Why Pray If God Knows Everything?

I got this question in the Q&A box: If God knows everything, why pray? I love this question. This is a real question, and I’m glad you’re thinking about it, because you’re taking what you know is true in God’s word: God knows everything. And if that’s true, why pray? Why talk to God if he already knows everything you need before you ask? Have you ever thought that? I have. Or maybe if God is perfectly wise, if he already knows everything, and not only that, but he causes all things to happen and nothing occurs apart from his hand, if all of that is true, why pray? You could ask a thousand other questions about prayer.

Instead of just hearing from me, let’s go to Jesus, where he talks about what prayer is. Thankfully, in Luke 11, Jesus’s disciples asked him, “Lord, teach us to pray.” Jesus gave an answer that’s the Lord’s Prayer. We’re not going to Luke 11. We’re going to go to Matthew 6, where Jesus taught basically the same thing in his Sermon on the Mount. These are two teachings that sound very similar. Jesus probably taught these things at other times as well. Jesus taught his disciples how to pray multiple times, and Jesus modeled how to pray. He was a praying man.

So we’re going to be reading in Matthew chapter 6. But before we do that, let’s pray together. As I pray, you pray with me. Don’t let these be empty words, but let these be the cry of your heart to ask God to help us as we open his word.

God, be glorified and honored today as we open up your word and seek to understand what prayer is, why to pray, and to whom we are praying. God, every time we open your word, just like we learned this morning, we need help. Not because your word is unclear, but because apart from your Spirit, we are blind to see. So God, open our ears, open our eyes, open our hearts, change us, be glorified in us, in Jesus’s name. Amen.

What Prayer Is Not

We’re going to first read what Jesus says about prayer, and I want you to see what prayer is not and what prayer is. So let’s read the first part of Matthew 6:5–7, where he’s teaching the disciples how to pray. Look down at your Bible and read along with me.

Jesus says, “When you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogue and at the street corners so that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go into your room, shut the door, and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words.”

First, I want to make the observation that prayer is not impressing other people, and prayer is not impressing God. Jesus’s point is that the Pharisees, these hypocrites, wanted to be seen by other people. They didn’t care first and most what God thought of them. They cared what other people thought of them.

But even in that, you do not want to pray to impress other people or impress God. Jesus here is not mainly contrasting public prayer and private prayer, saying don’t pray out loud, only pray in private. He’s contrasting prayer that is directed to God out of devotion to him with prayer that’s self-centered. Ultimately, what were the Pharisees trying to do? They were trying to earn righteousness. They were trying to make themselves look righteous in front of others, maybe in order to please God, or maybe because they didn’t actually care at all what God was about. But ultimately they were trying to get merit or righteousness for themselves.

This is a warning that it truly matters that we get our eyes off of ourselves and onto God when we are praying. Maybe some of us know how to sound good when we pray. Or maybe you only pray when others are around. Think of the times when you pray. Is it ever because your parents told you to? It’s time to pray at the meal. Your dad says, “You pray,” and so then you pray. In that moment, you’re more concerned with what others think about you, or maybe concerned that you sound good so that God might be impressed with you, than you are actually saying, “I need to get my heart right before God and actually pray when I pray.” Later on, we’re going to see what prayer actually is. But I want you to see first that prayer is not about impressing God or earning merit for yourself.

You guys know what merit means? Who knows what merit means? Anyone want to take a stab at that word? It’s something that you earn. It’s like credit in your account. So the Pharisees would go around heaping up prayers, saying, “I’m going to be seen by others, and I’m getting more credit to my account. They’re going to think I’m holy.” And in their mind, maybe they thought that means that God thinks I’m holy. I am set apart. I have merit because of my prayers. You might not think that way, like, “Hey, I’m going to get merit from my prayers,” but maybe you do. We’re going to attack that here.

Tibetan Prayer Wheels and Empty Phrases

One of the ways that we can think of getting merit is to jump into some really bad examples of impressing God in your prayers. This is probably what the Pharisees had in mind, but not quite this bad. This is what a lot of religious people have in mind. Does anybody know what these are? Have you guys seen these ever? Ellie knows what they are. “Prayer wheels.” These are Tibetan prayer wheels. I bet none of you have been tempted to pray with a Tibetan prayer wheel.

