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The Purpose of Prayer

(Overcomer Wu)

“Your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him” Matthew 6:8.

Based on the above verse, the Father already knows everything that we need before we ask, why then does He still want us to pray to Him? The point of prayer is not to get answers from God, but to have perfect and complete oneness with Him. If we pray only because we want answers, we are bound to be disappointed and get irritated with God for seemingly ignoring our needs. We receive an answer every time we pray, but it does not always come in the form or in the timing that we expect. If we should get angry with the Lord for not answering our prayers in the way we expect, it only exposes our refusal to identify ourselves fully with our Lord and in His will in prayer. We are not here to prove that God conforms to our will in prayer, but that we are conformed to the mind of Christ in seeking God's will.

We too often think of the Cross of Christ as something we have to bear, yet we bear the cross for the purpose of getting into it. The Cross in our prayer represents one thing for us—the complete obliteration of our self-will, and our entire, absolute identification with the Lord Jesus Christ. There is nothing in which the cross of Christ needs to be applied to self and our flesh than in our prayer. The Lord Jesus in John 16:26 says, “In that day you will ask in My name.” In the Bible, the name designates the person or the nature of that person. Therefore, to ask in the Name of Christ Jesus is to be found in the person of Christ in our asking. And for us to be in Christ, we need to first cross out our self – our self-will, self interests, selfish plan, selfish agenda, self-glory, etc. .

“Do not say to you that I shall pray the Father for you; for the Father Himself loves you” (Jn 16:26–27). Have you reached such a level of oneness with Christ and intimacy with God that the only thing that can account for your prayer life is that of seeking only God's will and praying according to the mind of Christ? Has our Lord exchanged your self life with His transcendent life? If so, then “in that day” you will be so closely identified with Christ that there will be no distinction between His mind and yours.

Consider the things you prayed about— were you devoted to your desire or to God? Was your determination to get some gift of the Spirit for yourself or to get to God? “For your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him” (Matthew 6:8). The reason for asking is so that we may gain Christ, to know Him, and be found in Him (Phi 3:8-10). “Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of your heart” (Psa 37:4). Our purpose in prayer is to delight ourselves in God Himself and that alone should draw us to prayer. The giving of the desires of your heart is up to God to give; we should not concern ourselves with that.

Are you seeking great things for yourself, instead of seeking to gain the Great One – Christ? God wants you to be in a much closer relationship with Himself than simply receiving His gifts—He wants you to get to know Him and to share in the riches of His life and His divine grace. What we ask for in the human and material realm is transitory; it comes and it goes. We certainly cannot take with us into the next life. But what God wish to give us is something eternal that does not pass away and can never be lost.

If you have only come as far as asking God for things, sorry to say that you have never come to the point of understanding what the real purpose of prayer really means. When we do not find rest and peace in our prayer. Ask the Lord for the reason. Nine out of ten times, the Lord will puts His finger on the reason—you are not seeking the Lord at all; you are seeking something for yourself. Jesus said, “Ask, and it will be given to you” (Matt 7:7). As we draw ever closer in oneness with the Lord in prayer, you will cease asking for things altogether, for we shall see that there is someone to gain far greater than anything else we could ever ask for in this world, that is, God Himself.