What Does It Mean To Pray?

What does it mean to Pray

Intro

Can we as individuals put God into action? Can we move the hand of God into Divine interaction? If so, How much faith does it take to move the hand of God? What is required from us to move the hand of God or to put God into action on our behalf?

Have you ever had an extremely bad day, week or maybe year? Have you ever sometimes wondered where is God when your whole life seems to be crashing in around you? Did you ever just want to cry out to God because you thought he just couldn’t be listening to your pleas?

What does it mean to Pray

Prayer is the means by which God is justified in divinely intervening in any situation. If we do not pray, the situation will follow its natural course.

Who is the controlling force of the Universe? Who is in charge of the Universe? Whose will decides the course the Universe will follow? God is the divine will that makes anything happen that makes any difference in the Universe. That is why we need to pray for Gods will to be done, agreeing with him that his will be done.

John 14:13 says, “and whatever you ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.” To take the liberty and rephrase this verse just a little: “whatever we ask by my authority and command, acting in my behalf for the advancement of my kingdom, this will I do, so that the Father in heaven will be glorified by me the Son.”

It is vital that we see this very important point: it is not that we wait for God, but that he waits for us to come into agreement with his will and to speak it in prayer. Prayer is not the twisting of Gods arm in order to make him do what he does not want to do. Prayer is finding God’s divine will, coming into agreement with it, and declaring that his will be done in that situation. As we learn to find Gods will and pray it, we become instruments in the hand of God.

In Chemistry, Physics, the sciences, we learn for every action there is a reaction. This is one of God’s physical laws that can be trusted to happen each and every time that we attempt any experiment. The same for his spiritual truth, God cannot divinely intervene till we do our part in seeking his will through prayer.

There are four principles that keep us praying even if we are weary, discouraged and wonder “does my praying really make any difference”? Do I have enough faith to move the hand of God?

Principle One

Most of us know that God can answer prayer. The scriptures seem to point that by the earnest, diligent, seeking of god is the greatest expression of faith. If you really do have faith, you will diligently seek God. If you do not have faith, you will diligently not seek God. Lets look at Hebrews 11:16, “but without faith it is impossible to seek him: for he that comes to God must believe that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him”. We know by this verse that it does take faith to move the hand of God.

The problem is not that we have faith but do we have enough faith. I want to prove to you that you have enough faith to move the hand of God because when you believe that, you will diligently pray.

Turn in your bibles to Luke 5:1-8. Here we find that a great crowd of people had followed Jesus to the Sea of Galilee. This wasn’t uncommon for Jesus, the crowds always gathered when Jesus spoke. However, it was uncommon for these fishermen who were cleaning their nets after a long unfruitful night of fishing to be surrounded by a crowd. The men from the two boats were astonished to see the great crowd of people following such an insignificant man; or was he so insignificant. Peter obviously didn’t think so. Jesus asked him to row his boat a little from shore so he could more easily speak to the crowd. Without question Peter obeyed, though he was exhausted from working all night. Peter heard the word from the master’s mouth and obeyed without question. I think, Peter, knew that he was in the presence of someone great.

After Jesus finished speaking, he told Peter to go out a little further into deeper waters and launch his nets one more time. This time Peter wasn’t so obliged to grant Jesus’ request. After all, he and his friends knew about fishing. They knew when to go out and when to give up and try another day. They were the experts. They were out all night breaking their backs, to no avail.