But did you know that in our world, what some people think is a really religious thing ties to a very common idea? Have you ever heard the phrase, “All religions get to God”? A lot of people believe that. Maybe you do. Maybe you’ve heard that. “Hey, this is a religion. But why is the Bible, why is Jacob, why is Grace Bible Church so specific that there is only one way to God and it’s only through faith in Christ? What about all the other people who believe, who pray sincere prayers, who do sincere acts of devotion?”

I want to tell you Jesus right here is attacking a type of prayer, or a type of religious duty, that views prayer incorrectly in relationship with God. Buddhist prayer wheels are a helpful illustration of what is going wrong in religion and what might be going wrong in your heart when you pray. So don’t take my word for it. We’re going to watch a video of a Tibetan guy, of a Buddhist guy, explaining what’s going on when they use a Tibetan prayer wheel or a Buddhist prayer wheel.

Video clip: “When we think of Tibetan Buddhism, prayer wheels often come to mind. They are so simple to use that their effect is often underrated. However, they are a powerful way of generating tremendous merit through our spiritual awakening and fill our space with positive energy. Let’s learn more.”

I’m not making this up. This is a video saying, “Hey, let’s learn how to be spiritual.” There are a lot of people in America and in the world saying, “Hey, I want to get closer to God. I want to be spiritual. I want to be religious.” They try to approach God and they’re saying, “Hey, show me a way.” Buddhism is saying, “Hey, here’s a way.” What they’re saying is that they recognize that the human heart says, “I am deficient in something. I need to earn.” Not the heart that’s submitted to Christ in faith, but your natural human heart that might be smuggling merit into your prayers might be attracted to this. The world is saying, “Hey, here is a prayer wheel. It’s a very efficient way to get merit.”

This is later in that video. Watch this. Basically, in a prayer wheel, here’s what they do. They take a prayer or a mantra and they drop it in the wheel, and then they spin it around, and for every time it goes around, they get credit for saying a prayer. So watch what they do.

Video clip: “So, if your prayer wheel contains 500 copies of God’s mantra, you generate the same as if you have recited her mantra 500 times. Just imagine this. Let’s say you spend 30 minutes every day doing your sadhana. And during these 30 minutes, you spin your prayer wheel 6,000 times. This means that as part of your half-hour sadhana, you generate extra merits equivalent to reciting Vajrayogini’s mantra 3 million times.”

So he goes on, and you might want to buy a prayer wheel that we’ve made because it can fit 500 mantras in it. You can spin it over and over and over again, and you can repeat yourself over and over and over again. And whoever you’re praying to, the Buddha or Dharma or some deity, you’ll get credit for having said that prayer that many times.

Jesus attacks this. You might say, “All right, Jake, this is silly. I’m not tempted to pray like that.” But what does Jesus say? Do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do. They think that they’re going to be heard for their many, many words. The Buddhists think they’re going to be heard for their many, many words, or they get credit for their many, many spins. You ever seen this? This is a Christian thing: “Let’s say a prayer.” How many times do you say a Hail Mary? Hopefully none of you are tempted to do that. That is a heaping up of a prayer to say, “God, look at me. Pay attention to me. I’m going to pray a prayer over and over and over again.”

The goal, the problem here, is not repetition. The problem is mindless repetition for the goal of earning favor, really with the aim not of submitting to God and relating to God rightly, but trying to make yourself right and get God’s attention. So here’s one: have you ever mindlessly prayed LUBOT? I have. Jesus is going to correct this with even the Lord’s Prayer. Some of you might have that memorized: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done.” You can mindlessly pray this with your heart far from him. You can pray LUBOT: “God, help me listen, understand, believe, obey, trust your word, in Jesus’s name. Amen.” And then you go read, and you haven’t expressed even for a second a heartbeat of, “God, I need help. You’re my Father. Open my eyes. Open my heart to your words that I might not sin against you.” Jesus warns that prayer is not impressing man, and it’s certainly not impressing God. You will not get God’s attention for heaping up words mindlessly in repetition. Do not be like that.

Why Pray If God Already Knows?

You will not inform or improve God. What does Jesus say? He says, “Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.” Jesus affirms that God knows everything. He then says, so don’t pray as if to tell God what you need, as if he doesn’t know. But that doesn’t mean you don’t tell God what you need. And don’t repeat many words mindlessly.

Instead, here’s what we’re going to see prayer is: the humble, worshipful expression of dependence by God’s children upon their wise and loving Father.

