PRAYER
Why is prayer so important?
Prayer is our opportunity to talk with our Father, almighty God himself, a reverent opportunity to fellowship with Him, and to bring our requests and praises before His Throne. He loves to hear from us, much as a parent wishes to hear from their children.
How should I pray?
Too many people fall into the trap of repeating formalized prayers such as the Lord's prayer below, figuring that such prayers are what God wants to hear, or because they are too lazy to think one up for themselves. Still others are taught to repeat ritualized prayers such as the Rosary, reciting prayers from prayer books, etc., being taught that such repetitions will bring them blessings. But what does Scripture have to say about prayer?
Jesus stated;
MATTHEW 6:5-15
5 “And when you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites. For they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward.
6 But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.
7 And when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do. For they think that they will be heard for their many words.
8 “Therefore do not be like them. For your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him.
9 In this manner, therefore, pray: ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name.
10 Your kingdom come. Your will be done on Earth as it is in heaven.
11 Give us this day our daily bread.
12 And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
13 And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.
14 “For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.
15 But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
There are a number of things to note here!!!!!!
First, Jesus said we are not to be as the hypocrites, praying in public so that people can see us, and think we are holy! This does not mean that you cannot pray in a church if you are selected to pray before the congregation. This means you are not to pray so as to draw attention to yourself, for if you do, you will receive honor from men..... but not from God.
God sees prayer as a very special, holy time in which you and He commune together, in which He spends time with you alone in deep, personal fellowship. You can pour out your deepest fears before Him, you can praise and worship Him, you can tell Him of your needs, you can tell Him about your day, you can share your joy and happiness with Him, and you can thank Him for the blessings He has given you.
However note verse 7 in the Scripture quoted above!
God doesn't want to hear constant repetitions of the same prayers!
Those of you who may be involved in religions which practice these types of prayers, please understand this! Jesus Himself condemns the Rosary and ritualized prayers with this very statement! Every time you pray the Rosary, or pray the same prayers from a prayer book, you are in disobedience to His commandment for you repeat the same things over and over!
Besides, I have proven from Scripture in another study that praying to Mary and the "saints" is necromancy (sorcery) before the Lord, as those who follow these practices are communicating with the dead, which is forbidden in Scripture. For further information, please see the study on the subject by following the above link.
Note: Some have accused me of hating Catholics because I have proven that a number of their doctrines are against Scripture. However, consider this: Jesus exposed false and un -Scriptural doctrines openly, so as to show men the truth. Can we do any less?
I have backed up each study concerning the erroneous doctrines of the Catholic Church with solid Scripture, in context. Those who would attempt to prove me wrong, please back up your arguments with Scripture also in context.
If I practiced wrongdoing before the Lord, I would want someone to show me out of the Scriptures that I was wrong, and how to correct my beliefs and actions. So, out of sincere desire to bring them the truth, I have created these studies. For those interested in seeing these studies, please follow this link to the Topics section of the Web site.
Besides, if I hated Catholics, I would remain silent, and would let them continue in the
errors taught by their church doctrines.
Look at the issue of ritualized, repetitive prayer from God's point of view. Would YOU want to hear the same thing repeated over, and over, and over, or would you rather listen to an intelligent, personal conversation? Repetition of the same words robs the conversation of meaning, and becomes merely a ritual, something that is practiced.
As such after a while, our minds (and hearts) wander as we practice the ritual, and we lose our focus on the Lord.
And in this could be fulfilled the Scripture;
MATTHEW 15:7-8
7 Hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy about you, saying:
8 ‘These people draw near to Me with their mouth, and honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me.
If we want God to pay personal attention to us, we need to pay personal attention to Him!
Note also, Jesus said in Matthew 6:9 above, "After this manner therefore pray:"
In other words, He gave us an example of prayer! He never meant for this to be a perpetually repeated prayer, as that would again fall under the category of "vain repetition", thereby violating His own Word.
