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Results from: Answered Bible Questions, Answers, Unanswered Bible Questions, Notes Author: Dan58 Ordered by Date |
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Results | Verse | Author | ID# | |||
21 | Why do we pray if God already knows all | Bible general Archive 1 | Dan58 | 82145 | ||
I have several Ideas that might help, Lydia. First we pray because God wants us too. Ps 50:15 Ps 118:5 Jer 33:3 Matt 7:7-8 Matt 21:22 Mark 11:24 John 4:10 John 14:13 John 15:7 John 15:16 John 16:23-24 2 Cor 12:8-9 Heb 4:16 James 1:5 James 5:15 1 John 3:22 1 John 5:14-15 Second I would like to note the difference between saying that God is all powerfull and saying that our prayers have an influence on Him. We see God’s sovereignty expressed in the Bible by how he has absolute control in whatever he wants to have control of. This includes things like the birth order of Isaac and Jacob, the pain and suffering of Job, the salvation of Nineveh using Jonah and on every page of scripture other situations. This sovereignty of God begs your questions - Why does he need our prayer? – Why does he ask us to pray? But in this second point I am making I want to turn your attention from God’s directing everything on earth to the times that God chose to be influenced by man. Sin influenced God to introduce death. Man’s inability to keep God’s law caused God to send His son. Check out the word “choose” in the bible. God expects man to choose right and when he does he gets a reward when he chooses wrong he gets punishment. My second point is – prayer has an influence on God – His sovereignty does not exclude this truth. This is NOT to say God will serve us. No, we have a family relationship with Him with him as father and we as children. God is interested in having a relationship with us. His actions are influenced by ours; and most of all his actions are influenced by our prayers. My third point is a distinction between God knowing and God determining every outcome. The image of the gods in Greek mythology was that of puppeteers prodding man along. Perhaps the god would give a little freedom of choice but mostly the image is of the god making his choices for his own lustful reasons. I don’t believe our God is like that at all. I believe that we were created for relationship and God’s direction is best seen by looking at an ideal father that takes control when his children need him to and lets the children have progressively more choice as they mature. Like Solomon deciding that the best thing he could ask God for was wisdom we get to decide what we would like to ask God in prayer. Fourth I would suggest that prayer is much more than asking for things. Consider Jesus’ teaching about how we should pray. “Our Father. . ." -- prayer is relationship and conversation. "who is in heaven holy is your name” -- prayer is praise. "Your kingdom come" -- prayer focuses on the good of the church. "Your will be done on earth like in heaven." --- prayer searches for what God is up to and is one way that we join Him in His work. "Give us today our daily bread." -- prayer askes for our own specific needs. "Forgive us our sins . . ." -- prayer is a time of personal examination. "as we forgive"-- prayer is a time to consider how we are treating others. "Lead us not into temptation"-- prayer is a spiritual activity for spiritual well being "Deliver us from evil" -- prayer is a source of divine guidance in life’s sojourn. |
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