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Why does God need me to pray, for what, who, and how?
God wants me to let Him awaken and open the ears of my heart so that I can hear God’s Spirit speak to me through His word.
Isa 50:4 The Lord GOD…awakens my ear to hear as the learned (His disciple).
Rev 2:7 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says…
Have you chased down a truth in the Bible recently, with your heart? Let’s do that today, let’s chase down the truth of why God needs prayer, and then what He tells us about the way we must pray so that we overcome the certain opposition to Him bringing the answer.
Prov 25:2 It is the glory of God to conceal a matter (from our natural intelligence, so as not to favor the smartest) But the glory of kings (all Christians are spiritual kings in Christ - Rev.1:6) is to search out a matter (with our hearts).
Matt 11:25 (Jesus) Father, You have hidden these things from the (humanly) wise NASU and intelligent and have revealed them to (the hearts of spiritual) infants.
Why pray at all, won’t God’s will be done anyway?
No it won’t. God says that Satan rules this world and that He (God) doesn’t:
1 John 5:19 …The whole world lies under the sway (the influence) of the wicked one.
Matt 4:8-9 The devil...showed Jesus all the kingdoms of the world...“All this I will give NIV you" he said "if you will bow down and worship me" (Jesus didn’t disagree).
Now Jesus Christ defeated Satan at Calvary and tells us His people, the Church, “I have given into your hand the spiritual land currently occupied by Satan. But the Church, while abiding in Me, is going to have to take that land back and bring it into God’s Kingdom”. Does this command by God sound familiar? It is the identical command that God made previously to His people Israel, under the first Covenant, but this time it is a spiritual land.
Num 13:2 (God)...The land of Canaan, which I am giving to the children of Israel...
Matt 28:18-19 (Jesus to us) "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations...”
Satan acquired his dominion over the world legitimately when Adam and Eve bowed their knee to him and surrendered the dominion God had given them, to him. Therefore our righteous God and Father is constrained now to work through the only legitimate agents He has who have authority on earth in Satan’s kingdom, that is us His true Church.
Eph 3:10 To the intent that now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places,
This is why bible teacher and author, Andrew Murray said “God has made the extension of His Kingdom (on earth) dependent on the faithfulness of His people in prayer”. In the Lord’s prayer Jesus lists the essential things we need to pray for each day: For the bread of His word to feed our spirits; For the leading of His Spirit; For deliverance from Satan; For God to forgive our sins as we forgive others; and for God’s kingdom to expand and His will to be done on earth as it is Heaven. By telling us to pray these things, Jesus makes clear that if we don’t pray, these things won’t be done. For God needs our prayers!
Matt 6:10 Pray...Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
The parable of the “persistent friend”, the key to Christ’s teaching on how we must pray:
Immediately after telling us what we must pray for in the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus recites the parable of the “persistent friend” in which He teaches us the way He wants us to pray. The parable ends with God exhorting us to seek and ask Him in prayer on everything, but only the way this parable teaches; And specifically to ask Him for the Holy Spirit this same way:
Luke 11:5-6 And He (Jesus) said to them, which of you (Christians, who love Me and always only do what I say - 1 Jo 2:5) shall have a friend, and go to him at midnight (having first prayed and knowing this to be My will – Eph 5:17) and say to him, 'Friend, lend me three loaves; for a friend of mine has come to me on his journey, and I have nothing to set before him'; (Notice this is not for himself but he seeks bread for another, so it’s intercession. It inconveniences him, its midnight, but he does it anyway).
7 And he will answer from within and say, 'Do not trouble me; the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot rise and give to you' (But the persistent friend, having prayed God’s will, sticks with it and won’t give up on his intercession).
8-10 I say to you, though he will not rise and give to him because he is his friend, yet because of his boldfaced insistence (his importunity, his refusal to be denied)he will rise and give him as many as he needs. So I say to you, ask (in this same way), and it will be given to you; seek (and don’t give up), and you will find; knock(refusing to be denied), and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks (this way) receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.
11-13 If a son asks for bread from any father among you, will he give him a stone? or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent instead of a fish? Or if he asks for an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? …How much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those (of His children) who ask Him (in this same way).
