Why Prayer?

Updated: March 20, 2025

What is the point of asking God for stuff when you don’t usually get it? Exactly! There’s not much point in it at all, and there’s certainly no joy in it. Wouldn’t it be much better if you knew something was granted the moment you prayed for it? Jesus said that believing prayer gets what it asks for every time. His early disciples found this to be true, and say so in the Bible. So where’s the disconnect? It’s not on God’s end, of course. Could it be that we’re not doing it right?

When we pray according to His will, we know that we have what we ask for (1 John 5:14-15). So how do we know His will? He tells us His general will over and over in the Bible, and He speaks to our spirit His will about our own specific situations consistent with the Bible. You will find that God hates sickness and disease, poverty, lack, dysfunction, ignorance, and defeat more than you do (for example, read Deuteronomy 28-30).

Yet it is not just what to pray for that requires Bible knowledge, we also need to understand how to pray and when to pray. Read the Bible books Matthew through Acts to see how Jesus and his early disciples responded to need. The disciples acted just like Jesus did, and so must we if we want to see their level of success. If you need wisdom about how to respond in a particular situation, you can ask for it in faith and you will absolutely receive it (James 1:5-7).

Let’s learn the right way to pray: the Bible way, the Jesus way. Jesus said, “ask and you will receive, that your joy may be full!”

One more thing to consider about the necessity of prayer: God will not get involved unless He is legally invited to do so by those He has put in charge of His creation. This means that we, His people, must bring heaven down to earth by means of believing prayer. (See also Why Spiritual Warfare?, Why Me?, and Why Ask?)
(Matthew 6:10, John 15:7, Matthew 9:8, 1 John 3:22, John 14:12, Mark 11:24-25, John 16:24)