The beginning of June is when most of the Thy Kingdom Come prayer initiative falls this year.
As Christians we all know prayer is a good thing, we all know it’s something we should be doing, and yet I think there’s something mysterious about it which perhaps we don’t often think about.
You see if God is an all-powerful God, as we believe, then why does He want us to ask Him to accomplish things, why doesn’t He just accomplish them anyhow??
After all, Jesus tells his disciples in Matthew 6:8 that ‘your Father knows what you need before you ask Him’ (NIV).
At one level, the answer is simply that God has asked us to pray for things and therefore that’s why we do it… we do it in obedience to Him even if we don’t fully understand.
But more than that, surely it is to increase our dependence upon Him, to acknowledge before Him that on our own we can do literally nothing for Christ’s Kingdom….and of course to deepen our relationship with Him.
For Christians do not pray to a God who is distant or disinterested, but One whose children address Him as ‘Abba, Father,’ (as we see in our Memory verse this month. Galatians 4:6 NIV.)
Yours in Jesus
Chris
Thy Kingdom Come – Vicar’s Comment
The beginning of June is when most of the Thy Kingdom Come prayer initiative falls this year.
As Christians we all know prayer is a good thing, we all know it’s something we should be doing, and yet I think there’s something mysterious about it which perhaps we don’t often think about.
You see if God is an all-powerful God, as we believe, then why does He want us to ask Him to accomplish things, why doesn’t He just accomplish them anyhow??
After all, Jesus tells his disciples in Matthew 6:8 that ‘your Father knows what you need before you ask Him’ (NIV).
At one level, the answer is simply that God has asked us to pray for things and therefore that’s why we do it… we do it in obedience to Him even if we don’t fully understand.
But more than that, surely it is to increase our dependence upon Him, to acknowledge before Him that on our own we can do literally nothing for Christ’s Kingdom….and of course to deepen our relationship with Him.
For Christians do not pray to a God who is distant or disinterested, but One whose children address Him as ‘Abba, Father,’ (as we see in our Memory verse this month. Galatians 4:6 NIV.)
Yours in Jesus
Chris