Let’s not confuse God with the friend who first wouldn't meet the need but afterward did:
God is nothing like the reluctant friend. God is simply using this parable to make the crucial point that prayer is likely to encounter some obstacles, of the kind that we will see in a minute, before the answer God has given actually shows up. Of course there will be obstacles, because the prayer is being made while we are still in Satan’s territory and he’s going to try and get the person praying to give up on the prayer. The question is, faced with obstacles, will the person praying persist in believing or not?
Mark 11:24 (Jesus) ...Whatever things you ask when you pray believe that you receive them (right now, and don’t give up believing), and you will have them.
Some of the possible obstacles a person praying may run into, that can result in doubt:
A delay between the prayer and the manifestation of God’s answer. It often takes time for the key people and the circumstances to be brought to a place where the manifestation occurs. Or someone close and influential opposes the prayer or states it is unachievable.
Dan 10:12,13 Angel speaking to Daniel, Since the first day you began to pray for understanding and to humble yourself before your God, your request has been heard in heaven. I have come in answer to your prayer. NLT …the spirit prince of the kingdom of Persia (the Devil) blocked my way.
While waiting in faith for the manifestation, with circumstances visible to my natural eye not yet in accord with the prayer, dark thought clouds may arise to challenge the prayer. These will be strong thoughts that invade my thought life such as: You are not worthy enough to expect God to answer, this is not the will of God, this prayer is not working, others are not praying this way, you don’t have the faith; all seeking to get me to give up.
When obstacles do confront me, at the first sign of a doubt thought I must go to God, who lives in my heart, to re-confirm His will and to strengthen my faith with more of His words.
Matt 21:22 All things, whatever you shall ask in prayer, believing, you shall receive.
Some key things this parable teaches that are not a valid basis for prayer being answered,
The request of the friend in need initially met with failure. From this we can conclude that the following things while necessary, when obstacles are encountered, are in and of themselves not a valid basis to expect the manifestation of the answer to our prayer:
Relationship - In the parable it is friendship, in Christianity it is sonship. A right relationship with God will not of itself enable me to overcome prayer’s guaranteed obstacles.
Need - having a legitimate need doesn’t automatically defeat opposition to prayer.
Simply asking or praying - A tentative asking in prayer, meaning it is unsure, a wishing and not believing prayer, will be easily overthrown by Satan.
Jesus wants me to know by this parable that if I base my expectation of an answer to prayer on the wrong premise, when the first road block appears, and it will, I will abandon my prayer and give up quite possibly falsely assuming it wasn’t God’s will. And what God wanted me to have or wanted to bring to someone else, through me, now can’t happen.
Rm 8:26,27 …the (Holy) Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us (and in us)… ESV …the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.
1 Jo 5:14-15 Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him.
What does Jesus say is the only basis on which to expect an answer to prayer in His will?
Importunity, meaning a confident, brazen, shameless insistence that the will of God must be done. A person praying this way clearly will have diligently sought, by God’s word and through God’s Spirit, the knowledge of God’s will on the matter, before praying. But once the heart of that person is locked on the knowledge of God’s will and prays accordingly, they then must absolutely refuse to be denied.
Luke 18:1 (Jesus) …Men always ought to pray and not faint, lose heart or give up.
Consider the key elements that result in successful prayer:
A person made righteous by Christ whose prayer can be heard, the revealed knowledge of God’s will with respect to a specific need, the heart desire to pray and the inspiration for the right prayer, the unwavering faith to believe God for the answer and the answer itself, all come directly from God. This therefore is not me strong arming God to achieve my objectives but it is God using me to achieve His objectives and at the same time deny Satan’s objectives.
Jam 5:16 … The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous person avails much - has great power and wonderful results (Living Bible).
After telling us here all that prayer can do, and why it’s necessary, God gives an example:
Jam 5:17-18 Elijah was a man with a (human) nature like ours and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain; and it did not rain on the land for three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain...
