What is the purpose of your prayer?
We pray because it is a privilege. God is far above us, completely holy and only comprehensible because He reveals Himself to us. Prayer is His invitation to get to know Him. God allows us to approach Him. In fact, He desires it. Prayer is our way of communing with God. Just as friends and family members spend time talking with one another to deepen their relationships, so prayer deepens our relationship with God.
“Prayer is man giving God the legal right and permission to interfere in earth’s affairs.” – Myles Monroe
“Prayer is earthly license for heavenly interference.” – Myles Munroe
John Wesley once said: “God does nothing but in answer to prayer.”
Matthew 6:5-6(NLT) “When you pray, don’t be like the hypocrites who love to pray publicly on street corners and in the synagogues where everyone can see them. I tell you the truth, that is all the reward they will ever get. But when you pray, go away by yourself, shut the door behind you, and pray to your Father in private. Then your Father, who sees everything, will reward you.”
Jeremiah 33:3(NLV) Call to Me, and I will answer you. And I will show you great and wonderful things which you do not know.
Prayer is our communication to God and Gods’ communicating to us – thus a two-way communication not only one-way communication. The definition of communication is sending or receiving information.
Hebrews 5:11-14(MSG) I have a lot more to say about this, but it is hard to get it across to you since you’ve picked up this bad habit of not listening. By this time you ought to be teachers yourselves, yet here I find you need someone to sit down with you and go over the basics on God again, starting from square one – baby’s milk, when you should have been on solid food long ago! Milk is for beginners, inexperienced in God’s ways; solid food is for the mature, who have some practice in telling right from wrong.
God wants to talk to us.
Matthew 13:9-17(MSG) “Are you listening to this? Really listening?” The disciples came up and asked, “Why do you tell stories?” He replied, “You’ve been given insight into God’s kingdom. You know how it works. Not everybody has this gift, this insight; it hasn’t been given to them. Whenever someone has a ready heart for this, the insights and understandings flow freely. But if there is no readiness, any trace of receptivity soon disappears. That’s why I tell stories: to create readiness, to nudge the people toward a welcome awakening. In their present state they can stare till doomsday and not see it, listen till they’re blue in the face and not get it. I don’t want Isaiah’s forecast repeated all over again: Your ears are open but you don’t hear a thing. Your eyes are awake but you don’t see a thing. The people are stupid! They stick their fingers in their ears so they won’t have to listen; They screw their eyes shut so they won’t have to look, so they won’t have to deal with me face-to-face and let me heal them. “But you have God-blessed eyes – eyes that see! And God-blessed ears – ears that hear! A lot of people, prophets and humble believers among them, would have given anything to see what you are seeing, to hear what you are hearing, but never had the chance.”