We are to model our prayers after His example, praying in similar fashion. Besides, He once told a lady who asked Him how to communicate with Him, saying, "Talk to Me! Too many people only pray to Me when they need something. Just talk to Me!"
In other words, talk to Him as you would a Father (not referring to priests who call themselves "Father"), or a friend. Tell Him what you are feeling, how your day went. Sing to Him, and praise Him from your heart. THAT is the kind of prayers He wants to hear, as well as those of need.
Finally, note that Jesus says in Matthew 6:14-15 above, that if we do not forgive those who have
sinned against us, neither will our Father forgive us of our sins! How can we ask Him to forgive
us, when we cannot forgive others?
There is no such thing as unanswered prayer!
There are several reasons why we don't seem to get answers to our prayers.
1. We ask for the wrong reasons.
We too many times ask for things we want, rather than things we need. And many times the things we want, we seek out of covetousness or envy. James says of this;
JAMES 4:1-3
1 Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members?
2 You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask.
3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures.
Parents know very well (at least most parents do) that sometimes what a child wants or asks for is not good for them. How many of us will give a child a cigarette lighter to play with? The child may want it, may even feel he needs it, but it is not wise to give it to him.
Even so with God. He knows what we need, and what is good for us. And many times we don't receive what we ask for as it is either not good for us, or God has something better prepared than that which we ask for.
BUT, if we continue to bug Him, sometimes He will give us what we ask for. And usually it will be to our detriment and will cause Him to be angry with us, as by this we are telling Him that we know what is good for us better than He does. He is perfect in wisdom and understanding, while we are not. And if harm comes to us because we received what we wanted from God rather than what He wanted for us, we have no one to blame but ourselves.
What we need to do, is to submit to His will in the matter. Jesus Himself gave us an example of
this when He was in the Garden of Gethsemane just prior to His arrest.
MATTHEW 26:36-39
36 Then Jesus came with them to a place called Gethsemane, and said to the disciples, “Sit here while I go and pray over there.”
37 And He took with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and He began to be sorrowful and deeply distressed.
38 Then He said to them, “My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death. Stay here and watch with Me.”
39 He went a little farther and fell on His face, and prayed, saying, “O My Father, if it is
possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will.”
Note that Jesus put His Father's will above His own, trusting that God knew what He was doing, and that He, Jesus had to go to the cross for mankind to be saved. He received the answer he sought from the Father when Judas brought the crowd of men who would arrest Him a few minutes later.
Jesus then in faith submitted Himself to His Father's will, and allowed the men to arrest Him, and send Him to the cross. God honored His Son's obedience to His will by raising Him from the dead and exalting Him to sit at His right hand in Heaven, and be King and Lord of all things for eternity.
By the same token, if we are obedient to our Master's will, He will also reward us for our faith.
2. We are in a state of disobedience when we ask for something.
1 JOHN 3:21-22
21 Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence toward God.
22 And whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do those things that are pleasing in His sight.
Did you catch that last part of verse 22? We need to be in a state of obedience when we ask for things from God.
Note: God will not refuse the prayer for help from a sinner when he calls on Him in desperation, seeking salvation. But He expects those of us who call Him Savior to be obedient to His commandments if we wish to receive what we ask for from Him!
3. We pray in unbelief
We must have faith that God can provide what we need. Jesus Himself reinforced this point in the following Scripture passage;
MATTHEW 21:18-22
18 Now in the morning, as He returned to the city, He was hungry.
19 And seeing a fig tree by the road, He came to it and found nothing on it but leaves, and said to it, “Let no fruit grow on you ever again.” Immediately the fig tree withered away.
20 And when the disciples saw it, they marveled, saying, “How did the fig tree wither away so soon?”
21 So Jesus answered and said to them, “Assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what was done to the fig tree, but also if you say to this mountain, ‘Be removed and be cast into the sea,’ it will be done.
22 And whatever things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive.”
Note carefully what Jesus says here. "If you have faith, and don't doubt...." That's the hardest part, keeping doubt away. But God has no limits on His power, and we need to understand and believe that. As He told the prophet Jeremiah;
JEREMIAH 32:26-27
26 Then the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, saying,
27 “Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh. Is there anything too hard for Me?
