Prayer? What is the outcome?

Rescued One

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“The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.”
James 5:16

"Delight thyself also in the LORD; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart."
Psalm 37:4

"What the wicked dreads will overtake him, but the desire of the righteous will be granted."
Proverbs 10:24

"Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honour unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life; that your prayers be not hindered."
1 Peter 3:7

Whose will is answered according to the desire of a righteous person?

Suppose your spouse is a non-believer and you pray for his or her salvation? Does God try to save your spouse against your spouse's will? Being omiscient, God already knows the outcome. Does He answer the righteous person's prayer or does He allow the sinner to have free will?

C. H. Spurgeon-calvinism-arminianism.png

???
Those are serious questions.
 
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joshua 1 9

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Suppose your spouse is a non-believer and you pray for his or her salvation? Does God try to save your spouse against your spouse's will?
No, He does not take away their free will no matter how much we pray about it. We have many choices to make in life and God will not choose for us. We have to choose for ourselves and He will hold us accountable for the choices that we make. The angels keep record of all of this and the day will come when the books will be opened.

Rev 20:11,12 "Then I saw a great white throne and the One seated on it. Earth and heaven fled from His presence, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne. And there were open books, and one of them was the book of life. And the dead were judged according to their deeds, as recorded in the books. The sea gave up its dead, and Death and Hades gave up their dead, and each one was judged according to his deeds".
 
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Peter J Barban

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When a righteous person conforms their will to agree with God's will and then asks God to act on that agreed will - only then does God answer in agreement with that person's will.

So if God wills a loved one to be saved and you righteously ask God to carry out his will toward the salvation of your loved one, then God will save that person.
 
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Prayer may bring grace to the one praying (which is the power of God working in and through a person), so that Christ Lives and works in the person of prayer to bring about the repentance and salvation of others, including those being prayed for, but not against their free will.
 
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When a righteous person conforms their will to agree with God's will and then asks God to act on that agreed will - only then does God answer in agreement with that person's will.

So if God wills a loved one to be saved and you righteously ask God to carry out his will toward the salvation of your loved one, then God will save that person.

:scratch: Do we have to be perfect to have God save our loved ones? Why do those who believe in man's free will pray for a loved one's salvation? Why did God let His people
cross the Red Sea? Why am I a Christian and other relatives were/are not?

Does God try to save people and not accomplish that? :scratch:

What about Jonah? Did God change Jonah's mind?
 
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Rescued One

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:scratch: Do we have to be perfect to have God save our loved ones? Why do those who believe in man's free will pray for a loved one's salvation? Why did God let His people
cross the Red Sea? Why am I a Christian and other relatives were/are not?

Does God try to save people and not accomplish that? :scratch:

What about Jonah? Did God change Jonah's mind?

I'll eventually see if someone wants to explain this. I came here seeking answers instead of a debate.
 
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Why can't we believe James 5:6, Psalm 37:4, Proverbs 10:24, and 1 Peter 3:7? Why are those verses in my Bible?
How it usually works, is that the righteous have a will that aligns with the will of God, so that those things prayed for are precisely those things willed by God. "Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done".
 
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Rescued One

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How it usually works, is that the righteous have a will that aligns with the will of God, so that those things prayed for are precisely those things willed by God. "Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done".

I agree. But people pray for their loved ones to come to Christ. Is that contrary to God's will? "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done" is one of my favorite phrases.

Thank you for your input!
 
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I agree. But people pray for their loved ones to come to Christ. Is that contrary to God's will? "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done" is one of my favorite phrases.

Thank you for your input!
I wouldn't know if it's contrary to God's will, but I do think that such prayers could be motivated by self-love and other passions born of that. I once knew a woman who would pray for her husband to come to Christ, yet she herself, in many ways, was a slave of sin and dead in her own trespasses, so her desire for her husband to follow Christ wasn't coming from the Love of God, but from something else.

I think that things like this are why some spiritual people recommend that one emphasize praying for mercy (help) for oneself, because often prayers can be said for others for evil, hidden reasons. I offer the following example from my own spiritual life:

Not long ago, I had a tumultuous disagreement with the rector under whom I was assigned at the parish where I serve, over a sensitive financial matter that I had uncovered and confronted him about. I had tried everything possible to have the issue resolved once and for all, but neither he, nor anyone else with the authority to do so was willing to do what was necessary to correct the problem. At this I became deeply injured by what I was experiencing as betrayal by all those who, if anyone, should be in support of obeying the teachings of the Gospel that we preach or otherwise claim to be believers in. So what did I do? I prayed for mercy and forgiveness for those by whom I was being betrayed, and with whom I was so angry.

Much later I came across the teaching of the holy Elder Porphyrios, when I read his book entitled "Wounded by Love". He basically led me to understand that because I had given myself over to the sinful passion of anger (as opposed to abiding in the Holy Spirit and the peace which is His gift), that my prayers were corrupt by my anger and therefor not really prayer at all, but judgments ("judge not, lest ye be judged"). Thus, in this case it would have been appropriate to pray for mercy and forgiveness for myself, because of the sinful anger which I had allowed myself to be afflicted with.

On the other hand, I was once very angry with a woman who had falsely accused the Orthodox of being idol worshipers, because we venerate icons, and because I had happened to be wearing a Russian Orthodox Cross necklace which she spotted. For a while I was so offended by what she had said that I eventually got really angry and basically began to curse her in my heart and mind. Then I remembered the Lord's command to pray for our enemies, and so I began to force myself (in resistance to my hateful judgments upon her) to pray for mercy and forgiveness for her, followed immediately with a prayer for myself, wherein I acknowledged my own self as being the worst of sinners. This prayer brought me peace, finally, after considerable effort, as the prayer itself became a sort of channel for God's saving power (grace).
 
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