“I’m so proud of you. You did it all by yourself without any help [from God]!” That’s what’s now popularly instilled by parents (teachers, psychologists, etc.) into children. We live in a self-serve world.
In my earliest years, when you pulled into a gas station, you waited for the attendant to fill up your tank with fuel. And then came self-service stations. Now we have self-serve ice cream, self-serve check-out counters, self-serve bank accounts, etc.
Undetectable to the human eye, we now have self-serve ministers (ordained by seminaries instead of God) who help themselves to a congregation.
Almost all believers of the bible now have a self-serve faith. They imagine somehow that the larger their prayer circle is, the more God will listen to them. Elijah’s faith, as told in 1 Kings 18:30-46, does not receive as much attention these days as the type described in James 5:13-16.
Yes, God does tell His people to pray. But why? How many realize their idea of prayer is backwards? Our prayers don’t cause God to move. God is the one who does what He will and He will do it whether or not we pray. The hard concept to grasp is why then would He have us to pray?
One reason it’s hard for God’s elect (impossible for the unregenerate) to comprehend something so insulting is because of not being humbled enough to realize just how much we need God and God does not need us. God owes us nothing. We owe all of our being to Him. With the gap that exists between mankind and God, it’s not hard to understand why He needed to remind us in Isaiah 55:8-9 about trusting mankind to rule.
Every time God (not self) places us in the position to pray, He does it to work out the salvation that He originally gave us in the first place. From the human perspective, it seems we’re being proactive (because our will does act). Since God is the one who saves us (from our slavery to sin) for His use, He also will use our prayers. He will even let those who are not saved to be deceived into thinking He answers their prayers for them (to explain that statement would make this post way too long).
God instructed us to pray, “as it is in heaven,” in Matthew 6:10. That means “It is finished.” When Jesus said that in John 19:30, he didn’t just mean His work on earth. Christ’s work on earth was a by-product of God’s will that was already done in heaven before He even created the world. This is why the LORD wanted to do His heavenly Father’s will.
If mankind couldn’t believe that his prayers ultimately held the power to possibly control the fate of events, most would never pray. Prayers have power, but only those which God has inspired.
When someone prays believing that his prayers control God’s behavior, it reveals that he has twisted around what God says in Philippians 2:12-13. He has self-served himself to self-righteousness by thinking that he accepted Christ as his Lord and savior, while God waited helplessly in heaven hoping that He [God] would be elected by him (as if God was the lottery player and man was the one who possesses the wealth).
These self-gods are the false Christs and false prophets (mentioned in Matthew 24:24) Satan sends out to deceive (if it were possible) those who seek peace from the torment of guilt. They bend the truth by rationalizing that God knew ahead of time they would choose Him. One or the other is Almighty, so since God knows 100% of the future (He designed it) and man can’t, then how can it be logical that man is in control of it?… or is that too deep for most to try comprehending?
Because demonic spirits are allowed to roam this earth, there are people with a limited degree of capability to foresee some future events and have some psychic abilities. This is why the bible warns against this practice of witchcraft and fortune telling. It does exist. It can even appear to be used for the ‘good’ of mankind.
To believe that God submits His will to man’s desires expressed in prayer, is a subtle form of witchcraft. When prayers are the effect of God’s spirit abiding in His children, God is using those prayers to exercise the faith He has placed in them (e.g., Elijah) for their spiritual growth. It’s how God draws His own into a closer and more dependent relationship with Him.
It’s the opposite of our physical maturity. As babies, we depend on our parents tremendously. The goal of growing up is to become more independent so that we’re mature enough to meet the needs of our own children when they’re born. If we don’t gradually substitute our dependency upon our parents with one towards God, we end up living our lives in rebellion against God. Why it happens naturally is explained in Jeremiah 17:9.
Matthew 18:19 can be misleading if it is not compared with other scripture verses. At first, it seems like God is reacting to the action of two people agreeing on earth. In a way, He is… but these two people who are doing the asking are desiring God’s will to be done. They are doing so because what they are touching upon is a result of the thoughts God has placed into their minds. They are doing what’s said in 2 Corinthians 10:5.
All Christians belong to the Kingdom of God and all are Kings who rule over self (i.e., have true self-control). Proverbs 21:1 tells us that our hearts (minds) are turned whatever way the hand of the LORD wills. Those who pray for God’s will to be done, shall permanently grow into God’s will. We have this promise in Philippians 1:6.
Psalm 37:4 is also evidence that prayer is the symptom of God’s spirit at work in His children. When prayers are not inspired by God, they reflect a delight to serve self and God warns what may become of those prayers in James 4:3.
Why would God tell us to take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ when He [God] is the one who controls what way every individual’s heart goes (e.g., Exodus 7:13)? Because from our perspective, it’s impossible for us to see God steering our heart.
Without the faith of Christ, we are left to believe that we are the masters of our own destiny. God puts us to the test with every choice He gives us. We are responsible and accountable for what we do and/or don’t do.
For those who are His, we work (i.e., control self/thoughts) out what He worked in. As for the other 97%, what’s worked out are the symptoms caused by sin worked into human nature.
Symptoms are those things which work their way out and causes are those things which have worked their way in. As spiritual deception increases, causes are increasingly mistaken for symptoms and symptoms are mistaken for causes.