Jesus didn't mean that we should literally command that mountains be cast into the sea. He was referring to the fact that if an obstacle or problem seems as big as a mountain, it can be taken away in the same fashion if we have faith.
A good example of that would be when two blind men asked Jesus to heal them;
MATTHEW 9:27-31
27 When Jesus departed from there, two blind men followed Him, crying out and saying, “Son of David, have mercy on us!”
28 And when He had come into the house, the blind men came to Him. And Jesus said to them, “Do you believe that I am able to do this?” They said to Him, “Yes, Lord.”
29 Then He touched their eyes, saying, “According to your faith let it be to you.”
30 And their eyes were opened. And Jesus sternly warned them, saying, “See that no one knows it.”
31 But when they had departed, they spread the news about Him in all that country.
Note what Jesus said to them in verse 29. If they didn't have faith they would have remained blind. But He did this to show that we must have faith within ourselves that He can do what we ask of Him. And His response to our prayers may very well be, "According to your faith let be it be to you."
Concerning the issue of faith, God through the author of Hebrews says;
HEBREWS 10:38-39
38 Now the just shall live by faith; but if anyone draws back, My soul has no pleasure in him.”
39 But we are not of those who draw back to perdition, but of those who believe to the
saving of the soul.
HEBREWS 11:6
6 But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.
God also sometimes delays His response, to test our faith. We sometimes give up because we don't get an immediate answer, figuring that God has said "No.", when He may be waiting to see how we'll react if we don't get a response right away. Will we believe in faith that he has heard our prayer, and is answering it? Or will we give up?
On a side note, the withering of the fig tree could also refer to unfruitful Christians. If the Master comes to us, and we are unfruitful in His sight (meaning that we are unfaithful, unproductive, etc.) then we will wither spiritually just as the tree did.
James sums the issue the best I think, when he says concerning praying for wisdom;
JAMES 1:5-8
5 If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him.
6 But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind.
7 For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; 8 he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.
4. How badly do you want what you are praying for?
I used to pray for something once, believing that God had a good memory and would take care of it. Then one day I asked Him why I hadn't received an answer to my prayer, and He in turn asked, "How badly do you want it?" I was shocked to say the least!!!! He then reminded me of the following Scriptures;
LUKE 11:5-13
5 And He said to them, “Which of you shall have a friend, and go to him at midnight and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves;
6 for a friend of mine has come to me on his journey, and I have nothing to set before him’;
7 and he will answer from within and say, ‘Do not trouble me; the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot rise and give to you’?
8 I say to you, though he will not rise and give to him because he is his friend, yet because of his persistence he will rise and give him as many as he needs.
9 “So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.
10 For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.
11 If a son asks for bread from any father among you, will he give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent instead of a fish?
12 Or if he asks for an egg, will he offer him a scorpion?
13 If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!”
LUKE 18:1-7
1 Then He spoke a parable to them, that men always ought to pray and not lose heart,
2 saying: “There was in a certain city a judge who did not fear God nor regard man.
3 Now there was a widow in that city; and she came to him, saying, ‘Get justice for me from my adversary.’
4 And he would not for a while; but afterward he said within himself, ‘Though I do not fear God nor regard man,
5 yet because this widow troubles me I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me.’ ”
6 Then the Lord said, “Hear what the unjust judge said.
7 And shall God not avenge His own elect who cry out day and night to Him, though He bears long with them?
The message God wanted me to understand, was that we need to pray until we get an answer one way or the other! We need to persist in prayer, and wait for His response, and have faith that he has heard and will answer in His timing. And don't despair if you don't get an answer right away! If He delays, He has His reasons for it.
BUT, on the other hand, if He says "No." accept that as His answer, and leave it alone.
