The Purpose of Prayer and The Sovereignty of God

Tuesday Greetings!  Welcome to Day 2 of our R.C. Sproul series on prayer.  I hope the excerpt below is as helpful to you as it was to me.  Have you ever thought, "Why pray?  God already knows the beginning from the end, and God certainly doesn't change his mind, so what is the point?"  If so, I hope the following discourse by Mr. Sproul will be encouraging.

"No human being has ever had a more profound understanding of divine sovereignty than Jesus.  No man ever prayed more fiercely or more effectively.  Even in Gethsemane, He requested an option, a different way.  When the request was denied, He bowed to the Father's will.  The very reason we pray is because of God's sovereignty, because we believe  that God has it within His power to order things according to His purpose.  That is what sovereignty is all about- ordering things according to God's purpose.  So then, does prayer change God's mind? No.  Does prayer change things?  Yes, of course.

The promise of the Scripture is that "The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working" (James 5:16).  The problem is that we are not all that righteous.  What prayer most often changes is the wickedness and the hardness of our own hearts.  That alone would be reason enough to pray, even if none of the other reasons were valid or true.  In a sermon titled "The Most High, a Prayer-Hearing God," Jonathan Edwards gave two reasons why God requires prayer: 

'With respect to God, prayer is but a sensible acknowledgement of our dependence on him to his glory.  As he hath made all things for his own glory, so he will be glorified and acknowledged by his creatures; and it is fit that he should require this of those who would be subjects of his mercy.  It is a suitable acknowledgement of our dependence on the power and mercy of God for that which we need, and but a suitable honor paid to the great Author and Fountain of all good.  With respect to ourselves, God requires prayer of us...  Fervent prayer in many ways tends to prepare the heart.  Hereby is excited a sense of our need...whereby the mind is more prepared to prize [his mercy]... Our prayer to God may excite in us a suitable sense and consideration of our dependence on God for the mercy we ask, and a suitable exercise of faith in God's sufficiency, so that we may be prepared to glorify his name when the mercy is received.'

All that God does is for His glory first and for our benefit second.  We pray because God commands us to pray, because it glorifies Him, and because it benefits us."

What encouragement! 

Posted by Kristen