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Prayer prompts and nurtures obedience, putting the heart into the proper “frame of mind” to desire obedience.
knowledge and truth remain abstract unless we commune with God in prayer.
One might pray and not be a Christian, but one cannot be a Christian and not pray.
Prayer is to the Christian what breath is to life, yet no duty of the Christian is so neglected.
Prayer is both a privilege and a duty, and any duty can become laborious.
In a sense, prayer is unnatural to us. Though we were created for fellowship and communion with God, the effects of the fall have left most of us lazy and indifferent toward something as important as prayer. Rebirth quickens a new desire for communion with God, but sin resists the Spirit.
Prayer is the secret of holiness—if holiness, indeed, has anything secretive about it.
The neglect of prayer is a major cause of stagnation in the Christian life. Consider the example of Peter in Luke 22:39–62. Jesus went to the Mount of Olives to pray, as was His custom, and told His disciples, “Pray that you may not enter into temptation.” The disciples fell asleep instead. The next thing Peter did was try to take on the Roman army with a sword; then he denied Christ. Peter did not pray, and as a result he fell into temptation. What is true of Peter is true of all of us: we fall in private before we ever fall in public.
My confidence in the future rests in my confidence in the God who controls history.
Let me answer the first question by stating that the sovereign God commands by His holy Word that we pray. Prayer is not optional for the Christian; it is required.
We might ask, “What if it doesn’t do anything?” That is not the issue. Regardless of whether prayer does any good, if God commands us to pray, we must pray. It is reason enough that the Lord God of the universe, the Creator and Sustainer of all things, commands it. Yet He not only commands us to pray, but also invites us to make our requests known. James says that we have not because we ask not (James 4:2). He also tells us that the prayer of a righteous man accomplishes much (James 5:16). Time and again the Bible says that prayer is an effective tool. It is useful; it works.
Still it is very important for us to call upon him: First, that our hearts may be fired with a zealous and burning desire ever to seek, love, and serve him, while we become accustomed in every need to flee to him as to a sacred anchor. Secondly, that there may enter our hearts no desire and no wish at all of which we should be ashamed to make him a witness, while we learn to set all our wishes before his eyes, and even to pour out our whole hearts. Thirdly, that we be prepared to receive his benefits with true gratitude of heart and thanksgiving, benefits that our prayer reminds us come from
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Prayer, like everything else in the Christian life, is for God’s glory and for our benefit, in that order. Everything that God does, everything that God allows and ordains, is in the supreme sense for His glory. It is also true that while God seeks His own glory supremely, man benefits when God is glorified.
We pray to glorify God, but we also pray in order to receive the benefits of prayer from His hand. Prayer is for our benefit, even in light of the fact that God knows the end from the beginning. It is our privilege to bring the whole of our finite existence into the glory of His infinite presence.
Prayer is not simply a soliloquy, a mere exercise in therapeutic self-analysis, or a religious recitation. Prayer is discourse with the personal God Himself.
There, in the act and dynamic of praying, I bring my whole life under His gaze. Yes, He knows what is in my mind, but I still have the privilege of articulating to Him what is there. He says: “Come. Speak to me. Make your requests known to me.” So we come in order to know Him and to be known by Him.
My wife and I are as close as two people can be. Often I know what she’s going to say almost before she says it. The reverse is also true. But I still like to hear her say what is on her mind. If that is true of man, how much more true is it of God? We have the matchless privilege of sharing our innermost thoughts with God. Of course, we could simply enter our prayer closets, let God read our minds, and call that prayer. But that’s not communion and it’s certainly not communication.
So we must pray because we are guilty, pleading the pardon of the Holy One whom we have offended.
But what about intercession and supplication? It’s nice to talk about the religious, spiritual, and psychological benefits (and whatever else might derive from prayer), but what about the real question—Does prayer make any difference? Does it really change anything?
EL nombre del libro se responde rapidisimo
The Bible says there are certain things God has decreed from all eternity. Those things will inevitably come to pass. If you were to pray individually or if you and I were to join forces in prayer or if all the Christians of the world were to pray collectively, it would not change what God, in His hidden counsel, has determined to do. If we decided to pray for Jesus not to return, He still would return. You might ask, though, “Doesn’t the Bible say that if two or three agree on anything, they’ll get it?” Yes, it does, but that passage is talking about church discipline, not prayer requests. So
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The mind of God does not change for God does not change. Things change, and they change according to His sovereign will, which He exercises through secondary means and secondary activities. The prayer of His people is one of the means He uses to bring things to pass in this world. So if you ask me whether prayer changes things, I answer with an unhesitating “Yes!”
Their will was involved, but there was no coercion; God’s purpose was accomplished through their wicked actions.
Suppose the Sabeans and Chaldeans had prayed, “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.” I’m absolutely certain that Job’s animals still would have been stolen, but not necessarily by the Sabeans and Chaldeans. God might have chosen to answer their prayer, but He would have used some other agent to steal Job’s animals.
There is freedom within limits, and within those limits, our prayers can change things.
I kida understand it but somehow i can nkt express it
The very reason we pray is because of God’s sovereignty, because we believe that God has it within His power to order things according to His purpose. That is what sovereignty is all about—ordering things according to God’s purpose. So then, does prayer change God’s mind? No. Does prayer change things? Yes, of course.
All that God does is for His glory first and for our benefit second. We pray because God commands us to pray, because it glorifies Him, and because it benefits us.
