The Purpose of Prayer
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A Prayer Warrior’s Guide to Spiritual Battle: The Front Line Chapter 3: Enlisting: Understanding Prayer (John Bornschein)
To understand prayer is to conceptualize something that is far greater than human comprehension. Think for a moment about the universe, which contains more than one hundred billion galaxies, with more than one hundred billion stars per galaxy.1 How can one explain that the God who created and holds in His hands such a vast universe (Job 37–39) can pause from all the demands for His attention to listen to, contemplate, and even act upon the petitions of human beings? Actually, it is not a matter of asking how God can pause to hear us pray, but why? Why would such a powerful and limitless entity, a force far greater than human words could ever describe, give ear to the thoughts and utterings of finite creatures—specks in such a grand and complex system?
To know how to pray we must understand what it means to pray. What is the definition of prayer? What is the act of prayer?
We know from scriptures that prayer can happen both internally 1 Samuel 1:12,13 and externally.
We know that prayer was first mentioned in Genesis 4 and is mentioned in the last chapter of the bIble.
Yet the question still remains. What does it mean to pray.
Genesis 4 tells us that it is calling upon the Lord. How we accomplish this task and our intended purposes is what I will attempt to answer today.
I. Renewed Fellowship.
I. Renewed Fellowship.
We find that it was in the days of Enosh that men began to call on the name of the Lord (Adoni). According to Gen. 5 Adam would have been 235 yrs old when Enosh. For all of the time after Adam had been removed from the garden men had forsaken YHWH.
The sin of Adam had many consequences but the greatest was the loss of fellowship with God.
From scripture we see no evidence that Adam ever returned to fellowship with God.
The greatest hinderance to our prayers and our relationship with God is sin.
There is no reason that Adam was not capable of calling upon the name of YHWH, yet sin, or the guilt of sin, kept him from returning to God.
Prayer was the method by which the fellowship that was lost in the garden would be restored.
Interestingly, the favorite place of prayer for Jesus was also a garden.
Maybe this was just coincidental due to the solitude or perhaps there was a symbolic meaning.
If the Word of God is the instruction manual by which we gain knowledge of God’s plan then prayer is the door by which we access an intimate relationship with Him.
II. Wisdom Gained
II. Wisdom Gained
James said that if we lack wisdom that we should ask God for it and that God will give liberally to us.
The sin that caused the fall of mankind was commited out of a desire for wisdom. The very thing that Adam and Eve sought was already being freely given by God. The wisdom that Adam and Eve gained was also their downfall.
Wisdom is the ability to judge right from wrong along with the capacity and will to make the right choice.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom: A good understanding have all they that do his commandments: His praise endureth for ever.
The beginning of wisdom is grounded on fear of the Lord.
The word used for fear is YIRAH, it can literally be translated as either worship or reverence.
This is also imitated in the Lord’s prayer. “Our Father who art in heaven, hollowed be thy name”
When Jesus was teaching the disciples to pray he began with the fear (or reverence) of God.
When we worship God we gain wisdom from Him.
You may ask how this can be? I submit that by worshiping Him we will begin to understand who He is and thus gain insight into how we should believe and behave.
Furthermore, by observing His loving kindness we will gain wisdom on how we are to love our selves the lost, and those in our lives.
III. Ask Petitions.
III. Ask Petitions.
Prayer allows us the opportunity to request divine intervention.
“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.
Divine intervention because it is the divine petition that brings glory to God. The request that are asked that remain within the hands of man though they be dependent upon God they fall within the duties that have already been assigned to us by God.
For the glory of God let us reach beyond the limitations of mortal man and flirt with the impossibilities only obtainable by God.
As Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the fiery furnace, Peter upon the sea, and water from a desert rock, we will enter into the kingdom of endless opportunity when we move beyond the boundaries of our own imaginations.
What have you asked of God lately that only He can answer?
What has fear kept you from asking?
Has sins of the past kept you from seeking Him?
Have you been going through your Christian life with your head hung low, ashamed to approach God due to your past?
I encourage you to repent of your sins, both past and present. Bask in the splendor of His forgiveness. Reward His goodness by attempting great things for God.