Elijah prayed that it wouldn’t rain. Then he prayed that it would rain. If we look at his second prayer we find that before he prayed God told him that He was going to send rain:
I Kings 18:1 ...The word of the LORD came to Elijah...saying, Go, show yourself to Ahab; and I will send rain on the earth (couldn’t happen until Elijah prayed)
So, Elijah prayed for something God had already told Him He was going to do; Then God uses this prayer as a blueprint for all prayer. God reveals His will but needs us to pray it into existence.
Rm 4:16,17 So the promise (God’s will on a matter received in prayer) is received by faith… (and faith is certain that what God promised, will come to pass and,) calls into existence the things that do not exist.
Should a persistent, believing prayer be repeated? No, not if it is in faith, just re-affirmed:
When God tells me to ask and keep on asking Him for things, so that His will can be done He means that I should pray with importunity over one need. But before the manifestation of the answer comes, I must also pray with the same importunity over other needs too.
Matt 6:7 And when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do…
The seeming exception to this are prayers prayed with respect to each individual day, such as the Lord’s Prayer. In this we repeatedly ask for the same things, His word, His Spirit, His deliverance, His forgiveness, His will and the expansion of His Kingdom, but they apply to that particular day. Each time it’s with importunity, so this is not repetitious.
Jesus says prayers prayed with importunity will always succeed. Because these prayers lock onto God’s will and won’t let go. They overcome every obstacle and hindrance from Satan, for they are prayed in faith, overcoming faith, the faith of Jesus Christ active in the heart of us Christians. How do we get it? By hearing His words and yielding to His spirit:
Ro 10:17 Faith comes by hearing...the word of God (we know and believe God’s will)
2 Co 4:13 We have the same Spirit of faith...we believe (what we are led to pray for).
“Our praying, however, needs to be pressed and pursued with an energy that never tires, a persistency which will not be denied, and a courage which never fails.” — E. M. Bounds
“Beware in your prayers, above everything else, of limiting God, not only by unbelief, but by fancying that you know what He can do. Expect unexpected things ‘above all that we ask or think.’” — Andrew Murray
“God does nothing but by prayer, and everything with it.” — John Wesley
“All prayer is to God, for men, and against Satan.” — Watchmen Nee
God wants me to let Him awaken and open the ears of my heart so that I can hear God’s Spirit speak to me through His word.
Isa 50:4 The Lord GOD…awakens my ear to hear as the learned (His disciple).
Rev 2:7 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says…
Have you chased down a truth in the Bible recently, with your heart? Let’s do that today, let’s chase down the truth of why God needs prayer, and then what He tells us about the way we must pray so that we overcome the certain opposition to Him bringing the answer.
Prov 25:2 It is the glory of God to conceal a matter (from our natural intelligence, so as not to favor the smartest) But the glory of kings (all Christians are spiritual kings in Christ - Rev.1:6) is to search out a matter (with our hearts).
Matt 11:25 (Jesus) Father, You have hidden these things from the (humanly) wise NASU and intelligent and have revealed them to (the hearts of spiritual) infants.
Why pray at all, won’t God’s will be done anyway?
No it won’t. God says that Satan rules this world and that He (God) doesn’t:
1 John 5:19 …The whole world lies under the sway (the influence) of the wicked one.
Matt 4:8-9 The devil...showed Jesus all the kingdoms of the world...“All this I will give NIV you" he said "if you will bow down and worship me" (Jesus didn’t disagree).
Now Jesus Christ defeated Satan at Calvary and tells us His people, the Church, “I have given into your hand the spiritual land currently occupied by Satan. But the Church, while abiding in Me, is going to have to take that land back and bring it into God’s Kingdom”. Does this command by God sound familiar? It is the identical command that God made previously to His people Israel, under the first Covenant, but this time it is a spiritual land.
Num 13:2 (God)...The land of Canaan, which I am giving to the children of Israel...
Matt 28:18-19 (Jesus to us) "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations...”
Satan acquired his dominion over the world legitimately when Adam and Eve bowed their knee to him and surrendered the dominion God had given them, to him. Therefore our righteous God and Father is constrained now to work through the only legitimate agents He has who have authority on earth in Satan’s kingdom, that is us His true Church.
