Does Prayer Change Things? (Crucial Questions, #3)

by R.C. Sproul

Prayer, at least private prayer, is difficult to do out of a false motive.

There is reason to believe from the text that if we pray incorrectly, the Holy Spirit corrects the errors in our prayers before He takes them before the Father, for verse 27 tells us that He "intercedes for the saints according to the will of God."

What is true of Peter is true of all of us: we fall in private before we ever fall in public.

If I thought even for one moment that a single molecule were running loose in the universe outside the control and domain of almighty God, I wouldn't sleep tonight.

"Does prayer change God's mind?" My answer brought storms of protest. I said simply, "No."

Ask Moses

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.

We must never make the fatal mistake of Nadab and Abihu and approach the sovereign God in a flippantly casual attitude.

The King has come. Christ sits exalted at the right hand of God and reigns as King. But Jesus is not merely the spiritual King of the church, where His only responsibility is to exercise authority over our piety, as if there were a separation between church and state. Jesus is King of the universe.

Christians are to pray for the manifestation of the reign of Christ and the emergence of His kingdom.

On Earth As It Is in Heaven The angels in God's court do as He says and desires. His people on earth do not. God is the Covenant Maker; we are the covenant breakers, frequently on a collision course with the will of the Father.

There is a sense in which the first three petitions are all saying the same thing. The honoring of God's name, the visibility of His kingdom, and the obedience to His will are virtually the same concept repeated three different ways. They are inseparably related. God is honored by our obedience, His kingdom is made visible by our obedience, and quite obviously His will is done when we are obedient to that will. These are the priorities Jesus laid down.