This guide will help you understand the purpose of prayer, its effectiveness, and why you should pray more often. We shall also discover why people stop praying and tips for effective prayer life.
Last week we talked about the three foundational principles of effective prayer, that is, “prayer that works“. Today I want to talk to us about the ‘Purpose of Prayer’ and the big question today is “why do we pray”.
If someone stops you on the street and asks you” why do you pray” what would be your answer, will you have one, have you ever thought about why people pray or is it something that was just handed to us. The flip side of that question would be ‘why did you stop praying?’
Without knowing the purpose of something it’s very easy to abuse or misuse it and that is also true for prayer. Today we are going to look into scripture and learn the purpose and work of prayer in the life of a Christian.
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Related Post: Prayer for Healing
“Can your childhood prayer life survive your adult experience”
Ashaiyo Shadrack
It is true for most of us that our childhood prayer life was more intentional, and as we grew older, gain more experiences and our lives become busier, prayer became less and less of a priority to many of us. But why?
Why have so many of us move away from it, for us to effectively talk about the purpose of prayer we need to first touch on the reason why many people are moving away from praying.
This is where I want us to begin today…
Reasons Why People Stop Praying
There are many reasons that cause people to stop praying, but today I want us to talk about two that I feel are affecting the majority of people…
- Most People Don’t Know the Purpose of Prayer
- Unanswered Prayer Has frustrated many
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Most People Don’t Know the Purpose of Prayer
Not understanding the purpose of prayer has caused many Christians to just pray and many have gone without seeing results. This kind of approach is not sustainable, it has left many drifting away and getting tired of prayer.
Just look at the church congregation on Sunday, visit the same church on a prayer Friday and you will be shocked by the few numbers of people that show up.
Are people afraid of prayer or is it that we don’t believe in it anymore? This question is very good for us to ask ourselves and it brings me to my second point. Unanswered prayer.
Unanswered prayer
The frustration of unanswered prayer has caused devastating spiritual and emotional pain. Most of us here have experienced that pain before. This pain cut so deep and has even drawn some to leave the faith altogether.
Unanswered prayer has left many, feeling abandoned, questioning God, unstable, and has caused many to even have doubt in the existence of God. The big question for most of them is, ‘does prayer really work?’
If you have been affected by any of the above-mentioned reasons, I want to ask you to give me 5 minutes of your time, to explain to you the main purpose of prayer.
My goal is not just to motivate you to pray, but to equip you with truths that will help you have an effective prayer life.
Purpose of Prayer
Prayer should not only be used as a spare wheel or as an emergency response tool kit. We shouldn’t just pray when we need something or when we are in trouble.
That’s not the only purpose of prayer even though God expects us to pray when we are in need, or even when we are in trouble, the thing is, prayer is more than that.
Today I want us to look into the 5 purposes of prayer.
What’s the purpose of prayer? The purpose of prayer is to commune with God, to discover more about God, to ask God for our desires, to keep us alert from temptation, and to experience God in our day-to-day life.
- To Commune with God
- To Discover God
- To asks God for our desires
- To keep us alert form temptation
- To experience God in our daily activity
Let’s dive in and address each piece on its own.
To Commune With God
Prayer is an invitation for us to commune with God. The original intent of God creating man in His image was for them to be able to commune and have a relationship.
God is calling into a place of reasoning together with Him. This is a great opportunity especially because God has said that his thoughts are not our thoughts, it is through this relationship that we grow deeper in Him.
18 Come, let’s talk this over, says the Lord; no matter how deep the stain of your sins, I can take it out and make you as clean as freshly fallen snow. Even if you are stained as red as crimson, I can make you white as wool!
Isaiah 1:18
God has invited us to have a relationship with Him, and relationships are built through intentional conversations. Prayer is an opportunity for us to talk to God and God to talk to us and instruct us.
To Discover More About God
Prayer is not just an invitation to commune but also an invitation to know. God wants us to know Him more and deeper, and the more we pray the more He reveals to us Himself.
3 ‘Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.’
Jeremiah 33:3
In the Book of Hosea 6:3, Prophet Hosea challenges us to press on to acknowledge God. It is in prayer through God’s word that we are able to press on to Him.
Knowing God requires intentionality, effort and not giving up.
3 For as you know him better, he will give you, through his great power, everything you need for living a truly good life: he even shares his own glory and his own goodness with us!
2 Pet. 1:3
God is indeed committed to revealing Himself to us and it is through prayer that we get to know Him better.
To Ask God
The other purpose of prayer is an avenue to ‘Ask, petition, request God’. God is our father, He is expecting us to ask Him for things, for direction, for a miracle for whatever need we have in His will.
As we draw near to Him through prayer our asking is refined and aligned to His will. We approach Him with confidence because we know He is a good father.
5 If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.
James 1:5
James in James 4:2 say’s that we do not receive because we do not ask. This is a clear indicator that God expects us to ask Him. Matthew 7:7 goes ahead and tells us that we should ask and it shall be given to us.
…You do not have because you do not ask God.
James 4:2
Asking God for either things or direction is an expression of trust. When we ask God, God aligns our will into His will and that’s where we experience effective prayer.
To Experience God
We pray to experience God in our day to day life. This is the one reason why it is important to pray as you start your day and as you end your day.
Through prayer, we can invite God into our day and watch Him align our thoughts into what He desires to do. We invite God in our hectic and stressful day to calm our Spirit.
We invite God into our marriage to heal our marriage. Prayer helps us experience God in the simplest and the most complex things in our lives.
7 I will bless the Lord who counsels me; he gives me wisdom in the night. He tells me what to do.
Psalm 16:7
God desires to instruct us into what we need to do. It is through prayer that the Spirit of God aligns our thoughts and ideas into what God desires for us.
When our thoughts and steps are aligned with Him, we experience His presence in our day, our home, our project, and our everyday activity. The purpose of prayer is for us to experience God in our day to day life.
Keep Us Alert
Once you give your life to Jesus Christ you will realize quickly that the devil is 24/7 after you. The Bible says in 1 Peter 5:8 he is like a roaring lion ready to tear you apart. Prayer keeps you vigilant and alert.
The devil will come after you in all ways and the biggest way is in the area of temptation. But the Bible has given us a solution to that, we must watch and pray.
41 Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.”
Matthew 26:41
Final thoughts
God is willing to answer our prayers, otherwise, He wouldn’t have asked us to pray. Having that mindset will give you confidence as you approach Him in prayer.
You now know the purpose of prayer, there is no more excuse why you shouldn’t spend time praying to God. Make prayer a priority and watch God “change your life”.
Is there something in this article that you found interest, helpful, challenging, weird, or even one that doesn’t make sense? Please leave a comment below and I will respond to it. You can also send a personal message to us through WhatsApp here.
We appreciate you, stay blessed, and enjoy praying.
