killed by a visiting missionary in their front yard. And as I was visiting them those months later, their computer was broken, they had car trouble, their housing was being taken from them because the landlord had defaulted on a loan. And in all of that, this couple, to my utter astonishment, was radiant with hope and with the love of Jesus Christ. They had not even gone home to bury the baby. They buried the baby in Kenya and pressed on with the work.

Now, I’m very aware that this young woman who has written to us can respond to that story in two very different ways. She can be angry with me or upset, as though I were trying to shame her that she hasn’t yet felt that kind of hopeful. But she doesn’t have to respond that way to my story. She can respond by saying, “Thank you, God, that you gave to that Quaker couple such grace to survive that unspeakable tragedy and survive it in hope. I don’t feel that way, God, but I want to, and I ask for that miracle to happen in my life.” She could respond that way. I hope she does.

So, here are a few thoughts that I pray God would use to give this kind of sustaining grace to our brokenhearted mom.

1. We just don’t know.

First, we don’t know if your baby would have died anyway, and so we don’t know if you were part of the reason the baby died. We just don’t know. There are too many variables. You don’t know. As much as you feel responsible, you don’t know. Maybe, maybe not.

2. Waiting need not be negligence.

Second, you referred to your negligence. Maybe it was — I don’t know enough to pass judgment — but frankly I doubt it. I doubt that you were negligent. Millions of women have passed their due dates and waited for birth without inducement. All the Piper babies were late, some as much as three weeks. To wait for a natural readiness need not be negligence.

3. Your child’s life goes on.

Third, your baby’s life did not end. If you persevere in faith, you will be with your child in due time. I tried to spell out the reason for believing that in APJ 514. You can go listen to why I believe that. There are just many significant reasons, even biblical ones, that I think are compelling. Don’t assume your baby is dead — not ultimately and not eternally — and that you’ll never know what that baby would turn out to be as God mysteriously gives it mature life.

4. God reigns with goodness and wisdom.

Fourth, I don’t know what you have been taught about the sovereignty of God over life and death, but the biblical truth is that God is sovereign over who lives and who dies and when and how they die. James 4:15 says, “If the Lord wills, we will live.” This is why, when Job’s ten children died all at once in a collapsing house, Job arose, tore his robe, shaved his head, fell on the ground, and worshiped and said, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:21).

“God is doing a thousand things you cannot see. All of them are wise. All of them work for your good if you trust him.”

It is no true comfort to believe that death is controlled by the evil of Satan or the meaninglessness of chance. That is not a comfortable theology. What comforts us in death — ours and those we love — is that the all-wise, all-governing God has good reasons for whom he takes and whom he leaves and when he does it. Your baby did not die in vain. God is doing a thousand things — yes, ten thousand things — you cannot see. All of them are wise. All of them work for your good if you trust him.

5. God is not against you.

Fifth, even though we don’t know 99 percent of what God is doing in the calamities of our lives, we do know a few of his purposes, because he tells us in the Bible why he appoints suffering for his precious children. For example, James 1:12 says, “Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him.” Every loss is a test from God of our love for God. Our faith and love are being tested to prove that they are real and to make them stronger.

Paul said of his own experience of suffering, “We were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead” (2 Corinthians 1:8–9). God has dealt you, just like Paul, a very painful blow, just like he did Ruth and Naomi in the Old Testament. But he is not against you. He wants you to trust him even more deeply than you do now or ever have.

6. Regret need not paralyze.

Sixth, it is possible to live with a lifetime of regret and not be paralyzed or miserable. The apostle Paul regretted all his life that he had been a murdering persecutor of Christians. To the end of his life, he called himself the chief of sinners because of this horrible history in his life. But instead of paralyzing him, it made him even more effective, a more effective minister of mercy because of the mercy shown to him after his sin. He wished it had not happened, because it was sin. To kill Christians is sin. But he knew God could make even a history of sin serve his saving purposes. You can read that in 1 Timothy 1:12–17.

7. God cleanses and forgives.

Seventh, whatever measure of sin or guilt attaches to you because of your child’s death, God is ready to forgive it. We don’t know. I just don’t know — and I don’t think you know — what measure of involvement was there. But you do know this: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). The slate wiped clean.

