Teaching: Why Pray? and What is God LIke?
Q: What is God like? How does he interact with us?
Our response to this question will shape our entire Christian lives. How you see God dictates how you see yourself. I’m not saying that we make God into whoever we want him to be. I’m saying that your understanding of God’s character, including any misconceptions you have about him, will profoundly affect every aspect of your life—not just your prayer life. It affects what you believe about yourself. It affects how you interact with authority figures. It affects how you go about treating your friends and your enemies. It affects your dating relationships. It affects how you do homework. What you think is how you live. What you think about God, is the most important thought your ever going to have.
So, what is God like?
Q: This God we described in the first question, what does this God think about you?
Are you a sinner or a saint? Is he angry with you or delighted in you? Is he disappointed in your continual failings? Is he disillusioned with your progress in the Christian life? Is he frustrated by your lack of prayer, or Bible reading? Does he like you more when you do have your devotions or read your Bible? Are your prayers more effective when you’ve lived a holy life over the past week or month? How does God think of and interact with you?
Our answer to this question shifts our prayer life in one direction or the other. Either we run towards God when we sin or we run from him. Either prayer is an opportunity or it is a duty.
Q: If God is in control then why do we need to pray? If he already wants something to happen, then there is nothing we can do about it right? Are we trying to change God’s mind when we pray?
In these questions, we hear a naïve concept of not only prayer, but also our relationship with God. God does have a plan and he is active in our lives—which the question suggests; yet we are not passive participants in the story of salvation. God includes us in the unfolding of his plans. We are the agents through which God accomplishes his purposes. God, in his sovereignty, has chosen to limit himself to working through the prayers of his people. More than that, we are the redeemed people of God, the Bride of the Lamb. We are redeemed not simply as pawns in a cosmic chess match between Good and Evil; we are redeemed to be lovers of God. Prayer is our opportunity for relationship with the Divine.
First and foremost, prayer is about building relationship with our heavenly Father. It works as any relationship does… except that God is invisible (think of it like talking on a telephone). We pour out our hearts to him and then we wait for him to respond. We ask questions, he answers. He asks questions, we answer. Though his questions often have a different purpose than ours. When God asks us a question, it isn’t because he wants to know the answer. He wants us to know the answer. For example, when God asked Adam where he was in Genesis 3, it was so that Adam came to the realization he was hiding from God. Prayer, then, includes not only talking but also listening.
Let’s go back to the idea of God accomplishing his purposes through his people. Can you think of some events, aside from creation, in which God acted without being asked? I can think of God’s initiation of the relationship with Abraham… that’s about it. One could even lay a case from the Bible that the 1st coming of Christ was in response to the prayers of God’s people (see Luke 2). Every time we see God act on the people’s behalf in the Bible, it is in response to their asking. Why then do they need to ask? Because God wants relationship.
So, if God already has an idea in mind of what he wants for any given situation, how do we pray his will? We ask him. Our job is to pray what he tells us to pray. It’s almost like we are 6 years old again and shopping for our parent’s birthday—we have to ask him for money to buy him a gift. Absolutely everything in the Christian life originates with God. He is both the author and the finisher of our faith. So, we come into a situation, and the first thing we do is listen. We ask God what he’s doing and what he wants us to do. Then we pray back his words.
Once we know God’s will for a situation, it is our job to P.U.S.H.: pray until something happens. We don’t need to pray anything differently. We already know what he wants from us in this particular situation. We declare what the Lord has already said, reminding God of his promises to us, and we wait for him to do the rest.
“The Christian life is a cooperation with God’s grace. God will not do our part and we cannot do His part. If we do not do our part then God withholds some of the help and blessing He would have given us. …Some “trust” the sovereignty of God in a non-biblical way by “trusting” God to do the role that He has assigned to us. This is not trusting God, but is negligence and presumption. God has chosen to give us a dynamic role in determining some of the measure of the “quality of life” that we experience in the natural and in the Spirit. There are blessings that God has chosen to give, but only if His people rise up to ask for them (Isa 30:18-19; Ezek. 22:30; Mt. 17:21; Jas 4:2).”- (Bickle, Pursuing Spiritual Gifts: Faith that Works by Love)
Different types of prayer which use listening.
-Praying through Scripture
-Using the Bible as a basis for our prayers to God
-Lectio Divina
-Journaling
-Intercession
-Declaration of God's intentions over a situation
-Praying on behalf of someone else
-God’s answer to injustice is prayer.
-Healing Prayer
-Enforcing the victory of the cross over disease.
-Sometimes we need to do something in order to be healed (i.e. forgive), sometimes we simply need to be prayer for.
