PRAYER IS COMMUNICATION WITH GOD

Reading: John 16:23b-28

Jesus talks about prayer: “Whatever you ask the Father he will give you in my name ... Ask and you shall receive.”

You and I don’t need to be reminded to pray. It is a habit with us. Though many people won’t pray until they have reached their wits end, you and I habitually pray. We ask God for this and that - for ourselves and for others. But we don’t seem to always receive, do we?

We must remember that the primary purpose of prayer is not to change things, it is to change us. Prayer is supposed to change us, and then we change things. Prayer is basically communication with God. We talk to him, he talks to us. You know how it is with some people who have computers. They tap in to a program that enables them to communicate with people they’ve never personally met; they type messages to each other through their computers.

Though some people have gotten into serious trouble that way, it’s a way of not only meeting people, but getting to know some of them pretty well. We tell them our hopes and dreams, they let us in on their intimate secrets. Prayer should do that in regard to us and God. It should lead us to not only knowing God better but to become intimate with him. When that intimacy happens we will have arrived at “That Day” Jesus talks about:

“On that day,” Jesus says, “you will ask in my name, and I do not say that I will petition the Father for you.” We will have become so much in mind and heart with God that anything we ask will also be what God wants. Let us never get discouraged with praying. We must keep it up until we have arrived at “That Day.”