Philippians 4:6Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB) “Don’t worry about anything, but in everything, through prayer and petition with thanks-giving, let your requests be made known to God.” One of the reasons Jesus taught us to pray “Give us this day our daily bread” was because He wanted to build in us a barrier against ingratitude. Do you pray daily for your physical needs? Do you ask God for daily things like food, shelter, & the other physical necessities of life? Before typing this, when I asked myself this question, I had to admit that I did not. So, from now, I am making the decision to apply myself to this part of the Lord’s prayer with greater sincerity. Some may argue that because Jesus said: “Your Father knows the things you need before You ask Him” (Matthew 6:8), then it is pointless to inform God of our physical needs because He knows them already. The central value of prayer is that it is not something by which we inform God of our needs & so influence Him to give things to us! Prayer is designed to influence us; it is we who are in need of this kind of prayer, not God. Of course God knows what we are in need of, but He also knows that unless we come face to face daily with the fact that we are creatures of need, then we can soon develop a spirit of independence & withdraw ourselves from close contact with Him. Prayer, then, is something we need. God may not need to be told, but we need to tell Him. That’s the point. And unless we grasp it, we can miss one of the primary purposes of prayer.
Posted on: Tue, 15 Oct 2013 03:32:06 +0000
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