Subject: who benefits most from prayer? |
Bible Note: ischus, I understand what you are saying, but I don't see anywhere in the Bible that God is blessed by our relationship to Him. There are many scriptures that speak of how we are blessed of God. The chosen, the chastened, those who trust, those who fear, those who delight in God, those who hear and obey, those who know Him, those that believe, those that suffer for Christ, those who endure temptation, the undefiled, the pure, the faithful, the poor in spirit, the meek, the merciful, and the peacemakers. There are others, and if you want I can give you references for each. I agree with you totally about numbers not mattering regarding answered prayer. I was being sarcastic. What I am a little confused about is if faith is what motivates God to answer prayer, then why doesn't he answer the prayer of a faithful servant right away? Like Paul who had the thorn in the flesh. He asked God to remove it 3 times, but God didn't. The answer to Pauls prayer was not to remove the thorn (physical), it wasn't Gods will. What was His will was for Paul to endure it and grow by trusting (spiritual) that God knows best even if we think we have the answer. The thorn was a reminder to Paul to trust God no matter what the physical circumstances may appear to be telling him. The physical answer to prayer is always secondary to what God wishes to teach us spiritually. I understand now what you meant by "worldview". I believe people can be in the same community and with faithful christians have extreme differences in preception of faith based on their circumstances. It seems to me that the more difficult the circumstance the more our desire is to know Him. It speakes of how shallow we are. You might be right about other countries as a whole. I'm not that familiar with believers from other countries. jal |