Why pray?

Response

For Christians, prayer should be as natural as breathing, easier to do than to avoid. We pray for various reasons. Firstly, prayer is a way of serving God (Luke 2:36-38) and following His commands. We pray because God instructs us to pray (Philippians 4:6-7). The practice of prayer is shown to us by Jesus and the early church (Mark 1:35;Acts 1:14;Acts 2:42;Acts 3:1;4:23-31;6:4;13:1-3). If Jesus valued prayer, so should we.

Another reason to pray is that God intends prayer to be the way to receive His guidance in various circumstances. We pray before making important decisions (Luke 6:12-13); to overcome spiritual obstacles (Matthew 17:14-21); to call for more workers for the spiritual mission “He told them, ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.'” , (Luke 10:2); to find strength to resist temptation “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” , (Matthew 26:41); and to receive the resources to meet our needs.Strengthening others spiritually (Ephesians 6:18-19).

We approach God with our specific requests, and we have God’s assurance that our prayers are not in vain, even if we do not receive exactly what we asked for (Matthew 6:6; Romans 8:26-27). He has pledged that when we ask for things that align with His will, He will grant us our requests (1 John 5:14-15). At times, He delays His responses according to His wisdom and for our benefit. In such instances, we are to be diligent and unwavering in prayer (Matthew 7:7; Luke 18:1-8). Prayer should not be viewed as a way to manipulate God into fulfilling our desires on earth, but rather as a means to accomplish God’s will on earth. God’s wisdom surpasses our own.

In situations where we are unsure of God’s specific will, prayer serves as a way to discern His intentions (see James 1:5). Prayer played a crucial role in the Spirit’s commissioning of Paul and Barnabas for their first missionary journey (Acts 13:1-3). Solomon requested “wisdom and knowledge,” and God granted him that and much more (2 Chronicles 1:10-12).

Prayers unspoken will remain unanswered. If the Syrophoenician woman with the demon-possessed daughter had not entreated Christ, her daughter would not have been healed (Mark 7:26-30). If the blind man outside Jericho had not called out to Christ, he would have stayed blind (Luke 18:35-43). God has revealed that we often receive what we ask for when we pray with faith and in accordance with His will.Hout because we do not ask «Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not. », (James 4:2). In one sense, prayer is like sharing the gospel with people. We do not know who will respond to the message of the gospel until we share it. Similarly, we will never see the outcomes of answered prayer unless we pray.

A lack of prayer indicates a lack of faith and trust in God’s Word. We pray to showcase our faith in God, believing that He will fulfill His promises as stated in His Word and shower blessings upon us beyond what we could ask or imagine «Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, », (Ephesians 3:20). Prayer is our primary way of witnessing God’s work in others’ lives. By connecting to God’s power through prayer, we can defeat Satan and his forces, which we are incapable of overcoming alone. Therefore, may God often find us before His throne, for we have a high priest in heaven who can empathize with all our experiences (Hebrews 4:15-16). We have His assurance that the earnest prayer of a righteous individual is powerful and effective (James 5:16-18). May God bring glory to His name in our lives as we trust in Him enough to approach Him frequently in prayer.