Christians pray. Why? There are many reasons.
- Prayer is commanded in scripture.
- Prayer is an expression of dependence on God.
- Prayer is a confession of God’s sufficiency.
- Prayer is a means of submitting to God’s will (Your will be done).
- We worship in prayer.
- We fellowship with God in prayer.
- We give to him our hearts desires.
- We ask him to do things to help us or others.
But do we expect him to answer? Do we believe he will answer.
In Acts 12:12-17, Peter has been miraculously released from prison. The church in Jerusalem were doing the right thing while he was there – they were praying for him (v5), earnestly.
Yet when the answer came, they didn’t believe it (v15-16). I find this both challenging and encouraging.
- It is a challenge because I think that a significant proportion of my praying is just praying. It’s what we do as Christians. Yet Jesus called us to believe when we pray (Matt 21:22).
- It is encouraging because in Acts 12 here, God graciously answered their prayers and Peter was released even though it seems they were not believing.
So, if we’re praying as an end in itself, I think we should start praying for greater faith (Mark 9:24). But even if we still struggle believing, we should pray anyway. He is greater than our lack of faith and more gracious than our doubts deserve
The best is yet to come 