Eph 3:10 To the intent that now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places,
This is why bible teacher and author, Andrew Murray said “God has made the extension of His Kingdom (on earth) dependent on the faithfulness of His people in prayer”. In the Lord’s prayer Jesus lists the essential things we need to pray for each day: For the bread of His word to feed our spirits; For the leading of His Spirit; For deliverance from Satan; For God to forgive our sins as we forgive others; and for God’s kingdom to expand and His will to be done on earth as it is Heaven. By telling us to pray these things, Jesus makes clear that if we don’t pray, these things won’t be done. For God needs our prayers!
Matt 6:10 Pray...Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
The parable of the “persistent friend”, the key to Christ’s teaching on how we must pray:
Immediately after telling us what we must pray for in the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus recites the parable of the “persistent friend” in which He teaches us the way He wants us to pray. The parable ends with God exhorting us to seek and ask Him in prayer on everything, but only the way this parable teaches; And specifically to ask Him for the Holy Spirit this same way:
Luke 11:5-6 And He (Jesus) said to them, which of you (Christians, who love Me and always only do what I say - 1 Jo 2:5) shall have a friend, and go to him at midnight (having first prayed and knowing this to be My will – Eph 5:17) and say to him, 'Friend, lend me three loaves; for a friend of mine has come to me on his journey, and I have nothing to set before him'; (Notice this is not for himself but he seeks bread for another, so it’s intercession. It inconveniences him, its midnight, but he does it anyway).
7 And he will answer from within and say, 'Do not trouble me; the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot rise and give to you' (But the persistent friend, having prayed God’s will, sticks with it and won’t give up on his intercession).
8-10 I say to you, though he will not rise and give to him because he is his friend, yet because of his boldfaced insistence (his importunity, his refusal to be denied)he will rise and give him as many as he needs. So I say to you, ask (in this same way), and it will be given to you; seek (and don’t give up), and you will find; knock(refusing to be denied), and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks (this way) receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.
11-13 If a son asks for bread from any father among you, will he give him a stone? or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent instead of a fish? Or if he asks for an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? …How much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those (of His children) who ask Him (in this same way).
Let’s not confuse God with the friend who first wouldn't meet the need but afterward did:
God is nothing like the reluctant friend. God is simply using this parable to make the crucial point that prayer is likely to encounter some obstacles, of the kind that we will see in a minute, before the answer God has given actually shows up. Of course there will be obstacles, because the prayer is being made while we are still in Satan’s territory and he’s going to try and get the person praying to give up on the prayer. The question is, faced with obstacles, will the person praying persist in believing or not?
Mark 11:24 (Jesus) ...Whatever things you ask when you pray believe that you receive them (right now, and don’t give up believing), and you will have them.
Some of the possible obstacles a person praying may run into, that can result in doubt:
A delay between the prayer and the manifestation of God’s answer. It often takes time for the key people and the circumstances to be brought to a place where the manifestation occurs. Or someone close and influential opposes the prayer or states it is unachievable.
Dan 10:12,13 Angel speaking to Daniel, Since the first day you began to pray for understanding and to humble yourself before your God, your request has been heard in heaven. I have come in answer to your prayer. NLT …the spirit prince of the kingdom of Persia (the Devil) blocked my way.
While waiting in faith for the manifestation, with circumstances visible to my natural eye not yet in accord with the prayer, dark thought clouds may arise to challenge the prayer. These will be strong thoughts that invade my thought life such as: You are not worthy enough to expect God to answer, this is not the will of God, this prayer is not working, others are not praying this way, you don’t have the faith; all seeking to get me to give up.
When obstacles do confront me, at the first sign of a doubt thought I must go to God, who lives in my heart, to re-confirm His will and to strengthen my faith with more of His words.
Matt 21:22 All things, whatever you shall ask in prayer, believing, you shall receive.
Some key things this parable teaches that are not a valid basis for prayer being answered,
The request of the friend in need initially met with failure. From this we can conclude that the following things while necessary, when obstacles are encountered, are in and of themselves not a valid basis to expect the manifestation of the answer to our prayer:
Relationship - In the parable it is friendship, in Christianity it is sonship. A right relationship with God will not of itself enable me to overcome prayer’s guaranteed obstacles.
