There are many instances in scripture in which God shows us that our prayers influence his behavior.
When Solomon is dedicating the temple in 2 Chronicles 7, God speaks to him in verses 13-16, saying:
When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command locusts to devour the land or send a plague among my people, if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land. Now my eyes will be open and my ears attentive to the prayers offered in this place. I have chosen and consecrated this temple so that my Name may be there forever. My eyes and my heart will always be there.
This is powerful because we now know that we are the "temple of Christ" (1 Corinthians 6:19) and he hears us and responds to us in the same way in today's world.
James 5:13-18 teaches that prayer can help those in trouble, sick, or needing forgiveness. In fact, prayer can even influence the natural world:
Is anyone among you in trouble? Let them pray. Is anyone happy? Let them sing songs of praise. Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise them up. If they have sinned, they will be forgiven. Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. Elijah was a human being, even as we are. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops.
The Bible also teaches us to pray without ceasing, in confidence, and for good gifts. Luke 11:5-13 provides Jesus' teaching:
Then Jesus said to them, “Suppose you have a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I have no food to offer him.’ And suppose the one inside answers, ‘Don’t bother me. The door is already locked, and my children and I are in bed. I can’t get up and give you anything.’ I tell you, even though he will not get up and give you the bread because of friendship, yet because of your shameless audacity he will surely get up and give you as much as you need.
“So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.
“Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”
We see God honoring truly desperate prayer, as well in Luke 18:1-8. In the rest of the scriptures, we see God answering prayer over and over again. However, the Bible even gives us an instance of God changing his mind when he saves a king from death. Isaiah 38:1-6 says:
In those days Hezekiah became mortally ill. And Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz came to him and said to him, “Thus says the Lord, ‘Set your house in order, for you shall die and not live.’” Then Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the Lord, and said, “Remember now, O Lord, I beseech You, how I have walked before You in truth and with a whole heart, and have done what is good in Your sight.” And Hezekiah wept bitterly.
Then the word of the Lord came to Isaiah, saying, “Go and say to Hezekiah, ‘Thus says the Lord, the God of your father David, “I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears; behold, I will add fifteen years to your life. I will deliver you and this city from the hand of the king of Assyria; and I will defend this city.”’
In Numbers 14:11-20, God also changes his mind about destroying the entire nation of Israel due to prayer:
The Lord said to Moses, “How long will these people treat me with contempt? How long will they refuse to believe in me, in spite of all the signs I have performed among them? I will strike them down with a plague and destroy them, but I will make you into a nation greater and stronger than they.”
Moses said to the Lord, “Then the Egyptians will hear about it! By your power you brought these people up from among them. And they will tell the inhabitants of this land about it. They have already heard that you, Lord, are with these people and that you, Lord, have been seen face to face, that your cloud stays over them, and that you go before them in a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. If you put all these people to death, leaving none alive, the nations who have heard this report about you will say, ‘The Lord was not able to bring these people into the land he promised them on oath, so he slaughtered them in the wilderness.’
“Now may the Lord’s strength be displayed, just as you have declared: ‘The Lord is slow to anger, abounding in love and forgiving sin and rebellion. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation.’ In accordance with your great love, forgive the sin of these people, just as you have pardoned them from the time they left Egypt until now.”
The Lord replied, “I have forgiven them, as you asked..."
God honors prayer so much that he is even saddened when nobody prays on behalf of a people group to save them. He wants to hear our prayers, according to Ezekiel 22:30-31:
“I looked for someone among them who would build up the wall and stand before me in the gap on behalf of the land so I would not have to destroy it, but I found no one. So I will pour out my wrath on them and consume them with my fiery anger, bringing down on their own heads all they have done, declares the Sovereign Lord.”
God asks for intercessors in Isaiah 59:15-16, as well. Also, we can see throughout the Bible all of the beautiful ways in which God responds to our prayer, as miraculous as it sounds to us feeble humans.
There are also many instances in scripture in which God shows us that our prayers influence our behavior.
It is first helpful to recognize that the Holy Spirit is who helps us pray. Ephesians 6:18 says, "Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit." Furthermore, Romans 8:26-27 says, "In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God." 1 John 3:24 says, "The one who keeps God’s commands lives in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us." We pray through the Holy Spirit's help.
Jesus even explains that the Holy Spirit is here to help us to be with the Son and in the knowledge of the Father in John 17:20-26. He wants us to be one with God and in his love. How better than through connection with the Holy Spirit and through prayer? The passage reads:
“My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.
“Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.
“Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.”
We see in this passage that God does, in fact, want to provide revelation to us. He wants to make himself known at all times. All we need to do is ask. Ask for him to speak to you.
James 4:2-3 reads, "...You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures." In this passage, he may be discussing physical entities, but how much more does he want to give us knowledge? 2 Corinthians 2:14 says, "But thanks be to God, who always leads us as captives in Christ’s triumphal procession and uses us to spread the aroma of the knowledge of him everywhere." If we are the aroma of the knowledge of God and we represent him to the world, how much more deeply does he want intimacy with us?
God is a personal God, speaking to his people in personal ways. We simply need listen.
I am going to end this post with the book of Habakkuk. The book is set up with the prophet questioning God and then getting response. How much more should our prayer be both communicator and receptor?
I am confident that prayer allows for many benefits, including the ability to be heard by God and to hear God. He wants the effects of prayer to be a change in behavior. He wants true, intimate relationship with us.
This means that, in prayer, we should not only expect to be speaking to the living God, but we should be happily entering into conversation with him, listening for what he has to teach us as well about himself, us, and the world.
“Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.
“Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.”
We see in this passage that God does, in fact, want to provide revelation to us. He wants to make himself known at all times. All we need to do is ask. Ask for him to speak to you.
James 4:2-3 reads, "...You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures." In this passage, he may be discussing physical entities, but how much more does he want to give us knowledge? 2 Corinthians 2:14 says, "But thanks be to God, who always leads us as captives in Christ’s triumphal procession and uses us to spread the aroma of the knowledge of him everywhere." If we are the aroma of the knowledge of God and we represent him to the world, how much more deeply does he want intimacy with us?
God is a personal God, speaking to his people in personal ways. We simply need listen.
I am going to end this post with the book of Habakkuk. The book is set up with the prophet questioning God and then getting response. How much more should our prayer be both communicator and receptor?
I am confident that prayer allows for many benefits, including the ability to be heard by God and to hear God. He wants the effects of prayer to be a change in behavior. He wants true, intimate relationship with us.
This means that, in prayer, we should not only expect to be speaking to the living God, but we should be happily entering into conversation with him, listening for what he has to teach us as well about himself, us, and the world.
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