Pray Without Ceasing
Hi M____,
Thank you for your question, and thank you for your conclusion to your question.
You ask:
“So, outside of that, what more can we do, hope or pray for in order to effectually change, have impact on, or expect to have any different outcome at all other than “God’s will be done” already. As we know a person’s life is already written, God knows everything that will happen. Is that things will only happen in accordance with the praying that God already knows that we will do so that the outcome that God already knows will happen?
“So, what then, we had better pray according to the way we were already going to pray so that the outcome that was already impacted by the pray that we were already going to pray can, in deed, happen?”
The answer to both questions is, yes, God knows all things. The only reason He asked Adam “Where are you” was for Adam to see that He was not where he belonged. It was not so God could determine behind which tree Adam was hiding.
Moses’ petition to God to not destroy Israel was also predestined before the foundation of the world. God was working Israel’s rebellion, God’s own anger, and Moses’ “fervent prayer” for God’s mercy on Israel in spite of their rebellion.
It was all of God:
Eph 1:11 In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will:
But I like your conclusion that our lives are to be a continual prayer. It’s a scriptural conclusion:
1Th 2:13 For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received [ it] not [ as] the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe.
Then just a couple of chapters later, Paul comes right out and makes this admonition:
1Th 5:17 Pray without ceasing.
Such an admonition would be impossible if he is not telling us that we must acknowledge that our will is wrapped up in “God’s own will.”
You conclude:
“If nothing else it may be that our very lives, every breath, every thought, every action becomes a prayer until every aspect of our life is nothing but a living prayer. This is what I have sometime considered my life to be, a desire I have had, a possibility that seems available to me. Can it not be, that our lives become a living prayer, no more no less, a life in complete and total honor and glory to God………. a life long, living, active, perfect, never ending prayer? In which case prayer no longer becomes a question, an issue, a thing to do more of, less of, better of, worse of or anything than a life of continuous prayer, constantly growing in the wisdom and understanding that God gives, period. But for a matter of degree of prayer, the amount of prayer………the change of prayer for the better in quality or in quantity……………….. it can no longer be an issue or question for it just is …………. period ………….. no change, increase or effort can change this life of prayer other than what God, simply give, simply makes available, period. No need to try, no need to hope, no expectation of improvement as a result of any effort or thought we might have…………only, in this case, the thoughts that God give us will be what happens to change our life of prayer as God will have it, period?
“No need to do anything ever again, at all, but live and love…………asking God, if we are not sure: “God, what is the next most loving thing I can think or do, please” and “thank you for that” ………….. no matter what it is?”
To which I will say, Amen, so long as we do not draw from what you say here or what Paul says in Eph 1:11 that we can now do nothing. Here rather is what we are to conclude from being given the knowledge of God’s sovereignty will in our lives. It may seem like a contradiction, but that just indicates that the natural man cannot receive the things of the spirit:
Php 2:12 Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.
And why does Paul admonish us to “work out our own salvation, with fear and trembling?” The answer is that seeming contradiction, I spoke of, and it is in the very next verse:
Php 2:13 For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.
Our will is wrapped up in His will yet we are admonished to “work out your own salvation because…” our will is wrapped up in His. I pray that the Lord gives you the eyes to see and the ears to hear what is deliberately “not given unto the multitudes of Christians to see and hear” (Mt. 13:10-11).
You seem to have a good understanding of that truth already.
Your brother in Christ.
Mike
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