The Sovereignty of God and Prayer
A day without prayer is a day that totally denies the sovereignty of God and glorifies the free will and self sufficiency of man.
Prayer has always been my weak spot. Frankly, I’d rather read, study, and write. But we are commanded to pray, and that is a sufficient-enough reason to do it. This is contrary to the nonsense I learned in my early years in Christianity: that prayer was a way to get God to do things, that it is where we battle Satan, and that it is how we fulfill our “Can you not tarry and hour” time-requirement (“Drat! Only 14 minutes has passed—Time for more mindless babbling!)
But prayer isn’t primarily about us. Now don’t get me wrong; we do have skin in the game—We have real needs, troubles, and pains that our Heavenly Father wants us to bring to Him. We are to pour out our hearts to Him; we are to make our requests known. Nevertheless, prayer isn’t an exercise of therapeutic naval-gazing. We must not lose sight of this important piece of the prayer puzzle: Prayer is primarily about God— it’s about His glory, His grace, and yes, His sovereignty.
John Reisinger fleshes-out six basic facts about prayer and God’s sovereignty in a piece fittingly called, The Sovereignty of God in Prayer:
- Believers in both the OT Scriptures and the NT Scriptures had no problem believing in both the absolute sovereignty of God and the necessity of prayer.
- Prayer can be used as a means of refusing to submit to what we know is the will of God!
- It is not wrong for us to pray what has been termed "selfish prayer."
- Prayer is ASKING, not TELLING God what to do.
- A belief in the sovereignty of God will not hinder real prayer, but instead it will foster it.
- Prayer is essential because God has ordained it as one of the means to accomplish His decrees.
You can read the details of each fact here.
--The Catechizer
Labels: Sanctification
posted by The Catechizer and The Deacon | 6:14 AM
1 Comments:
It's a very benefit for me...
Amen.
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