Understanding Prayer in Context

Prayer is often misunderstood because we often form beliefs based on partial knowledge of Scripture. This 1-minute devotion includes multiple Scriptures on prayer to avoid that problem.

Prayer is a terribly misunderstood subject. 

Why? Because we often form beliefs based on partial knowledge of Scripture. Let me show you what I mean: 

Matthew 7:7 says ask and receive.

John 14:14 says ask anything and God will do it.

John 15:7 says ask and receive if you remain in God and His Word.

John 15:16 says ask and receive as you bear fruit for the Kingdom.

James 4:2-3 says you don't receive answers because you don't ask or because you have selfish motives.  

1 John 3:21-22 says you'll receive what you ask in prayer if you are obeying God and have a clear conscience.   

1 John 5:14-15 says ask according to God's will and receive.  

If we only know the first two verses, we'll assume God gives us anything we ask in prayer. When we know all the passages, we understand God answers prayers of sincere Christians who pray according to His will. 

It's critical that we study the full message of Scripture. 
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For a collection of seven 1-minute devotions with practical ways of improving your prayer life, see Healthy Prayer Life. If you'd like to take a longer look at prayer for individual or group study, check out the Bible Love Notes Powerful, Purposeful Prayer collection with more than forty 1-minute devotions about prayer.

You might also enjoy this 1-minute devotion about the danger of creating beliefs without putting together all that Scripture teaches: Pieces Parts.
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Prayer is often misunderstood because we often form beliefs based on partial knowledge of Scripture. This 1-minute devotion includes multiple Scriptures on prayer to avoid that problem.

Bible Love Notes

4 comments:

  1. Pam WilliamsJanuary 14, 2014 at 6:31 AM

    Excellent post, Gail! I love this progression of verses.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sewing ChickJanuary 15, 2014 at 12:17 PM

    I love this one! Thanks for the new prespective!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Joan Davis (Jo)January 15, 2014 at 7:06 PM

    True! God is not a Genie in a bottle. God does love to answer prayer, and He always does! What we can count on is that He will give the answer that is best for us. For our part, we need to align our hearts with His and then we will truly receive the desires of our hearts for we will truly want His will.

    Blessings, Joan

    ReplyDelete
  4. UnknownJanuary 15, 2014 at 10:22 PM

    God's Word doesn't contradict but we need to read it in context and compare it to other verses and passages on the same topic to get the whole picture. Thanks Gail.

    ReplyDelete

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