If u pray 4 something thaft contradicts the word of God that is not going to happen, me partio el cerebro ese capitulo pero creo q lo entendi perfectamente
(Matt. 6:5–9) Notice that Jesus said, “Pray then like this,” not “Pray this prayer” or “Pray these words.”
Our Father
Jesus gave us the incomparable privilege of calling God “Father.” Jesus was the first on record to take prayer and make it a personal discourse with God. Jesus, who spoke Aramaic, used the Aramaic word Abba, best translated “Dad” or “Papa.” We can almost hear the cry of alarm from the disciples and see the looks of astonishment on their faces: “You don’t mean it, Jesus. You can’t be serious! We’re not even allowed to speak the name of God aloud. We don’t even call him Father, much less Dad!”
Wow i never saw it like so ·o·
Ironically, today we live in a world that assumes God is the Father of everyone, that all men are brothers. We hear this in the cliches “the fatherhood of God” and “the brotherhood of man.” But nowhere does Scripture say that all men are our brothers. It does say, however, that all men are our neighbors.
Calling God “Father” without the proper credential of sonship is an act of extreme presumption and arrogance.
(John 8:39–40, 44). There is a clear distinction between the children of God and the children of the Devil.
·o·
There are only two families, and everyone belongs to one or the other. Both groups have one thing in common, however. The members of each family do the will of their respective fathers, whether God or Satan.
Because of our adoptive relationship with God through Christ, we become joint heirs with Christ.
Dios nos adopto por medio de cristo, wow, podriamks oensar como que en vida real un hijo no puede adoptarse a un hermano para ue asi no sea el hermank qaue lo haya adopfado sinl Dios ·o· crazy el conceptfo nunca lo haia visto de esa manera
Martin Luther once said that if he could just understand the first two words of the Lord’s Prayer, he would never be the same again.
Exactly . Period
The word our signifies that the right to call God “Father” is not mine alone. It is a corporate privilege belonging to the entire body of Christ. When I pray, I do not come before God as an isolated individual, but as a member of a family, a community of saints.
A veces se me hacd dicficil eso, es q somos tan egoistas hasta por rsos. El domingo estaba como q ellos estan adorando al mismoDios al cual yi le oror enmi casa y le canto,porque sienfo que no puedo ha er lo mismk aaui, o porque no hago oo mismo aqui
In Heaven
Im literally loving this
“Our Father” speaks of the nearness of God, but “in heaven” points to His otherness, His being set apart. The point is this: When we pray, we must remember who we are and whom we are addressing.
The top priority for the Christian is to see that God’s name is kept holy, for it is holy.
God’s honor must become the obsession of the Christian community today. Honor must go not to our organizations, our denominations, our individual modes of worship, or even our particular churches, but to God alone.
God provides for His people. It is noteworthy that the request here is for daily bread, not daily steak or daily prime rib. God provides the necessities, but not always the niceties.
We must remember that God gives us all we have in the ultimate sense.
God is the one who provides
Jonathan Edwards, in his famous sermon “The Justice of God in the Damnation of Sinners,” said that any sin is more or less heinous, depending on the honor and majesty of the one whom we have offended. Since God is of infinite honor, infinite majesty, and infinite holiness, the slightest sin is of infinite consequence. Such
Some may ask at this point, “If God has already forgiven us, why should we ask for forgiveness? Isn’t it wrong to ask for something He’s already given us?” The ultimate answer to questions like this is always the same. We do it because God commands it. First John 1:9 points out that one mark of a Christian is his continual asking for forgiveness. The verb tense in the Greek indicates an ongoing process. The desire for forgiveness sets the Christian apart. The unbeliever rationalizes his sinfulness, but the Christian is sensitive to his unworthiness. Confession takes up a significant portion of
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The mandate to forgive others as we have been forgiven applies also to the matter of self-forgiveness. We have God’s promise that when we confess our sins to Him, He will forgive us. Unfortunately, we don’t always believe that promise. Confession requires humility on two levels. The first level is the actual admission of guilt; the second level is the humble acceptance of pardon.
I used to say that we shouldnt forget ourselves but in fact thats true but is way deeper than that
When God promises us that He will forgive us, we insult His integrity when we refuse to accept it. To forgive ourselves after God has forgiven us is a duty as well as a privilege.
Amen
Jesus is not suggesting that God will tempt us to evil if we do not petition Him otherwise. James 1:13 specifically says that God tempts no one. God may test, but He never tempts to evil. A test is for growth; temptation is toward evil. Not all temptation is from Satan, for James also says that we are tempted by our own lust. The evil inherent within the heart of man is capable of tempting man without Satan’s help.
In Greek, the word translated as “evil” is neuter in gender; in this section of the Lord’s Prayer, the word is masculine in gender. Jesus was saying that we should ask the Father to deliver us from the Evil One, from onslaughts Luther called the “unbridled assaults of Satan,” the enemy who would destroy the work of Christ in this world. Jesus was telling us to ask the Father to build a hedge around us. The petition is not designed to avoid the trials of this world, but to protect us from naked exposure to the attacks of Satan. In His “High Priestly Prayer,” Jesus asked the Father not to take
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Were it not for the intercession of Christ on Peter’s behalf, Peter would have been lost; his faith would have failed.
A — ADORATION C — CONFESSION T — THANKSGIVING S — SUPPLICATION
