There is another requirement for
prayer to be effective that is also of primary importance, and it is yet
another point that got missed in our earlier discussion. Simply put, not only
should the one who prays, do so “according
to the will of God”, but he/she who prays must also be “in the will of God”. Just a few verses
prior to the Scriptures you referenced in Matthew 7, Jesus says to His
disciples:
“So do not worry, saying, ‘What
shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans
run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.
But seek first His kingdom and His
righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”
Matthew
6:31-33 (Emphasis mine.)
There are two things that should stand
out within these verses. That Jesus is, in fact, speaking to believers, since
He draws a distinction between they and the “pagans” (non-believers), and that
there are certainly prerequisites to effective
prayer, in this case “first seeking
after God’s kingdom and His righteousness”. This falls into the larger category
of pleasing God in all the things we do, which is a major part of remaining in
His will. And once again, it is clear that Jesus Himself fulfilled the same
requirements that are expected to be satisfied by those who believe in Him. The
following is just one of the many statements that Jesus made in regards to
being continually in His Father’s will.
“The one who sent me is with me; he
has not left me alone, for I always do
what pleases Him.” (Emphasis mine.)
John
8:29
Therefore, if the rather shallow
display of honouring the Father in the “prayer” which you have constructed is
designed to fulfill the requirement of “pleasing God”, you should take note
that this “pleasing of the Lord” is once again something that is meant to be
continual, not just on one occasion as a means of achieving a particular
personal goal. We can even further verify this point by looking at still
another Scripture, 1 John 3:22. The author of this letter is extremely clear
about why we receive the things we
(believers) ask of God. He says:
“…and receive from Him anything we
ask, because we obey His commands
and do what pleases Him.
It must be accepted that whenever we
receive anything which we have requested
from God, we only receive it because we first believe in the Father, and
the One He sent, and because we also do our utmost to obey His commands, and
always seek His pleasure in all things, always. Let me say it again. Not just
on a single occasion, but always.
And until you can show at least some sincere effort in that direction, you are
way out of line thinking that God has to answer your "prayer".
Now a short ways back, I made passing reference to another very
important reason why we pray. I would like to consider this point a little
closer at this time. That which I mentioned was the value of
conversing with God on a regular basis. I believe this to be of great
importance in regards to all things, and not only when we are asking for His
blessing upon a particular matter. I am certain, in my heart, that the very
first, and most important reason that we pray at all, is that we might satisfy
the Lord’s desire to have fellowship
with us, and also satisfy our heart’s desire to have that same fellowship, with
Him. After all, is it not the desire for a more complete knowledge and
understanding of God, and a deeper intimacy with Him, that drives so many of us
who seek after Him in the first place. And the desire that God has to interact
with us is a blessing so great, that it defies description. Try to imagine for
just a moment, if indeed you can, that the One who created the entirety of this
Creation within which we find ourselves, wants to be your personal friend.
Consider also if you will, that one of the primary ways we
interact with God, is through His Holy Word, so the reading of Scripture should
also be considered prayer, since it is in fact, at least a major part of God's
answers to the questions we ask of Him. Many offered prayers tend to become
one-sided, with much being said by the one who prays, while no time is left for
hearing the Lord's reply. This in itself does not negate the prayer, but it's
highly unlikely that he who enters into such a conversation, will garner as
much benefit as he would if the conversation was of a two-way nature.
So important is this principle regarding the reading of
Scripture, that Christians consider it to be their spiritual food, an idea
supported by the Bible in such verses as that which follows:
"After fasting forty days and
forty nights, he (Jesus) was hungry. The tempter came to Him and said, 'If you
are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.'
Jesus answered, "It is written:
'Man does not live on bread alone, but
on every word that comes from the mouth of God.'"
Matthew 4:2-4 (Parenthetical comment
and emphasis mine.)
So physical strength requires
physical food, and spiritual strength requires spiritual food. We, in the
modern world, have God's Holy Word, and if we speak to Him in verbal prayer, or
if we read His Word in the Bible, at least one of the reasons for doing so is
the same in both cases, it is how we feed our Spirit, and grow strong in the
Word.