8. God promises his help.

And finally, what we can know for sure in this situation is that God’s will for you is that you fight the good fight of faith and that you win — you win (2 Timothy 4:7). He promises to help you. He speaks these words over you right now from Psalm 91:14: “Because you hold fast to me in love, I will deliver you.” Or again in Psalm 32:10: “Steadfast love surrounds the one who trusts in the Lord.” Or once more, Psalm 34:18: “The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves” — he saves — “the crushed in spirit.” Or circling back to Job, who lost all ten of his children, James says this: “We consider those blessed who remained steadfast. You have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful” (James 5:11).

So, be steadfast. Trust him. He’s going to bring you through this humble, strong, wise, kind, confident.

Audio Transcript

We talked about holiness and good works last time, and why our holy deeds are not filthy rags. That’s a common myth that needs to die. And we’re back on the topic of purpose, looking at what it means to be successful in our 9-to-5 jobs. That’s because today in our Bible-reading plan we read Proverbs 16:3 together: “Commit your work to the Lord, and your plans will be established.” That makes me think about work. And I know many of you listen to this podcast on your drive in to work in the morning, so this seems especially relevant right now. We’ve focused several podcast episodes on careers and calling, overworking, laziness, purpose and personal productivity — all those things we’ve covered, and for that see the APJ book on pages 67–94.

We get so many questions here because we don’t want to waste our lives. And that means we don’t want to waste our jobs. We invest so much of our lives at work, and it’s a place to pursue excellence. But why? And how? To what level? What does success look like here, on the jobsite and in the office? The question to get us started is from Dylan. “Hello, Pastor John. In Colossians 3:22–24, Paul exhorts his readers to ‘work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men.’ Does this mean that any work not done in excellence is sinful? And how do we apply God’s view of work to cleaning our house, writing a paper for school, or working a 9-to-5 job? I have been feeling guilty about the way I handle these things for months now, and I’m not sure if I’m just being lazy, self-righteous, or am I disobeying the Lord?”

The first thing, with regard to his guilt, or feeling guilty, is that the Bible handles guilt in two ways — and both are very important, not just one. One is the blood of Jesus that covers all our sin, including how we do our work (and none of us does our work as well as we could; we’re always falling short of the ideal). One is the blood of Jesus that cancels our guilt. And the other is to resolve to walk and work faithfully before the Lord in the freedom of that forgiveness.

If we try to use the blood of Jesus as a free pass to walk in sin, our conscience will rise up and protest, thank God. And if we try to walk in faithfulness and obedience without relying on the blood of Jesus for forgiveness and enablement, we will either fail in despair or we will look like we succeed and become proud. It’s the two together — the blood of Jesus and the resolve of walking and working faithfully, obediently — that’s the key to the peaceful life of being forgiven before God and being vigilant over our hearts and minds as we go about our daily tasks.

So, what is God’s will for how we should do our ordinary work? And then in particular, what does working “as for the Lord” mean in Colossians 3:23? Let’s get the bigger picture first.

Before the Face of God

In the Bible, God makes a total, absolute claim on our lives, all of our lives — including all of our work of whatever kind. Everything in our lives is to be done before the face of God — in reliance upon God’s grace, according to God’s guidance, for God’s glory.

Listen to these amazing passages. This is Colossians 3:17: “Whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” Isn’t that amazing? Every word, every deed “in the name of the Lord Jesus.” Or 1 Corinthians 10:31: “Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” Or Proverbs 3:5–6: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways” — all your ways — “acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.” Or Proverbs 16:3: “Commit your work to the Lord, and your plans will be established.” Or one of my favorites, from Romans 14 (just because it’s so amazingly sweeping in calling us to live Godward lives):

The one who observes the day, observes it in honor of the Lord. The one who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God, while the one who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God. For none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself. For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s. For to this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living. (Romans 14:6–9)

Amazing. I love it. Oh, how I want to live to the Lord, before the Lord, always with reference to the Lord. All those texts have one basic message: We belong to God. We are not our own. Everything we do, from morning till night, is to be done in a Godward way, before his face — in reliance on his grace, guided by his will, aiming to make him look magnificent and glorious as our all-satisfying treasure. That’s what work is for. That’s what all of life is for.

