Last night we focused on Luke 11:1-13, which is Jesus' teaching on prayer to his disciples. The main thing we wrestled with, which is sort of a timeless conundrum when it comes to prayer, is "why does our experience often not match up with what the Bible says about prayer?" We all know people who have prayed with incredible faith, fully believing they were praying for God's will through the direction of the Holy Spirit, expecting God to answer, but he didn't.
There are some common ways of explaining this:
1. God did/will answer, but not in the way or the time we expect.
2. The prayer wasn't in God's will.
3. The person praying had unconfessed sin or not enough faith.
4. God did what was best for his kingdom.
Here are some things the Bible says about prayer:
1. God wants us to ask him for things. (Luke 11:9-13 verse 13 is important to consider here; Phil. 4:6; Eph. 6:18)
2. God answers our prayers. (Psalm 5; Mark 11:20-25; Luke 11:1-11)
3. Our lives and the state of our relationships impact our prayer. (Isaiah 1: Mark 11:25; James 5:16-18)
4. God responds to persistence/boldness in prayer. (Luke 11:1-8, 18:1-8)
5. Motivation matters. (Matthew 6:5-15, 25-34; Luke 18:9-14)
6. Walking with the Holy Spirit directs our prayers. (Luke 11:13; Rom. 8:26-27; Eph. 6:18)
We have been talking about all these things in relation to prayer in general, but more specifically in relation to our prayers for the expanding of the kingdom of God through Infuse. Any thoughts on this important topic?
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