And when you pray for something, be specific! Tell God what you want, rather than
saying, "Well, God, you know what I want better than I do, so I'm leaving it in Your hands
to provide for me....." If you want something specific, ask for it specifically!
5. We pray with the wrong attitudes.
LUKE 18:9-14
9 Also He spoke this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others:
10 “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.
11 The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other men—extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector.
12 I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I possess.’
13 And the tax collector, standing afar off, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner!’
14 I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”
Note that in verse 11, the text states that the Pharisee prayed with himself. He wasn't praying to God, he was lifting himself up in pride, measuring his self-perceived righteousness by his perceptions of the publican (tax-collector) standing a distance away.
Jewish tax collectors were among the most hated people in Judea, for they collected taxes for the Roman conquerors whom the Jews hated bitterly. The tax collectors were allowed by Rome to collect whatever amount above the tax they wished for their own profit, and many of them had grown rich through this corrupt practice.
Yet Jesus called Matthew who was a tax-collector to be one of His apostles, and also was a guest at dinner in the house of Zacchaeus, a well-known tax collector.
Jesus was proving that God looks upon the intentions of the heart, not the physical appearance, social status, or job description. (Scripture records that Zacchaeus was a very short man, so short that he climbed a tree to be able to see Jesus when Jesus came to town because he was too short to see above the heads of the crowd.)
Luke, the author of the book that bears his name, records that one of the disciple named Simon (not Peter) was also a zealot. The zealots were feared and hated by the occupying Romans, for these were super-patriots who would slip behind a Roman soldier in a crowd and would stab him with a dagger that they had hidden in their clothes, and would disappear into the crowd before anyone knew what happened.
Why did Jesus choose these people to be His disciples and apostles? Because He didn't
believe that anyone was unworthy of salvation. It also showed the power He had to reach
men's hearts in that he called both a tax-collector and a possible assassin to be His
disciples, and they turned from their wicked ways to follow and serve Him.
Remember what the apostle Peter says concerning prayer;
1 PETER 3:12
12 For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and His ears are open to their prayers; but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.”
And James boldly proclaims;
JAMES 5:16-18
16 Confess your faults to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.
17 Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain; and it did not rain on the land for three years and six months.
18 And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the Earth produced its fruit.
Note that James says we are to confess our faults to one another, NOT our sins! We confess our sins to God alone as He alone has the authority to forgive us! And that authority was never passed onto men, including priests! I have also addressed the claim of priests being able to forgive sins in a separate study.
BOTTOM LINE
God is a personal God, one who loves to meet and talk with His children through prayer. As His children, we have the right to come before His Throne and ask for things we consider important to us.
But we must come before Him in belief that He hears us and that He can, and will answer our prayers. Remember, there is no such thing as unanswered prayer! Keep praying for what you want until you get an answer one way or the other!
We must be specific in what we request, and we must have faith that He can provide what we ask for. And we should not hesitate to call upon Him when we need help, as He Himself says;
PSALMS 50:15
15 Call upon Me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify Me.
We must pray with the right attitudes, pray for what we need more than for what we want, and not be in a state of disobedience when we pray for something.
Be sure to make your prayers personal, not using repetitive or ritualized prayers. God will not answer such prayers as this puts you in a state of disobedience because He has specifically commanded us not to pray in this fashion.
And above all, talk to God as you would talk to a father, or a friend. Keep your attitude one of respect, but don't be afraid to ask Him for what you need.
And just talk to Him! You don't need to talk to Him only when you need or want something! Would you like it if the only time someone talked to you is when they needed or wanted something? Of course not!
God is the same way! He loves having personal conversations with us, as this creates fellowship between us, and increases the deep bond we have with Him. He is our God, our Savior, our Defender, and our trusted Friend. And as long as we maintain this in mind when we pray, our prayers will be acceptable to Him, and He will delight in answering us.
And may the God the Father through Jesus Christ His Son, grant us a deeper understanding of these things that our prayers may be acceptable to Him, and that He may be glorified when he answers us.
Questions? Comments? E-mail: watchmen_777@yahoo.com