The Power of Prayer
By George Stroh
May 30, 2022
Now I urge you brethren, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit, to strive together with me in your prayers to God for me.. (Romans 15:30)
Born again Christians (which are the only kind of true Christians) have received many blessings from God, including the great blessing and privilege of prayer. we are encouraged to come to Him in prayer at anytime and about anything. And we have His assurance that He will always hear our prayers and always answer according to His perfect will; This is the confidence which we have before Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests which we have asked from Him. (1 John 5:14)
The hard part, of course, is that our prayers are often not according to His will. When that happens, God's answer must be either "no" or "wait". That is when we must walk by faith, not by sight" (2 Corinthians 5:7), believing that God has heard our prayers and fully trusting that His will is always best; In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words; and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. (Romans 8:26-28)
You may ask, "Why then even pray if God is going to always do His will anyway?" The first thing we need to acknowledge is that God is sovereign and we are not. Being sovereign means that everything He does is right and consistent with His perfect will for us, His children. So why pray? Because God, in His amazing grace, uses our prayers to accomplish His perfect will. The Holy Spirit motivates us to pray because of difficult circumstances, because we lack wisdom, because we are afraid, because we are thankful or because someone asks us to pray for them, as the Apostle Paul did concerning the empowerment of his ministry.
When we pray, God not only hears our prayers and answers according to His perfect will, but provides for us to participate in His sovereign work which brings glory to Him and blessing to us and to those we pray for; Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. (Philippians 4:6)
Maranatha!