Denny answers:
God works out His perfect plan through prayer.
God’s plan is His will—what He wants to happen. God’s will always happens because He is all-powerful. God’s will is always best because God is all-wise and all-good.
So if God’s plan always happens, why should we pray and ask God for things? Won’t He do His own will whether we ask Him or not?
But God commands us to pray! (See Luke 18:1 and 1 Thessalonians 5:17.) If we disobey God’s command to pray, God will still do His plan. But then we may not know He worked, and we will not be able to thank Him and trust Him more.
God uses prayer to work His perfect plan. Prayer is like a hammer. A hammer cannot hit a nail into a board on its own. But a person uses a hammer to pound the nail into the board. God uses prayer to work His perfect plan. He does not have to use prayer, but He chooses to use prayer.
For example, the church prayed for Peter who was put in prison because he preached Jesus. God answered their prayer by sending an angel to help Peter escape (Acts 12:5-11). So God uses prayer to do His will.
Jesus taught us to pray that God’s will be done (Matthew 6:10). Before Jesus was arrested, He prayed that if it were possible, God would not make Jesus bear the punishment for sinners by dying on the cross. But then He prayed, “Yet not as I will, but as you will” (Matthew 26:39c). So we should pray for God’s will, even knowing that God’s plan will happen.
Bible Truth
- “The Lord Almighty has sworn, ‘Surely, as I have planned, so it will be, and as I have purposed, so it will stand’” (Isaiah 14:24).
- “God, whom I serve with my whole heart in preaching the gospel of his Son, is my witness how constantly I remember you in my prayers at all times; and I pray that now at last by God’s will the way may be opened for me to come to you” (Romans 1:9-10).
- “This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him” (1 John 5:14-15).
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