“You do not have because you do not ask” (James 4:2).

Ever ask yourself this question:  Why prayer?  If God is sovereign, totally in charge, and He knows all things and can do anything, then why require prayer of us?  Well, there are many answers to this question.  And we do not have time to go into an extensive study of prayer.  Suffice it to say that prayer is His plan.  God has ordained that prayer is the means by which He chooses to work on this earth.

I remember coming across a quote from John Wesley many years ago.  Wesley said, “God will do nothing but in answer to prayer.”  Whoa.  Nothing?  God does nothing unless someone prays about it?  Yep.  That’s what Parson John said.  And if you think about, that is the pattern we see both in Scripture and throughout the history of God’s people.  We see the Lord waiting on the petitions of His children before He acts.  Or not acting if His people do not pray!

Does this deny the sovereignty of God in any way?  Indeed not!  God decrees what He will, and it will be done.  However, God also decrees how He will.  And divine plan for humanity is that the sovereign will of God is accomplished through human agency, specifically (and most powerfully) through prayer.  God not only determines what will be done in history, but the means for it being accomplished.  And His greatest and most effective vehicle for His will being done on this earth is nothing less than prayer.

One arresting example of this is found in Ezekiel 22:30-31.  In this passage the prophet catalogues the sins of Israel.  At the end, the Lord speaks and says, “ ‘So I sought for a man among them who would make a wall, and stand in the gap before Me on behalf of the land, that I should not destroy it; but I found no one.  Therefore I have poured out My indignation on them; I have consumed them with the fire of My wrath; and I have recompensed their deeds on their own heads,’ says the Lord God.”  Do you the picture?  God sees the sins of His people.  His holy justice and righteous nature demand judgment on their sins.  Yet, in His mercy and compassion He desires to withhold retribution.  So the Lord seeks for an intercessor, someone to stand in the gap and plead for the people.  If this happens He can hold back His judgment.  But there is no intercessor.  No man stands between God and His wrath.  So the Lord acts in justice and chastises Israel.  Wow!  The lack of prayer results in judgement from God.

This illustrates how necessary prayer is.  It is the modus operandi of God’s kingdom.  It is how things get done in the church, and in the world.  As Charles H. Spurgeon, that prince of preachers, said: “Like it or not, asking is the rule of the kingdom.”  This is also why Dwight L. Moody said, “Every work of God can be traced to some kneeling form.”  Want something done for the Kingdom of God?  Pray!  Want to see God work?  Pray!  Want people to change?  The church to grow?  The world to be different?  Pray!

This makes me ask myself—what is not getting done because I am not praying?  Something to think about.

“Prayer surely does influence God.  It does not influence His purpose.  It does influence His action.  Everything that ever has been prayed for, of course I mean every right thing, God has already purposed to do.  But He does nothing without our consent.  He has been hindered in His purposes by our unwillingness.  When we learn His purposes and make them our prayers we are giving Him the opportunity to act.” – S. D. Gordon