Why We must pray...

Why Pray If God already knows everything?

    Jeremiah 33:2-3, “This I what the Lord says, he who made the earth, the LORD who formed it and established it the LORD is his name:  Call unto me and it will answer unto thee and shew thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not." 

John Calvin of the Protestant Reformation offers the thought to this saying, “doesn’t God already know or does he have to be reminded it seems frivolous to us that we should pray as if God needs to awakened out of his sleep, in order to hear our prayers.  But it is still very important for us to call upon God in prayer because 

1) That our hearts may be fired with a zealous and burning desire ever to seek, love, and serve him.  

2)  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 he eyes, and even pour out our whole hearts.  

3) That we be prepared to receive his benefits with true gratitude of heart reminding us that the blessing comes to us from Him.  (Christian Institutes of the Christian Religion)  

Dr. Adrian Rogers has said some very good thoughts on this issue of prayer:

First, here are two reasons we don't pray:

• We don't pray to impress God. We're not heard for our "much-speaking." You don't have to use poetic language or be an amateur Shakespeare. If an earthly child can speak to an earthly father, you can speak to your Heavenly Father. We're told to cry out to Him as our "Abba" Father — literally translated, "Daddy." (Romans 8:15, Galatians 4:6). We're not praying to impress Him.

• We don't pray to inform God. You can't tell God anything He doesn't know.
So if we don't pray to impress or inform God, why then do we pray?

We Pray to Invite God

It's very important to understand this: we are inviting God into our lives when we pray.

When we pray, we experience —

• Fellowship. We become "workers together with Him" (2 Corinthians 6:1). When we pray, God gives us the joy and privilege of administrating His kingdom, His affairs — working together with Him. He could do it without us. We could not do it without Him. But what a glory that God allows us the privilege of doing it with Him!
• Development. When we pray, God is growing us. Have you ever prayed and didn't receive immediately what you asked for? What did you do? You kept on praying, but you also began to search your heart and life to see if something was hindering God's answer. Many times there is. God uses prayer to grow us.

• Dependency. God never wants us to live lives independent of Him. If God just did everything for us and we never had to pray, soon we would begin to take things for granted. We would cease to depend upon God.


Prayer Binds Us to God
That's why we tell God what He already knows. He knows what we have need of before we ask, but we're definitely, specifically, unqualifiedly told to pray and to ask — not to impress or inform God, but to invite God, so that we might have that fellowship with Him, so that we might grow, and we would learn to depend upon Him.

O God who created the universe, O God, who created all humanity, help us to search our hearts so that your reality becomes our reality.  Your acts of creation speak to us of your power, but you act of redemption in Jesus Christ speaks to us of your love.  O God of power and love, reveal yourself to us this day through your Holy Spirit. 

May God bless you to know His presence, peace and safety as you seek to extend the healing ministry of Jesus Christ to our world.  May there be a fusillade of grace, by way of direction, connecting and compassion that grant you success in your efforts to offer support and hope to patients and their families in the future.  Amen…..