Questions

John, great post, although that first paragraph could be taken wrong.

"There is a sin unto death, I do not say that you shall pray for it"

Do any of you know who has sinned unto death, and who has not? If not how shall you know whether to pray for it or not?

What I'm trying to say is that there's something intensly mystical about prayer. As John said, the Spirit leads us and "makes intercession for us according to the will of God".

Isn't it true for all of us that ordinarily, we just pray in hope that we are doing it right, saying the right things; but then at other times, we are "moved" to prayer in a specific, special way?

I believe this moving is in fact the leading of the Spirit that we all seek. There are some times that God is about to do something, and he's chosen you to be a part of it, to experience his power. I'm not talking any word-faith nonsense here. I'm talking about God working and allowing you to experience it through prayer.

Prayer is the closest thing we have to face-to-face fellowship with God.

So in the end, prayer is the way that God has chosen, at times, to accomplish His will. It is NOT the way we have decided to accomplish our own will through God's help (like a Jeanie in a bottle) - that kind of prayer is nothing but prayer to one's self.

 

"This is your brain!; This is your brain on ...!" :laugh: :laugh:

Ed

 

May I humbly congratulate all the posters on this, a novel way to start a C/A thread.

And keep it going, as well!

Ed

 

I need to find an emoticon with horns to show me on free-willism.

 

Bein' as ya' asked nicely:



Ed

 

Tom, when I was going over this thread earlier, I missed your post for some reason. Since I mentioned that "there is something intensely mystical about prayer" in my post, it looks like we have a disagreement. But the point of your post here is absolutely correct. The reason that "faith as a grain of mustard seed" is effective in removing mountains into the sea is because even the smallest faith that is planted directly in God's will, then that thing will come to pass. If God wants that mountain planted in the sea, then planted it will be.

Your use of the word mystical here seems to be in the sense that prayer is not an incantation whereby the power of God might be awakened by some magical formula of words. To this I completely agree.

When I use the word mystical I mean it the sense that there's something supernatural, spiritual, of God, about prayer. Perhaps my use of the word mystical is improper.