{"id":2702,"date":"2010-08-28T06:10:54","date_gmt":"2010-08-28T14:10:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wordpress\/?p=2702"},"modified":"2010-08-28T06:56:00","modified_gmt":"2010-08-28T14:56:00","slug":"the-purpose-of-prayer-8-28-2010","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=2702","title":{"rendered":"The Purpose of Prayer 8-28-2010"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Purpose of Prayer<\/h2>\n
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August 28, 2010<\/div>\n
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. . . one of His disciples said to Him, \u2019Lord, teach us to pray . . .\u2019 \u2014Luke 11:1<\/div>\n
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Prayer is not a normal part of the life of the natural man. We hear it said that a person\u2019s life will suffer if he doesn\u2019t pray, but I question that. What will suffer is the life of the Son of God in him, which is nourished not by food, but by prayer. When a person is born again from above, the life of the Son of God is born in him, and he can either starve or nourish that life. Prayer is the way that the life of God in us is nourished. Our common ideas regarding prayer are not found in the New Testament. We look upon prayer simply as a means of getting things for ourselves, but the biblical purpose of prayer is that we may get to know God Himself.<\/p>\n

\u201cAsk, and you will receive . . .\u201d (\u00a0John 16:24<\/a>\u00a0). We complain before God, and sometimes we are apologetic or indifferent to Him, but we actually ask<\/em> Him for very few things. Yet a child exhibits a magnificent boldness to ask! Our Lord said, \u201c. . . unless you . . . become as little children . . .\u201d (\u00a0Matthew 18:3<\/a>\u00a0). Ask and God will do. Give Jesus Christ the opportunity and the room to work. The problem is that no one will ever do this until he is at his wits\u2019 end. When a person is at his wits\u2019 end, it no longer seems to be a cowardly thing to pray; in fact, it is the only way he can get in touch with the truth and the reality of God Himself. Be yourself before God and present Him with your problems\u2014 the very things that have brought you to your wits\u2019 end. But as long as you think you are self-sufficient, you do not need to ask God for anything.<\/p>\n

To say that \u201cprayer changes things\u201d is not as close to the truth as saying, \u201cPrayer changes me<\/em> and then I change things.\u201d God has established things so that prayer, on the basis of redemption, changes the way a person looks at things. Prayer is not a matter of changing things externally, but one of working miracles in a person\u2019s inner nature.<\/p>\n

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August 28, 2010<\/p>\n

Journal Entry for Today-JDV<\/p>\n

Nowadays I wake up and feel the need to pray. I wonder what was going on in my life when I did not begin the day with prayer. Was I self sufficient, or just did I just reject the idea that God was waiting to answer my prayers? Was I oblivious or simply not needy enough? Perhaps I was simply unaware of my need because I did not have or seek an intimate relationship with Him.<\/p>\n

And God says\u2026\u201dYou tried to fill yourself up with life and self sufficiency so you would not have to acknowledge your deep and abiding need for Me. I made you such that you are not complete without Me, however, you can choose to reject Me\u2026.and you have. \u00a0Many reject Jesus as Savior, others reject Him as Lord. And still many reject Him for life. When you accept Jesus as your life, you then recognize and acknowledge the need for prayer that is essential for that life in Jesus.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you are complete in Jesus, you know it. When you are not complete you know it as well, and \u00a0your \u00a0Spirit will cry out for prayer\u2026..and you will hear it\u2026\u2026. as long as you respond.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Purpose of Prayer August 28, 2010 \u00a0 . . . one of His disciples said to Him, \u2019Lord, teach us to pray . . .\u2019 \u2014Luke 11:1 \u00a0 Prayer is not a normal part of the life of the natural man. We hear it said that a person\u2019s life will suffer if he doesn\u2019t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2702"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2702"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2702\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2705,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2702\/revisions\/2705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}