When Jesus says, “When you pray, don’t heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do. They think they’ll be heard for their many words,” he isn’t saying only pray once, make sure you don’t repeat yourself. Actually, the Bible is very clear: we should be persistent in our prayer. We should pray constantly. It should be second nature to you, as breathing. I’m just going to tell you some of the commands in the Bible for the Christian: pray without ceasing. We ought always to pray and not lose heart—that’s Luke 18. Ephesians 6:18: we are to pray at all times in the Spirit. Romans 12:12: be constant in prayer. Colossians 4:2: continue steadfastly in prayer.

Then in Luke 11, right after Jesus gives the Lord’s Prayer, he actually encourages people to be persistent—to ask, to seek, to knock—like a guy who just knocks incessantly at his neighbor’s door. But God isn’t like the guy who gets annoyed by you in that parable. He is your heavenly Father who already knows what you want, already knows what you need, and loves and is able to give you good gifts.

So prayer isn’t done to impress God or to impress people. It isn’t done to add credit or merit to your account. It isn’t to inform God of what he doesn’t already know or to give him wisdom. But back to the question: if God knows everything, why pray? Jesus says God knows what you need before you ask. So your mind might go to, “So then why ask?” And God’s going to do what he’s going to do anyway. He’s sovereign. Why ask? That’s not Jesus’s conclusion. Instead, assuming the command that we ought to pray, Jesus says, “Don’t be like those guys who pray for the wrong reasons in the wrong ways. Instead, pray like this.” This means that prayer is relational. It’s to our Father. It’s dependent. It’s submissive. And it’s worshipful. It’s not manipulative or merit-earning. You’re not praying to try to manipulate God into doing what you want, and you’re not praying to get God’s favor.

Pray to God Our Father in Heaven

So then let’s see why we pray by looking at Jesus’s pattern for prayer. This is your notes: we follow Jesus’s pattern of prayer by praying to God our Father in heaven. This first part of Jesus’s prayer is not a throwaway phrase. You see what he says? He says, “Our Father.” When you pray, pray like this: “Our Father in heaven.”

Father is not God’s name. It is his relationship to the prayer. Prayer is not generally directed. Have you ever, when you pray, had it meander into thinking to yourself, like you don’t have God in mind? Prayer is not just thinking to yourself or talking to the air, but prayer is speaking to a person. Think of those prayer wheels. You sometimes might pray like that: “It’s time to pray, so I’m going to pray it.” The spinner of a prayer wheel doesn’t care where that prayer is going, or their heart’s not in it. For the Pharisees, their heart certainly wasn’t in it. They were praying to be seen by others. But instead, you are not praying to a force or the air or a general power. You are praying to a person.

You are speaking to the eternal Creator God revealed in Scripture, the judge of all the earth, before whose presence—remember Isaiah when he saw him, what did he do? Well, this was before Jesus. But when Isaiah sees God, he fell down and said, “Woe is me.” God the Father, whose presence we cannot even approach—this is the one to whom we pray. Jesus doesn’t say pray to the Father. What does he say? Pray to our Father.

So this means that this kind of prayer is for those who have been adopted as God’s children. You guys remember Scott’s communion message this morning. Remember where he opened us to? Ephesians chapter 1. He was talking about our adoption. If you’re a Christian, our adoption as sons and daughters—that’s how you can call God your Father. Remember when we were thinking of communion, we were thinking of the blood that’s represented in the cup. We learned that adoption is through the redemption that’s in Jesus’s blood, or through Jesus’s blood.

So the only way that we can call God our Father is not because he’s impressed with you, not because you’ve earned your status as children, but only by grace, through faith, through Jesus. This means that the only one who can truly pray to God as our Father is the one who has faith in Jesus and already has their sins removed. That means you are not earning God’s favor in your prayer. You are not undoing your sin. When you pray and ask for God’s forgiveness, you are already reconciled to God through Jesus’s blood.

That also means that when we pray to our Father, you can and you must remember what kind of Father he is. Jesus, specifically in Luke 11—the other time when Jesus teaches on this prayer—immediately after he teaches the Lord’s Prayer, says this. So just listen.

