Prayer
From WhyNotWiki
Prayer is spending time with God.
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[edit] God's Prayer Promises
Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.
Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.
Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!
Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete.
This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him.
If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and he will give it to you. He will not rebuke you for asking.
Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.
[edit] Other Bible texts
Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.
[edit] Quotes
"Too many people pray like little children who knock on doors, then run away." (The Daily Walk Bible, p. 544)
[edit] Reasons God may not answer prayer / Conditions for promises
Come and listen, all you who fear God, and I will tell you what he did for me.
For I cried out to him for help, praising him as I spoke.
If I had not confessed the sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened.
But God did listen! He paid attention to my prayer.
Praise God, who did not ignore my prayer or withdraw his unfailing love from me.
If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and he will give it to you. He will not rebuke you for asking. But when you ask him, be sure that your faith is in God alone. Do not waver, for a person with divided loyalty is as unsettled as a wave of the sea that is blown and tossed by the wind. Such people should not expect to receive anything from the Lord.
What is causing the quarrels and fights among you? Don’t they come from the evil desires at war within you? You want what you don’t have, so you scheme and kill to get it. You are jealous of what others have, but you can’t get it, so you fight and wage war to take it away from them. Yet you don’t have what you want because you don’t ask God for it. And even when you ask, you don’t get it because your motives are all wrong—you want only what will give you pleasure.
This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him.
[edit] Source: Haven Today: 2006-11-07: Never, Never Quit Praying
With guest Philip Yancey.
Description: "When your world turns upside-down, and when big things happen in the world in which you live, it's always a call to pray. Philip Yancey joins Charles Morris on the next HAVEN Today for a special day of prayer on a program called "Never, Never Quit Praying"."
Other topics: [Faith (category)]
Philip Yancey's simple explanation of what prayer is:
Prayer boils down to two things:
- Being honest about who I am. Being vulnerable and open, show God my real self, that's what God wants to see.
- Learning who God is. In the process of spending time with God in prayer, I will gradually get to know who he is.
I don't have to spend a lot of time trying to get God to care about my life, or about my uncle who's in the hospital... I know that God cares, because I have learned to know who God is, and the best picture we have of who God is is in Jesus, and I know exactly how God responded to people who were in pain.
Philip Yancey on the prayers in the Bible:
I went through all the prayers in the Bible. There are 650 prayers in the Bible. Some are public, and eloquent, and beautiful; and others are very short, just cries for help.You quoted from the Psalms... And that has always been the believer's prayer book; there are 150 prayers. As you know, they cover just about everything you're going to feel or experience.
I have found that when I hit the wall; when I hit the times when I'm not sure that God is really listening and prayer just seems more a struggle for me... What I do is I take those passages from Scripture and I say at the beginning, "God, I just don't have much faith today; I don't have many words. So I'm going to pray these words, and I'm going to ask you in that process of taking them and make them my prayers; fill in those words, the words that I don't have." And sometimes it can take a few days, or even longer, much longer, to get back into the rhythm of feeling comfortable with my own prayers... But I think that's what the Psalms are for, ... because they do cover the full gamut, of anger and complaint and praise ... and just about anything you experience is already reflected in the Psalms.
[To do: Get more notes from my prayer journal]
[edit] Books
"Prayer: Does it Make Any Difference?", by Philip Yancey
[edit] To do
[Projects (category)]: Create/compile/find a prayer book. I think it would be very beneficial to have examples of how to pray. The Bible has precious little examples, so it's hard to know how to pray, what words to use. Not that there's a "wrong" way to pray. But still, some people pray beautiful, deep prayers from the heart, that when heard or read, I think can inspire the hearer/reader and teach them to pray better. And by better, I mean things like more genuine, more from the heart -- not more eloquent, or more flowery, etc.
Categories: Faith | To do | Projects
