Tuesday, August 20, 2013

Purpose in Prayer


 
Communicating with God is called prayer. It is one of the most misunderstood disciplines of the faith. Most people use prayer to request, command, dictate, and order God to do their bidding according to their human will. Then they wonder why their prayers never get answered! Some use it as a last resort, or as a lifeline during a time of emergency. Conversely, a few realize that pray is the expression of our love and devotion to our Heavenly Father.

Prayer is actually God’s love language. He delights in communing with His Saints (Psalm 37:4). Prayer is our continual connection to receive wisdom, direction and encouragement from the throne of God. Once we realize that all things are possible in our relationship with God (Matthew 1:26), our faith and trust in Him grows. Our continual communication with God throughout the day blesses Him and connects us to His Spirit (1 Thessalonians 5:17). We pray in humility, wanting His will in all things (Matthew 6:10).

Surrendering our will, goals and ambitions to His will for our life comes easily after a while. We stop requesting carnal blessings and we spend more time praising Him in prayer than we do in making requests for our own needs and desires. We love Him with all of our mind, heart, soul and strength (Mark 12:30), and He meets all of our needs according to His glorious riches (Philippians 4:19).

Jesus taught His disciples the key elements of prayer through what we title, “The Lord’s Prayer”:

1. We acknowledge our relationship:
“Our Father, who are in Heaven…”

2. We glorify His name:
“Hallowed be Thy name…”

3. We affirm His Kingdom and we pray for His will:
“Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven…”

4. We request His provision for our day:
“Give us this day our daily bread…”

5. We confess our sins, as we daily forgive the slights of others against us:
“Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who trespass against us…”

6. We applause His attributes, and we recognize His Kingdom and His amazing power and majesty:
“For Thine is the Kingdom, the power and the glory forever and ever. Amen.”

God looks forward to opportunities to bless those who seek Him (2 Chronicles 16:9, Psalm 34:15, Proverbs 15:3; Amos 9:8; 1 Peter 3:12; Ephesians 3:20).