“Which of you who has a friend will go to that friend at midnight and say, ‘Friend, lend me some bread’? Imagine you need some bread and you have a neighbor, and you go to him and say, ‘Hey, give me some bread.’ And you knock on the door, and the neighbor says, ‘Don’t bother me. The door’s now shut. My children are with me in bed. I can’t get up and give you anything.’ And then you keep knocking. You keep pestering that guy.”

What’s he going to do? If somebody just kept knocking at your door over and over and over again, ringing your doorbell and saying, “Hey, give me some bread. I have some travelers who came. I don’t have bread,” what would you do? You’d probably just get up and give the guy some bread. Jesus is saying your neighbor, your friend, will ultimately open up the door and give it to you because you’ve annoyed him enough. Be like that, knocking to God.

But God is not like your neighbor who’s saying, “Hey, I’m warm. Go away. Don’t annoy me anymore. I’m going to finally give you what you want because you kept pestering me.” God is not that kind. So this is a weird parable, because in most of the parables Jesus says, “Hey, this parable is going to help you understand the way that God is.” This parable helps us understand the way that God isn’t. He’s not like that neighbor who’s reluctant and finally gives in. Then he gives us another one. He says, “Instead, remember, God is your Father. And God isn’t even like your earthly father.”

“What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead give him a snake?” There’s not many fathers on earth—if the kid’s like, “I’m hungry. Can I have a fish to eat?”—who will give him a snake that’s going to bite him. Or maybe he says, “Hey, I’m hungry. Can I have an egg?” and he gives him a scorpion that’s going to sting him.

That’s Jesus’s illustration. Even your earthly fathers, they’re not going to do that kind of thing. Your earthly fathers who are evil—we’re all born into sin, right? Your father, even if he loves you, and there are a lot of fathers who don’t love their kids, but most of them won’t give their kids a snake or a scorpion. Even your fathers who are evil will give you food when you ask. How much more your Father in heaven, especially, will give the Holy Spirit to those who ask.

So we address God our Father. When you hear this, you’re like, “Okay, how should I pray?” Jesus says, “Pray, ‘Our Father.’” You should remind yourself he’s better than earthly fathers, and I’m not annoying him. My persistence in prayer isn’t annoying to him. I’m not trying to impress him. He’s not going to hear me because of my many, many words. I’m talking to a God who loves to give good gifts to his children. How do you know that he loves to give good gifts to his children? What did he do? He sent Jesus to die on the cross, and then he sends his Holy Spirit—we learned about that last time—to indwell all who ask. We know God is good. We see that so clearly at the gospel. So what an amazing privilege that God, our eternal, holy, perfect God in heaven, listens when we pray. Start your prayer by saying, “Father, our Father in heaven,” and remind yourself who God is. When you open like that, this should give us confidence to ask him for things. He hears. He’s not a disinterested or angry deity, but he’s our loving, reconciled, gracious, merciful, and generous Father.

Hallowed Be Your Name

Then what do we pray next? Well, when we pray, we exalt him. This is what he means when he says, “Hallowed be your name.” You guys know what hallowed means? This is probably in here because it’s the classic way that we remembered it, but this is basically the same word. You guys remember when we learned about Nadab and Abihu? Do you remember in Leviticus 10, Nadab and Abihu offered fire that wasn’t the way that God had commanded, and then God zapped them with fire. Everyone’s like, “What happened?” Moses’s words were this. Moses came and used this word, hallowed.

“This is what Yahweh has said: ‘Among those who are near me I will be sanctified,’ or ‘I will be hallowed’—same concept here—‘I will be regarded as holy, and before all the people I will be glorified.’”

This is us saying, when we come to God, “God, I want you in my heart and in this world to be set aside, regarded as holy, because you are.” This means that when you come and you pray, you recognize who God is. You don’t come with your eye on yourself. You don’t come confident in your own holiness. You say, “God, you are holy. The only way I can approach you as Father is through Jesus’s blood.” And you say, “I want you to be glorified.”

This isn’t only a desire in your mind. Just before this in Matthew 5—we learned about this last year, and we’re going to talk about this at camp—Jesus said:

“Let your light shine before men as you obey, as you do good works, so that the world can see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.”

So your prayer is aligning yourself with God our Father, saying, “God, I want your name to be glorified. Will you glorify your name in my heart and in this world?” You see, we haven’t asked for anything yet. You come to God recognizing who he is and aligning yourself with him, asking that his name would be glorified.

