Theology 101: What is Prayer?

One of the ways God allows his creation to stay involved with him is through prayer. Prayer is personal communication from us to God.

Through prayer we can

• Communicate our requests to God
• Confess our sin
• Give adoration, praise, and thanksgiving to God

The Reason for Prayer

God does not want us to pray so that he can find out what we need. Rather, God wants us to pray so that our dependence on him can increase

• Jesus said “Your Father knows what you need before you ask him” (Matt. 6:8)
• When we come to God in prayer about something, we express trust in him, a trust that he will hear and answer our prayers.
• We should pray like a child asking his father for an egg or a fish (Luke 11:9-12). As a child trusts and expects his father to provide for him, so we ought to expect, in faith, that God will provide for us.

God wants us to pray because it allows us to be a part of a story that is greater than out own

• Prayer allows us to be involved in activities that have eternal significance.
• When we pray, God’s kingdom is advanced and his will is done “on earth as it is in heaven” (Matt. 6:10).

The Effectiveness of Prayer

“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened” (Luke 11:9-10).

 

On our own we have no right to boldly ask God for anything

• Our personal sin should disqualify us from requesting anything from a holy God.
• But if our faith is in Jesus, the Bible tells us he stands as the “one mediator between God and men” (1 Tim. 2:5).
• Jesus said, “No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6).
• God is under no obligation to answer the prayers of those who have rejected his Son. Although, in his mercy he chooses to answer them at times, he does not promise to answer the prayers of unbelievers. But he does promise to answer the prayers of believers who pray in accordance to his will.

Our Attitude of Prayer

The effective prayers that Jesus answers must be prayed “according to his will” (1 John 5:14)

• Praying according to Gods will often requires humility on our part, because it requires that we pray not simply for what we desire but instead for what God desires.

When we sin, God urges us to use his gift of prayer to seek his forgiveness

• When we confess our sins, God is “faithful and just” to forgive those sins and not punish us for them (1 John 1:9). Christ already bore the punishment of those sins on the cross.
• James encourages us to confess our sins to one another and to “pray for one another” so that we may be healed (James 5:16).

When prayers are not answered you are joining the company of men like Jesus and Paul

• Before Jesus was crucified, he asked the Father to “remove this cup” from him. But his humility and submission to God’s will were shown in the second part of his prayer: “Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done” (Luke 22:42).
• “Three times,” Paul “pleaded with the Lord” to take away his affliction; the lord did not do so, but instead told Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corin. 12:8-9).

God still promises us today, “I will never leave you or forsake you” (Heb. 13:5). Therefore, regardless of the situation, we can confidently say, “The Lord is my helper; I shall not fear; what can man do to me?” (Heb. 13:6).

 

 

Fight On