[Modified transcript of a midweek message published by Horley Baptist Church on YouTube[1], May 2020]
In the 2nd part of our ‘Does Prayer Work’ midweek message we delve a bit deeper into the topic of miracles and ask the question, does God only answer our prayers when they suit His purposes?
Last week we were looking at the question of “Does prayer work?” and really we came to the conclusion that prayer does work when it aligns with God’s will, when we pray for something to happen that God wants to happen. Jesus’s prayer life was a lot about building his relationship with God to the extent that his heart broke for the same things that God’s heart broke for and he saw what God was doing and joined in with that. That raises the question “Do our prayers only get answered when we pray for the things that God wants? Do our prayers only work if we pray for the things that God wants to happen, that fit in with his plan and his bigger picture?”
01:08 Well, let’s put things into context a bit. Let’s first answer the question “What is God’s will; what does God want?” Well if you look through scripture, if you look in the Bible, it tells us that God’s will is that no one should perish, that everyone should have a relationship with Him, that we should have a hope, that we should have a future (2 Peter 3 v9). God’s will is that we should have good gifts and that we should be blessed. It’s God’s will that no one should suffer or die and yet if we look at the world around us we realise that that’s just not what’s happening.
01:46 The reality is that God does not get what he wants, and a lot of that is down to the fact that for whatever reason God put our will – our free will – above His own. Because of our free will, because of the decisions and the choices that we made (as laid out at the beginning of the Bible in Genesis) we have allowed into our world death and suffering and pain and greed. The heart of the human problem is a problem of a human heart but there is a bigger picture.
02:23 God is fixing those things that have gone wrong through our bad choices, our bad decisions and through our own free will. Through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, sin and death have been defeated and there will come a time when there will be no more death and no more suffering, no more pain and no more sorrow. I believe sincerely that we can have a hope for tomorrow but we also have a hope for the here and now.
03:05 You see, when Jesus’s disciples asked Jesus to teach them how to pray like he prayed, this is what he told them. He said “Pray like this: Our Father who is in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” In other words, Heavenly Father, break into our realm, may your kingdom break into our kingdom, may your will be done in this place, in our town and in our lives. Lord God we pray that you will fix restore and redeem all those things that are broken, all those things that are not as they should be. We pray that you will heal our bodies, that you will change people’s minds, that you will fix broken relationships. We pray that you will bless us. In other words, we pray that miracles will happen.
04:08 Now, by their very nature, by the definition, miracles are rare events but just as one golfer said “The more I practice the luckier I get” so too the more we pray the more we see the miraculous happen in our lives, the more we start to see God breaking through, his kingdom coming, his will being done in our lives and in our communities. If we humble ourselves, if we really cry out to our heavenly Father, his will will be done. What we see in the Bible is the fact that for whatever reason God partners with us, that God chooses us as his instruments. He’s given us prayer as a powerful weapon so that through us and through our prayer and through our actions God’s will is done and the miraculous happens.
So keep praying because prayer does make a difference.
[1] YouTube link: Does Prayer Work? – part 2
Bible reference: 2 Peter 3 v9.
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Contributed by Martin Shorey; © the Author