Your Kingdom Come, Your Will Be Done

Then you come submitting to him. You say, “Your kingdom come. Your will be done.” What is God’s kingdom? This is when Jesus returns. You come longing. You say, “This world isn’t yet like it will be when Jesus comes to reign.” When he comes to reign, sin will be gone in the world, and sin will be gone in his people’s hearts, and God’s will will be done. So when you pray, you seek to bring your desires in alignment under Jesus’s. In effect, you’re saying, “Jesus, I can’t wait till you return and there’s no more sin, and I can’t wait for everything to be just as God wants it to be.”

God is sovereign. God’s will will be done on this earth. Have you thought about that? Why would you pray, “God, your will be done”? Does anything ever happen on this earth apart from God’s will? No. That’s weird. That’s hard to reconcile with our mind, because even evil—have you ever thought, “God, how could you be so sovereign over evil that the Bible clearly says God means even evil for good?” Everything that happens in your life will come to pass exactly how God ordained. And you should still pray, “God, your will be done,” and want it to be that way.

Do you know where it says this is God’s will for you? In 1 Thessalonians 4. You know what it says? God’s will for you is your holiness, that you learn to be self-controlled and not sin. Don’t disregard this. So this is you saying, “God, I want this world to be exactly how you ordained it to be.” This should drive you to say, “God, I want to read your word. I want to know what your word has to say so that I can pray it.” So you’re not just praying it generally, but so that when you see God’s word says, “This is my will for you—your holiness,” you can say, “God, your will is my holiness. Make me holy.”

This is hard, though, because it seems to go in contradiction to, “God, your will be done,” and yet there is evil in the world. How does a perfect God let there be evil? Well, don’t let God’s sovereignty justify a comfortableness with sin. Don’t let God’s grace justify sin in your life. Don’t let God’s sovereignty make you willing not to evangelize. And don’t ever let God’s independence, autonomy, and power keep you from praying. Because you might say, “Why do I need to pray? God’s will will always be done.” To that, this is a really helpful phrase: don’t ever compromise one of God’s truths. That truth is you need to pray, and you need to pray that God’s will will be done. And you know what? God’s will will always be done. Don’t let one truth that you are clinging to, in an effort to defend that truth, compromise one of God’s other truths, because that’s where heresy comes from.

So just pray, “God, your will be done.” And we’re going to see later, don’t ever say that means that God is leading you to temptation, because God will never lead you to temptation even when he’s testing you.

Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread

Next, depend on him. The next example that Jesus gives is, “Give us this day our daily bread.” Bread here isn’t merely, “God, give me bread,” but instead, “Give me what I need.” This prayer teaches dependence. It says, “God, I need. You know what I need today. Will you give it to me?” Not just food, but food, shelter, work, sleep, faith, obedience. This is a recognition that nothing that you have is ultimately from you. You are dependent on God for it.

If you ask God for bread today and he gave it to you, what should you be tomorrow as you pray? If you ask God for something and he gives it, tomorrow you should be thankful. So this is a prayer that should remind us we are dependent. Even if you have food in your pantry and your parents have a great job and they’ve provided you food and they have lots of money in their bank account, that doesn’t make you any less dependent on God for provision of those things. He provided them. You shouldn’t pray any less hard, “God, give me this day what I need,” when it seems like it’s already been there.

Even if there’s no food on the table, no money in the bank account, and your life is under threat, you should pray recognizing you are dependent. And when you pray that way, then you should be thankful.

This should also guard you from anxiety. Do any of you guys struggle with anxiety? I do. The Bible calls anxiety a sin. The world calls it normal. The world calls it maybe something that you need to medicate or go to counseling for. Don’t believe them. When you are anxious, you are not trusting God. You’re either saying, “God, you’re not all-powerful,” or, “God, you’re all-powerful and you’re not good.”

But if we’re praying to our Father, who we know is all-powerful and we know is good, we can say, “Our Father, give me what I need,” and you can trust he knows what you need. If he’s not giving it to you, you don’t truly need it. Sometimes he tests you. Sometimes he doesn’t make it obvious. But we know that he is our Father, and he is always working for our good. So Philippians 4 gives us an example of how to pray. When you are anxious, when you’re tempted to anxiety, what should you do? With thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. “God, I don’t know if I’m going to eat. I feel like I might starve to death. God, will you give me bread? Thank you for the bread you gave me yesterday. Thank you for being my heavenly Father.”