And I don’t know whether Dylan knows my book Don’t Waste Your Life, but there’s a chapter called “Making Much of Christ from 8 to 5,” which tries to grapple with, How do you go about doing your daily work so as not to waste what it’s for?

How Do We Work?

Now, just a few words about Colossians 3. Here’s the text that Dylan is exercised about. It’s got the phrase in it, “work . . . as for the Lord and not for men.” It goes like this: “Bondservants, obey in everything those who are your earthly masters, not by way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord. Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord.” As for the Lord. So, work “as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ” (Colossians 3:22–24).

“Everything we do, from morning till night, is to be done in a Godward way, before his face.”

So, work “as for the Lord.” And Paul modifies this command in five ways so we can know — there’s not much doubt here — how Paul thinks about this. There are five modifiers to what he means by “as for the Lord.”

1. Not to be done with “eye-service,” as men-pleasers: That is, you’re not just angling to impress others when you do your work. God, not others, is the one you have in view. You’re working in a Godward way first, not a manward way.

2. The opposite of eye-service is “sincerity,” he says. In other words, you really mean the good that your work is aiming to do. The work is not to impress others. The work is what it is. It’s for the good of others.

3. “Fearing the Lord”: in other words, fearing displeasing the Lord — having a reverential desire to please the Lord in the way you do your work.

4. Working “heartily”: literally “from the soul” — that is, not half-heartedly but putting your whole self into it.

5. Expecting a great reward from the Lord: Even if man gives you nothing for it, that doesn’t matter in the end. What matters in the end is that you’re going to get totally overabundance — a poured-down, pressed-together, overflowing-in-your-lap reward from the Lord.

Now, all five of those guidelines for how we do our work for the Lord are given to us not because the Lord needs our work. He doesn’t. Acts 17:25: “[God is not] served by human hands, as though he needed anything.” God doesn’t need our work. That’s not the point. Paul gave us these instructions because this will bring the greatest joy to us when we work this way, and it will show that God is our greatest treasure.

Audio Transcript

Holy works and filthy rags. It comes up time and time again, and it’s the topic of a question from Hanley in New Zealand. He’s onto the topic. And it’s a timely one as he reads Nehemiah 13 — and as many of us read Nehemiah 13 — to finish out the book in our Bible reading today. Here’s his email: “Hello, Pastor John! I’m a young believer from New Zealand and I thank God for his work through you. I am confused as to why the saints of the Old Testament regularly pray to God to regard them according to their own righteousness. Most notably for me right now are Nehemiah 13:14, 22, 30–31. Is this a practice for us today? Do we bring to God our righteous deeds and ask him not to forget them? I’ve never prayed that way. Never even considered it. I guess my default is to think of ‘all’ my ‘righteous deeds’ as ‘filthy rags’ (Isaiah 64:6). Do you remind God of your righteous deeds? Should we? And why do we need to?”

Okay, Hanley, let’s buckle up because I’m going to pack a lot into a very short space here — a kind of mini-theology of good works, how they relate to faith, how they relate to rewards, how they relate to prayer.

Filthy Rags or Holy Deeds?

Let’s start with Isaiah 64:6. You are not alone in thinking that this verse teaches that all Christian good works are filthy rags in the sight of God. That is a profoundly mistaken reading of that verse. The verse just before, Isaiah 64:5, says, “You meet him who joyfully works righteousness, those who remember you in your ways.” This is a commendation of righteousness in the people of God. God does not despise the righteous deeds of his children done by faith. What verse 6 is referring to in calling righteous deeds “filthy rags” is the hypocritical works that flow from nothing. They have an outward show of righteousness, but inside, dead men’s bones rooted in pride, just as Jesus referred to it (Matthew 23:27).

That misunderstanding of Isaiah 64:6 has caused many Christians to believe that it is impossible for a Christian to please God. If their best works are filthy rags, there’s nothing they can do to please him. This is a profoundly unbiblical notion through and through.