-Not all healing is immediate (in my experience, it usually takes 1 or 2 days)
Our response to this question will shape our entire Christian lives. How you see God dictates how you see yourself. I’m not saying that we make God into whoever we want him to be. I’m saying that your understanding of God’s character, including any misconceptions you have about him, will profoundly affect every aspect of your life—not just your prayer life. It affects what you believe about yourself. It affects how you interact with authority figures. It affects how you go about treating your friends and your enemies. It affects your dating relationships. It affects how you do homework. What you think is how you live. What you think about God, is the most important thought your ever going to have.
So, what is God like?
Q: This God we described in the first question, what does this God think about you?
Are you a sinner or a saint? Is he angry with you or delighted in you? Is he disappointed in your continual failings? Is he disillusioned with your progress in the Christian life? Is he frustrated by your lack of prayer, or Bible reading? Does he like you more when you do have your devotions or read your Bible? Are your prayers more effective when you’ve lived a holy life over the past week or month? How does God think of and interact with you?
Our answer to this question shifts our prayer life in one direction or the other. Either we run towards God when we sin or we run from him. Either prayer is an opportunity or it is a duty.
Q: If God is in control then why do we need to pray? If he already wants something to happen, then there is nothing we can do about it right? Are we trying to change God’s mind when we pray?
In these questions, we hear a naïve concept of not only prayer, but also our relationship with God. God does have a plan and he is active in our lives—which the question suggests; yet we are not passive participants in the story of salvation. God includes us in the unfolding of his plans. We are the agents through which God accomplishes his purposes. God, in his sovereignty, has chosen to limit himself to working through the prayers of his people. More than that, we are the redeemed people of God, the Bride of the Lamb. We are redeemed not simply as pawns in a cosmic chess match between Good and Evil; we are redeemed to be lovers of God. Prayer is our opportunity for relationship with the Divine.
First and foremost, prayer is about building relationship with our heavenly Father. It works as any relationship does… except that God is invisible (think of it like talking on a telephone). We pour out our hearts to him and then we wait for him to respond. We ask questions, he answers. He asks questions, we answer. Though his questions often have a different purpose than ours. When God asks us a question, it isn’t because he wants to know the answer. He wants us to know the answer. For example, when God asked Adam where he was in Genesis 3, it was so that Adam came to the realization he was hiding from God. Prayer, then, includes not only talking but also listening.
Let’s go back to the idea of God accomplishing his purposes through his people. Can you think of some events, aside from creation, in which God acted without being asked? I can think of God’s initiation of the relationship with Abraham… that’s about it. One could even lay a case from the Bible that the 1st coming of Christ was in response to the prayers of God’s people (see Luke 2). Every time we see God act on the people’s behalf in the Bible, it is in response to their asking. Why then do they need to ask? Because God wants relationship.
So, if God already has an idea in mind of what he wants for any given situation, how do we pray his will? We ask him. Our job is to pray what he tells us to pray. It’s almost like we are 6 years old again and shopping for our parent’s birthday—we have to ask him for money to buy him a gift. Absolutely everything in the Christian life originates with God. He is both the author and the finisher of our faith. So, we come into a situation, and the first thing we do is listen. We ask God what he’s doing and what he wants us to do. Then we pray back his words.
Once we know God’s will for a situation, it is our job to P.U.S.H.: pray until something happens. We don’t need to pray anything differently. We already know what he wants from us in this particular situation. We declare what the Lord has already said, reminding God of his promises to us, and we wait for him to do the rest.
“The Christian life is a cooperation with God’s grace. God will not do our part and we cannot do His part. If we do not do our part then God withholds some of the help and blessing He would have given us. …Some “trust” the sovereignty of God in a non-biblical way by “trusting” God to do the role that He has assigned to us. This is not trusting God, but is negligence and presumption. God has chosen to give us a dynamic role in determining some of the measure of the “quality of life” that we experience in the natural and in the Spirit. There are blessings that God has chosen to give, but only if His people rise up to ask for them (Isa 30:18-19; Ezek. 22:30; Mt. 17:21; Jas 4:2).”- (Bickle, Pursuing Spiritual Gifts: Faith that Works by Love)
Different types of prayer which use listening.
-Praying through Scripture
-Using the Bible as a basis for our prayers to God
-Lectio Divina
-Journaling
-Intercession
-Declaration of God's intentions over a situation
-Praying on behalf of someone else
-God’s answer to injustice is prayer.
-Healing Prayer
-Enforcing the victory of the cross over disease.
-Sometimes we need to do something in order to be healed (i.e. forgive), sometimes we simply need to be prayer for.
-Not all healing is immediate (in my experience, it usually takes 1 or 2 days)