To try and separate a Christian from the Holy Word is not an easy task.
You may take away my Bible and my reference books, you may disconnect me from
my church, which is my Spiritual family. You might make certain that I never
hear another Christian word spoken. What you can never do, however, is remove
from my mind, the verses of Scripture I have already committed to memory, or
much more important, the presence of the Holy Spirit in my soul, who despite
the very worst that this world can throw at me, will always continue to teach
me, and to comfort me.
If you need any more convincing of just how important the reading
of the Bible is, consider that in Jesus' temptation by Satan in the wilderness
(the first few verses which I just quoted above), the Tempter tempts Jesus in
three distinct manners[1],
and in each and every one (three times), part of the Lord's answer is, "It
is written". Jesus, of course, was referring to the books of the Bible
which we call "The Old Testament". Today, we have the Old, and the
New Testaments, so we need to read them both, and try to understand them as
well as Jesus apparently did.
So what happens if the Word is not
read, and the prayers are not prayed (very much like in the life of a
non-believer)? Well, for the believer, the good news is that it is unlikely to
cause a loss of salvation[2], at least I have found
nothing in the Holy Word that supports such a view (at least not yet). On the
negative side, however, what this failure to read, and to pray, will cause, is
a stagnation in immaturity. The writer of the Book of Hebrews was apparently
somewhat flustered when he wrote to his audience (though unconfirmed as of yet,
many people believe the intended group of readers were the Jewish Christians in
Rome), and reprimanded them for their apparent lack of
maturity.
"In fact, though by this time you
ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of
God's word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! Anyone who lives on
milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about
righteousness. But solid food is for the mature who by constant use have trained
themselves to distinguish good from evil."
Hebrews 5:12-14
To see the connection to my previous point, you only have to
note the number of words in these scriptures that relate to food, and how the
absence of properly-nourishing sustenance stunts the growth. In the verses that
follow these just given, it is also very
interesting to note just which teachings were considered the
"elementary" truths of God.
"Therefore let us leave the
elementary teachings about Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again the
foundation of repentance from acts that lead to death, and of faith
in God, instruction about baptisms, the laying on of hands,
the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. And God
permitting, we will do so."
Hebrews 6:1-3
I just have to look at that list to recognize, that it is virtually
identical to all the main topics that I hear, not just non-believers, but quite
regrettably, believers also, constantly arguing about. If these are in fact the
only things regarding God that you ever find on your mind, I respectfully
suggest that you need to pray, and read your Bible much more often. It might be
said that your spiritual diet has caused you to have spiritual rickets. So to
state my point a little clearer, and at the risk of redundancy, the state of
spiritual immaturity in a non-believer (and yes, you do still have a spirit,
even if you don't believe) renders you no better than an infant in a cradle.
Until you develop sufficient spiritual strength by truly partaking of the
blessed food contained in the Bible, and obtained through fellowship with God,
then you have very little, if any chance of praying effective prayer. Until you
find the reason, in your heart and soul, to call out to God, and accept Him on
His terms, you should only expect any demands you may make of Him to go
unanswered.
At any rate, as I already proposed a
little earlier, there are still other requirements to be fulfilled before
anyone can claim to be offering an effective prayer, and we have discussed the
main ones while talking about the thoughts of John Bunyan. In that earlier
section we looked at “sincerity”, “sensibility”, and a number of other things
that Mr. Bunyan felt were the pre-requisites for a true prayer. For each of
those points, I offered Scripture references, and those references should help
to clarify (if only in some small way) my position concerning your petition. We
need not rehash each of those arguments yet again, so I suggest we move on.
[1] This is a subject worthy
of a page all on its own, since the three temptations pretty much cover
EVERYTHING that a person could be tempted by.
[2] There are various opinions
among Christian believers regarding the possibility of losing one's salvation
as the result of doing, or not doing, any number of different things. This,
however, is just not the time for that discussion, since we are talking to an
unbeliever, who probably has no interest in such things at this time in their
life. And since it does not, at this point, have direct bearing on the present
conversation, we will have to deal with it in some more appropriate place.
