Prayer is important

Question: If God is all-knowing, all-seeing and all-wise, why do I still need to pray?

Answer: The very question indicates that this is not for God to answer, as God knows the end from the beginning. We however are the ones who are not all knowing nor are we all seeing or all wise. Before I provide an in depth, answer allow me to take a very human illustration using the relationship of a parent and a child.

It goes without saying that a parent knows what is good for a child and what a child needs. It is important that a child should be able to also identify what it needs and seek the solution from the person best able to provide the solution.

When we ask a parent for something, we acknowledge our inability to meet the need. We also acknowledge that our parent is best able to meet our need and that the parent has the right to meet or not to meet the need.

If a child is silent and does not speak to its parent then it cannot expect the parent to meet the need. This basically boils down to the child learning to trust the parent and to accept his dependence on the ability of the parent to meet the need.

Now when we come to the matter of prayer we need to understand that prayer is divided into different sections and here I would like us to look at the model that Jesus gave as a model to His disciples in Matt. 6: 5 - 15.

First of all prayer is an act of worship that acknowledges and worships God. The prayer then leads us into the realm desiring God do what we wants on earth in the same way that he acts in heaven.

Only after acknowledging God and desiring His will, should we then tell Him what we need, so that He knows that we are depending on Him.

We are then faced with self-examination and asking God to forgive us our sins on the same basis as we forgive those that sin against us. This self-examination should make us realize that we are too weak to face up to the full power of temptation. Therefore we are also asking God not to permit us to sin. We must also remember, that God allowed Jesus to go into the dessert to be tempted by Satan (Luke 4.) James 1:13 tells us that God does not tempt us, so temptation is something from Satan. The value of temptation is to show us the power of God to protect and to rescue us from evil..

To recap, we pray to acknowledge that we trust God to meet and supply all our needs. It also teaches us to be patient and accept God’s timing and work in our lives.

Questions to meditate on:

Jesus turned water into wine for people to drink. Because of this, I am confused if I am allowed to drink or not to drink. Is drunkenness not a sin? Then why does Jesus condone drinking wine?

• If Jesus died for my sins, so that they may be forgiven, why cant I continue to go on sinning? Is my future sins not forgiven either?

• How do I receive the Holy Spirit and how do I know he is in me?

• If we are not under the law of Moses, but set free by Christ, then why did God give the law to Israel in

• the first place?

Author: Les Senabria