Dr. Rick Mandl - July 24, 2020
Why Pray?
Devotional Manuscript:
Why Pray
Friday July 24, 2020
Hey church family I want to challenge you to think for a moment or two about prayer… And specifically about some of the common questions that people ask when it comes to prayer. Questions like... If God knows what we are going to ask, why ask? If he already knows what he is going to do, why pray? If my prayer causes God to do some good thing he was not going to do until I prayed, what does this say about the character of God? Why does he sometimes heal when we pray and sometimes not? Essentially, all of those are sub-questions of the one big question - Why pray?
Let me suggest to you three answers:
The first answer to the question is the one children don’t like to hear… And that is that we pray because our Father says so... Because Scripture tells us to pray. In other words, We pray to obey. In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus was explicit.. He said, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.” Ask, seek, knock - each is an imperative, not a suggestion. Each is God’s demand of us.
The second reason is because prayer changes us. When we are in the presence of God, his Spirit transforms us. It’s been said that Prayer is the way the Carpenter shapes and molds the wood of our lives. He must touch us, to change us. In prayer, we do not talk about him – we talk to him. We do not study him; we are with him. And in the process, our time in prayer makes us more like his Son, which is, after all his purpose for our lives. Prayer does not change God so much as it changes us.
There’s a third reason we pray and it’s because... our Father always hears us. Jesus promised: Ask and it will be given to you; Seek and you will find; Knock and the door will be opened. No exceptions. God has an “open door” policy. Billions of people pray in thousands of languages, all at the same time, and God hears each one. You included. Jesus told his disciples that if you were a father in those days and your hungry child asked for bread, would you trick him with a stone? If he asked for a fish, would you give him a snake? Of course not. And compared to God, we are “evil.” Our perfect Father who is love, always hears us. This is the promise of God.
We know that “hearing” and “answering” may not be the same thing. I remember coming across a one-sentence theology of prayer and it’s simply this... When we pray, God always gives us what we ask for - - or something better. An anonymous Confederate soldier once wrote: “I asked God for strength that I might achieve; I was made weak, that I might learn to serve. I asked for health, that I might do great things; I was given infirmity, that I might do better things. I asked for wealth, that I might be happy; I was given poverty, that I might be wise. I asked for power, that I might earn the praise of men; I was given weakness, that I might feel the need of God. I asked for all things, that I might enjoy life; I was given life, that I might enjoy all things. I got nothing I asked for, but all I hoped for. Despite myself, my prayers were answered. And I am, among all men, most richly blessed.”
So can we be. This is the promise of God. Amen.
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