Pray Unselfishly

[Christsfreeservant]

What is prayer? As a child I learned prayer as ACTS = adoration, confession, thanksgiving, and supplication. So it should not all be just asking God for something. And it is not a one-way conversation with God to where we do all the talking, and he does all the listening, and to where it is all about what we want, but not about what he wants. Prayer should not be self-centered, but it should be God-centered. For this is a two-way relationship, and it should be a two-way conversation where we listen to what God says, too.

Prayer should not be about just getting what we want, but it should be about seeking the will and the purpose of God in what we are praying for. And, to the best of our understanding, we should be praying according to the will of God. But if we don’t know what the will of God is in any given situation, we can express our requests, but they should not contradict God’s divine will and purpose expressed to us in the Scriptures. But then I would add, nevertheless, not my will but Thine be done. We should want God’s will.

Now, when we pray, we will receive from God anything we ask, because we keep his commands and do what pleases him (1 John 3:22), and because we ask according to his will (1 John 5:14), and we do not ask with the wrong motives (James 4:2-3), and because we remain in him and his words remain in us (John 15:7), and because we believe and we don’t doubt (James 1:5-8). And that is just a few Scriptures describing for us what our prayers should look like and what God requires of us for him to answer our prayers.

But what about when you pray for something that you believe is within the will of God, biblically speaking, and it doesn’t turn out the way that you had hoped and believed that it would? Take this situation for example:

“Because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, for this reason, to keep me from exalting myself, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me—to keep me from exalting myself! Concerning this I implored the Lord three times that it might leave me. And He has said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.’ Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.” (2 Corinthians 12:7-10 NASB1995)​

Now, there are many different opinions floating around as to what Paul’s “thorn in the flesh” actually entailed, but none of us knows for certain. What we do know, based upon Paul’s own personal testimony, and according to all that he taught about what it means to be a Christian and a follower of Christ, is that it was not a sinful addiction. God would never and will never refuse to deliver us from a sinful addiction, for Jesus died to free us from our slavery to sin so that we will now serve the Lord in obedience to his ways.

And it could have been a physical ailment of some kind, but whatever it was, it was torment, and the torment came from the enemy, and the purpose of the enemy was to get Paul to reject Christ, because of this ailment, and to stop preaching the truth of the gospel of our salvation, and to give up, and to deny Christ. The enemy’s purpose was to destroy Paul and his testimony for Christ so that God could no longer use him to take the gospel to many people who would, by faith in Jesus Christ, then die to sin and obey God.

But God had a different purpose in it. God’s purpose was to keep Paul from exalting himself and from becoming conceited. So it was God who gave Paul that thorn in the flesh, much like it was God who permitted Satan to do all the evil that he did to the Lord’s servant Job. God allowed Satan to inflict Job and to inflict Paul, or Satan could not have done what he did. And in both cases it was to humble or to keep humble the Lord’s servants. Suffering was to teach Paul to rely fully on God and not on himself (2 Corinthians 1:8-9).

So, the point here is that God is not always going to answer our prayers in the way that we had hoped that he would, which we believed to be according to his will. For he heals in many different ways, and he allows suffering in our lives to work his good in our lives. And sometimes suffering is healing for us because it keeps us humble, and it keeps us seeking after God, and it makes us ever aware of our need of God in all things, in all ways. And God can use our suffering in ways which will reach other people with the gospel.

[Matt 5:10-12; Matt 10:16-39; Matt 24:9-14; Luke 6:22-23; Luke 12:49-53; Luke 21:12-19; John 15:1-21; John 16:33; John 17:14; Acts 14:22; Rom 5:3-5; Eph 6:10-20; Phil 3:7-11; 1 Pet 1:6-7; 1 Pet 4:12-17; 2 Tim 3:12; 1 Thess 3:1-5; Jas 1:2-4; 2 Co 1:3-11; Heb 12:3-12; 1 Jn 3:13; Rev 6:9-11; Rev 7:9-17; Rev 11:1-3; Rev 12:17; Rev 13:1-18; Rev 14:1-13]

Pray, Pray, Pray

Based off Various Scriptures
An Original Work / September 6, 2012
Christ’s Free Servant, Sue J Love

Pray that eyes may enlightened be,
So they may know Christ.
Pray that they may Him better know,
Strengthened by His pow’r.
Pray that they may grasp
How wide and long
And high and deep
Is Christ’s love.
Pray that they may be filled
To the fullness of God’s love.
Pray with thanksgiving.

Pray for an open door for me,
So I may share Christ.
Pray when the gospel is proclaimed –
Shared with clarity.
Pray words are given me so
I declare the gospel fearlessly.
I pray for you to be active
Sharing your faith, too.
Pray continually.

We oft not know for what to pray,
So we ask for help.
The Spirit intercedes for us –
Words cannot express.
Just keep on praying for the saints
With all kinds of requests to God.
Pray they may have faith to
Please their God in ev’ry way.
Pray with joyfulness.

Pray Unselfishly
An Original Work / June 26, 2025
Christ’s Free Servant, Sue J Love