You know what? Most of us are not going to face the trial of not having bread. But you will have opportunity to express trust and thanksgiving every time you feel anxious. So when you feel anxious, pray with thanksgiving and tell God, remembering that he is your Father.

Forgive Us Our Debts

Pray confessing sins, pleading for him to forgive. This is what Jesus says: “Forgive us our debts.” Always, when you are coming to God, you need to have sin in view. You’re not saying, “Hey God, will you forgive me of this sin right now? Because if I don’t pray, this sin stays on me.” This is the way I lived when I was your age. I thought every time I prayed, God would forgive me for all the sins I committed up to that point that I thought to confess. But if I sinned again, that sin would still be on me and I’d go to hell.

So how was I praying? It’s earning merit. “Oh, I got to get that one. I got to get that one. I got to search, because if I don’t pray, God won’t forgive.” That is not how we pray. When we confess our sins, and when we say, “God, forgive us our sins,” we come to God saying, “God, you are my Father, and I know you will forgive my sins on the basis of Jesus.” We search for sins to confess to agree with God so that God can align us with him in his will, so that as we confess our sins, we can turn from them and we can glory in his mercy and say, “Yep, that sin also was put on Jesus.”

Do you know one of the ways that you know your sins are forgiven? When you are quick to forgive others. We learned about that in the parable of the unforgiving servant. When you know that you’ve been forgiven every sin that you’ve ever committed, and that those sins are like 10,000 lifetimes of debt, and somebody sins 10 bucks against you, 100 bucks against you, and they owe you a really, really real debt, and you’re so aware that God forgave you an infinite debt at the price of his Son’s blood, you will be quick to forgive.

So when you pray, hunt for sins to confess and to turn from, and to glory in God’s forgiveness.

Lead Us Not Into Temptation, but Deliver Us from Evil

Finally, when you pray, trust in him, saying, “Deliver us from evil. Lead me not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” This is the heart of one that doesn’t want to sin, the heart of one that realizes his own weakness, one that says, “God, help me.” One that recognizes that your God, your Father, will keep you from situations in which you’ll fall.

God will never test you beyond what you can stand. God never tempts you to evil. If you are in a situation and you feel like, “Oh man, this situation is too much. My only way out is to sin,” you know it’s not. You say, “God, deliver me from this,” and he will provide a way out. His testing, any temptation that you face, is for your growth and holiness, not that you would fall into sin. Often times it is to lead you to fall to your knees, needy, saying, “God, help me.”

Or perhaps you’re suffering. Somebody is treating you in an evil way. Somebody’s sinning against you. This is normal. And you can follow Jesus’s example of entrusting yourself to your heavenly Father. You can read about that in 1 Peter, where it says that when Jesus was reviled he did not revile in return, and when he suffered he did not threaten, but he continued to entrust himself to the one who judges justly. That’s his Father.

Jesus Prayed Better Than Anyone

Do you know who prayed more than any other person alive? Who prayed better than any other person alive? It was Jesus. Jesus demonstrated this. Jesus knew that God knew everything, and Jesus knew that God was perfectly wise, and Jesus prayed constantly.

Jesus didn’t have to pray that God would forgive him his sins. Jesus didn’t have sins to confess. But Jesus bore every sin for everyone who would believe so that we could pray like this, so that we could call God our Father.

So it is really, really, really important that you pray. But before you pray, it’s really, really important that you’re reconciled to God as your Father, that you turn to him in faith. Don’t wait another day. Don’t waste another minute. The first prayer in response to this should be, “God, give me your Holy Spirit. God, save me.” In Luke 11, that’s what Jesus says. That’s the conclusion. He says God is not a father like our earthly father who gives us eggs when we need it, who gives us food, who gives us what we need. How much more will our heavenly Father give what we need when we ask? The example that he gives is that he will give his Holy Spirit to you when you ask.

Which means he’ll adopt you as his son. He’ll forgive your sins. He’ll separate your sins as far as the east is from the west. Then he will change your heart so that you will want what he wants, love what he loves, hate what he hates, and you can pray with confidence, aligning your heart under his as his child.

Discussion Groups

Sorry for going so long. Go to discussion groups for about 10 minutes, 15 minutes, and let’s talk about the way that Jesus’s prayer is going to affect the way that you pray tonight and more.