For example, consider how Paul commends the Philippians: “I have received . . . from Epaphroditus the gifts you sent, a fragrant offering, a sacrifice acceptable and pleasing to God” (Philippians 4:18). Their generosity to Paul was pleasing to God. It was not filthy. Or Hebrews 13:16: “Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.” Hebrews 11:6 holds the key: “Without faith it is impossible to please [God].” But Christians have faith. We have faith. And that faith in God’s blood-bought grace, with all its fruits — the fruits of faith and grace — pleases God because it depends on God, not the self, for doing good.

Think what a horrible thing it would be to say that the fruit of the Holy Spirit in the Christian life is filthy rags. I can hardly stand to even think about it. They are not filthy rags. They are God’s precious gift and work in us.

Rewards for Faithful Labor

Let’s take it a step further. If God, in fact, in his grace and power enables us to do things that are good, he is going to reward them, not ignore them. He’s going to say, “Well done, good and faithful servant” (Matthew 25:21). Works of faith are going to be rewarded, not thrown away as filthy rags.

And God intends for us to hope for and expect these rewards. Second Corinthians 5:10: “We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.” Or consider Matthew 10:42: “Whoever gives one of these little ones even a cup of cold water because he is a disciple, truly, I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward.” Or Ephesians 6:8: “Whatever good anyone does, this he will receive back from the Lord.”

There’s no thought in these texts of anybody earning salvation or even earning rewards. The idea of earning is not present. In order to earn something, you supply some labor that someone needs so that they’re now in your debt to pay you wages. God has no needs, and he pays no wages among his people. He bought us by grace; he sustains us by grace; he enables us to do good works by grace. And we do the works trusting that grace. And in that way, we confirm (as Peter says) our “calling and election” (2 Peter 1:10).

Essence of Uprightness

Now we’re in a position to see what’s really going on in the Old Testament when, over and over again, God’s righteous servant pleads his own integrity, his own uprightness, to claim his help from God.

I think Psalm 25 is one of the best places to see what’s going on in the psalmist’s mind concerning his own integrity and his own righteousness, his own upright behavior. In Psalm 25:21, he says, “May integrity and uprightness preserve me, for I wait for you.” Now, clearly, he does not think that his integrity and uprightness are filthy rags, and he doesn’t think that they are performed in his own autonomous strength, because he says, “[because] I wait for you.” The essence and root of his integrity and his uprightness is that he’s looking away from himself to the mercy and the power of God.

“God does not despise the righteous deeds of his children done by faith.”

He’s not sinless though. Psalm 25:7: “Remember not the sins of my youth or my transgressions.” Psalm 25:11: “For your name’s sake, O Lord, pardon my guilt, for it is great.” Psalm 25:18: “Consider my affliction and my trouble, and forgive all my sins.” And after confessing his sins three times at least (I think there’s one more verse), Psalm 25:21 says, “May integrity and uprightness preserve me, for I wait for you.”

He’s just confessed his sin three times. He called his transgressions great. There is real sin left in the lives of the saints — in all of us. There is also real contrition and real confession and real forgiveness and real lives of integrity and uprightness. And David prays and asks that his integrity and his uprightness would preserve him.

Praying Like Nehemiah

So, when Nehemiah — finally got to your text — prays four times something very similar about his obedience to God’s commands, he’s doing something similar to what David is doing. He says, “Remember this also in my favor, O my God, and spare me according to the greatness of your steadfast love” (Nehemiah 13:22). He’s not doing anything essentially different from what David does in the Psalms or doing anything different from the way the New Testament treats our good deeds as Christians. He’s saying, “I’m not perfect, but I have trusted you, and I wait for your steadfast love, and I have acted in my integrity, and I have sought to be obedient to your commandments. May this be remembered before you at the day of salvation.”

Should we pray that way? Should we call to mind regularly our integrity, our uprightness before God? And here’s a guideline that I would say, because I don’t do that very often either, just like you. I think a safe guideline for when we should pray this way is that this kind of praying comes to the fore in times when we are embattled and accused of things that we did not do. So, we pray, “O Lord, you know my heart. You know I am being accused unjustly. I pray that you will remember my integrity and my truthfulness, and vindicate me before my enemies. And if not in this life, O God, vindicate me and reward me according to your mercy in the last day when you remember how I walked in my integrity.”

So, I think that’s the way we should pray from time to time when we are embattled the way the psalmists were and the way Nehemiah was.