Need - having a legitimate need doesn’t automatically defeat opposition to prayer.
Simply asking or praying - A tentative asking in prayer, meaning it is unsure, a wishing and not believing prayer, will be easily overthrown by Satan.
Jesus wants me to know by this parable that if I base my expectation of an answer to prayer on the wrong premise, when the first road block appears, and it will, I will abandon my prayer and give up quite possibly falsely assuming it wasn’t God’s will. And what God wanted me to have or wanted to bring to someone else, through me, now can’t happen.
Rm 8:26,27 …the (Holy) Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us (and in us)… ESV …the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.
1 Jo 5:14-15 Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him.
What does Jesus say is the only basis on which to expect an answer to prayer in His will?
Importunity, meaning a confident, brazen, shameless insistence that the will of God must be done. A person praying this way clearly will have diligently sought, by God’s word and through God’s Spirit, the knowledge of God’s will on the matter, before praying. But once the heart of that person is locked on the knowledge of God’s will and prays accordingly, they then must absolutely refuse to be denied.
Luke 18:1 (Jesus) …Men always ought to pray and not faint, lose heart or give up.
Consider the key elements that result in successful prayer:
A person made righteous by Christ whose prayer can be heard, the revealed knowledge of God’s will with respect to a specific need, the heart desire to pray and the inspiration for the right prayer, the unwavering faith to believe God for the answer and the answer itself, all come directly from God. This therefore is not me strong arming God to achieve my objectives but it is God using me to achieve His objectives and at the same time deny Satan’s objectives.
Jam 5:16 … The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous person avails much - has great power and wonderful results (Living Bible).
After telling us here all that prayer can do, and why it’s necessary, God gives an example:
Jam 5:17-18 Elijah was a man with a (human) nature like ours and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain; and it did not rain on the land for three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain...
Elijah prayed that it wouldn’t rain. Then he prayed that it would rain. If we look at his second prayer we find that before he prayed God told him that He was going to send rain:
I Kings 18:1 ...The word of the LORD came to Elijah...saying, Go, show yourself to Ahab; and I will send rain on the earth (couldn’t happen until Elijah prayed)
So, Elijah prayed for something God had already told Him He was going to do; Then God uses this prayer as a blueprint for all prayer. God reveals His will but needs us to pray it into existence.
Rm 4:16,17 So the promise (God’s will on a matter received in prayer) is received by faith… (and faith is certain that what God promised, will come to pass and,) calls into existence the things that do not exist.
Should a persistent, believing prayer be repeated? No, not if it is in faith, just re-affirmed:
When God tells me to ask and keep on asking Him for things, so that His will can be done He means that I should pray with importunity over one need. But before the manifestation of the answer comes, I must also pray with the same importunity over other needs too.
Matt 6:7 And when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do…
The seeming exception to this are prayers prayed with respect to each individual day, such as the Lord’s Prayer. In this we repeatedly ask for the same things, His word, His Spirit, His deliverance, His forgiveness, His will and the expansion of His Kingdom, but they apply to that particular day. Each time it’s with importunity, so this is not repetitious.
Jesus says prayers prayed with importunity will always succeed. Because these prayers lock onto God’s will and won’t let go. They overcome every obstacle and hindrance from Satan, for they are prayed in faith, overcoming faith, the faith of Jesus Christ active in the heart of us Christians. How do we get it? By hearing His words and yielding to His spirit:
Ro 10:17 Faith comes by hearing...the word of God (we know and believe God’s will)
2 Co 4:13 We have the same Spirit of faith...we believe (what we are led to pray for).
“Our praying, however, needs to be pressed and pursued with an energy that never tires, a persistency which will not be denied, and a courage which never fails.” — E. M. Bounds
“Beware in your prayers, above everything else, of limiting God, not only by unbelief, but by fancying that you know what He can do. Expect unexpected things ‘above all that we ask or think.’” — Andrew Murray
“God does nothing but by prayer, and everything with it.” — John Wesley
“All prayer is to God, for men, and against Satan.” — Watchmen Nee
