Prayer I

Equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. Hebrews 13:21 (ESV)


It is a Christian's privilege to pray. To be able to communicate with the One who has all power in His hand, who has every human beings breath and being in His hands. It is our privilege to pray. Of course, we only have this privilege becasue it was the Father's will for us to be rescued and transformed from children of wrath and Satan and become children of God.

Ephesians 1:11 states: In Him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will.

This wonderful verse encourages me to pray according to God's will. God is working everything according to His will.  He is not working things according to my will or according to your will. He does not take counsel, or ask for my opinion or yours when He works. He is only concerned about His will. His will is good. Good for eternity. So when I pray I need to pray according to that will of His which I find in the Word of God, which is His revealed will.

Only by reading the Bible can I have any sense of what God's will is. My concern as a Christian has to be what God's will is. In fact, I must make His will, my own will, I must change my will to come into agreement with His will. He is God I am not.  His will was for me to believe in Jesus Christ, just as it was His will for you to believe in Christ, if you are a Christian. 1 Peter 4:2 states:  so as to live for the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for human passions but for the will of God. We are to live for the will of God.

Thomas Manton was a puritan and he said this: God will have everything fecthed out by prayer, He gives nothing without asking...Prayer coming between our desires and the bounty of God is a means to beget a due respect between Him and us... we usually wear with thanks what we win by prayer and those comforts are best improved which we receive upon our knees...God humbleth us with much weakness that he may put us upon prayer.

We should take everything to God in prayer, just as a child would ask of aid from his earthly father so should be take everything to God through prayer. We are to pray out of the right motive not to heap onto our fleshly life but to assist the new man in reaching toward that high call of God in Christ. God's will for us is sanctification, to become holy. God receives glory when we pray, God has joy when we pray, God wants us to desire His will, He wants us be so shaped by His word and prayer that our will's slowly becomes aligned with His will.

God's will is being done. He is working all things according to the counsel of His will. Philippians 3:21 tells us that Christ has power that enables Him to subject all things to Himself.  The Word of God is given so that we may have knowledge of God, as we read it the Holy Spirit is there to work it into our willing and obedient hearts, as our hearts grasp it, we walk in obedience, striving always to please Him who loves us, we are strengthened not by our stength or ability, but by Holy Ghost power. Ephesians 1:19 states: and what is the immeasurable greatness of His power toward us who believe. God is so gracious toward us, He is so loving toward us, that we must stop ourselves when sin comes and ask "how can I still have room in myself for that"  We are to be filled with the fullness of God. He wants to fill us so full that there will be no room for anything in us but Him.

So I read the word of God and it leads me to prayer. It leads me to commune with the One who wrote these words, who wrote this much love, this much care for me, this much concern for my soul. Reading His will causes me to pray, because as Manton states we find that we are full of weakness and it is God's intention for the revelation of our weakness to break our pride and drive us to our knees in prayer and cry out to Him who loves our soul.

Read the Word of God, let it exposes your weakness and let that draw you to our Great Merciful God and Savior.