Classical View and the Great Misunderstanding

Prayer at a very elementary level is understood to mean a request for God to do something.  One fundamental question that most people have asked, is what is the purpose of prayer if God knows all things and we expect Him to already be taken care of us.  These two assumptions are partially true as evidenced in many scriptures such as:

We all need to remember that all of mankind, that includes Believers, are sinful and everyone can experience suffering for many reasons.  The unsaved world does not realize that God does manage the Earth and so much more, where all of us are not appreciative of what God does routinely.  Through our thoughts and actions, we prove that we take God for granted, along with not being grateful. 

For the Believer, we will not be able to fully comprehend, appreciate, love and show gratitude for not only the Gift of Jesus Christ but also for what God has done for us in our mortal lives until we are in Eternity.  This is partially what Revelation 1:7 is describing along with Revelation 21:4 description of wiping away every tear.

Prayers by Mankind that are not Saved

As we know from the Scriptures, before the foundations of the Earth, God planned the death of His Son Jesus Christ on a cross for the payment of our sins so that we could have a way for us to be reconciled with Him, along with so much more!  The payment makes us justified when we ask Jesus Christ to be our Savior, but there is so much more happening to us and for us.

If someone has not accepted Jesus Christ as their Savior, then in a high-level view, God is not necessarily protecting that person, stopping them from doing harm to themselves, and not necessarily going to answer their prayers other than the one prayer to ask for Salvation.

What is Prayer and the Purpose of Prayer

It is the opinion of many Biblical Scholars and this author, that Christians make Prayer to complicated and do not understand the purpose of prayer.   We all know how to ask God for something, but Prayer is something richer and deeper.  We should be in a prayerful state in our entire conscious life.

1. Prayer is a conversation with the triune God through Jesus Christ with the intention of having a respectful, loving and worshiped friendship.
2. Prayer is simply just talking to God in our thought process, which can be done silently or verbally that may involve asking for God to do something along with thanking Him for everything in our lives.
3. Prayer gets us involved in the plans that God has for us and others because the Holy Spirit will draw attention to many aspects in our lives and others which God has Plans for us.
4. Prayer changes our thoughts because of the influence of the Holy Spirit in our thoughts while in Prayer.
5. Prayer will give us strength and Faith.
6. Prayer is being aware of God's creation with the thoughts of thankfulness which we want God to hear.
7. Prayer is seeing and being aware of the evidence of God's work through ourselves into other's lives.
8. Prayer is letting God know that we want Him to help us with our problems and concerns, where we want to use His way and not our way for the solutions.

Exclusions and Caveats to Power in Prayer

There are Exclusions and Caveats to the power of prayer:

1. We have to be in a state of respect, humbleness, friendship and repentance for prayer to be effective. 
   (a) It is still God's perfect understanding of what is best for us on any request, so we can take solace on prayers that are not fulfilled until another season
   (b) Sin, according to scriptures, has an effect of pushing away from God.
2. We should not be asking for anything which we know is contrary to what we know would be God's desires for us and others.

   James 4:3

   When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.

3. Praying repetitious mantras does not make a prayer more powerful, urgent or convincing to make God do something. 

   Matthew 6:7

   And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words.

4. We should not use a formula based on any type of step-by-step process unless we do not know how to pray and we are learning how to pray.  God desires a relationship which means coming to Him just like Jesus Christ told us to call God "The Father". 
   (a) J Vernon McGee once told his congregation about a woman who said something to the effect of:  "Stop making long prayers and just go ahead and ask Him what you want.  He is your Daddy!"  In other words, talk to God like you would want your children to speak to you.
5. If you do not know how to pray then it is okay to use outlines such as:
   (a) The "Prayer of Jabez in 1 Chronicles 4:10
   (b) The Lord's Prayer in Matthew 6:9-13,
   (c) Jonah's Prayer of Salvation in Jonah 2:2-9,
   (d) and so many others,
   but as pointed out above in this topic, we need to strive for a relationship in our prayers.

Pray Specifically!

Some of this author's favorite Biblical Teachers from many decades ago spoke about the mandatory aspect of prayer which requires us to be specific, so that God will be revealed in the outcome.  There is of course times when prayer needs to be generalized for help, guidance and reassurance.

Praying specifically is very similar to how all of us would approach our earthly parents for needing something as children.  In our working life, we approach our manager with specifics also.  It doesn't help if we were to ask for help on homework from our parents but don't tell them the subject.  It would be very unprofessional to ask a manager for help, but not give specifics.  Our prayers should be on specifics also.

As an example, I have had many occasions that I was amazed on how accurate a prayer was answered and managed by God.  My favorite example is needing a nice car that got great gas mileage because of long commute to job locations.  At that time there was ever increasing prices on gasoline and diesel which was causing specific brands of cars that got great mileage per gallon to be in high demand. 

I went to prayer and asked God to guide my choices on a specific car with very detailed attributes using a website's car purchase wizard.  I selected the brand, model, exterior and interior colors, standard 6 speed transmission (not automatic), diesel, sun roof, tow package and high-end multi-media system.  Note that standard transmissions and tow packages on cars are very rare in the location that I live, even to this day.

When I went to a dealer, I didn't tell him any specifics on a model that I was interested in test driving.  The salesman said there only a few models left with a three month wait list.  I asked to let me see what they had on site, and the salesman started to tell me that I will probably not be interested in them because of their specific's features, which in two of the models was a standard transmission.  You are already probably jumping ahead of my story.  One of the cars had exactly everything that was prayed for, and I got a discount of $2,500 because they wanted to sell the car that God had picked out.  Note that I have driven rental cars in Scotland for many years, which were always standard transmissions, and I found that I loved the feel of standard driven car, where most Americans do not like standard driven cars.

What to read next?

What is Salvation?  Is it possible to lose Salvation?  We have eternal life.  Evolution is not real.  When a Christian suffers is there benefits from it.  Rewards in heaven.  Do we Tithe?  What does the 3rd Commandment tell us?  What is Grace and Mercy?  Is there an Age of Accountability?  Is there a place of unending punishment and exile form God?