The service today is a Prayer Service; it is therefore expedient to talk about prayer. We can gain adequate understanding of the purpose of prayer from Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 6:8. Jesus taught that we do not have to pray like the Gentiles because even before we ask, our Father knows what we need. When we pray telling God of our needs, we do not do so as if God did not already have knowledge of them. As the omniscient, He knows everything about us including our problems. Rather, our prayers seek to align our desires to the will of God, so that in answering our prayers, his purposes, plans, and will, become the focus.
Jesus demonstrated this in his life and teachings. To fulfil the task the Father had assigned Him, He prayed at Gethsemane, not to change God’s plan and purpose but rather to be strengthened to fulfil the Father’s will for His life, which was to die on the cross to save humanity. Jesus also taught us the Lord’s Prayer, in which we say, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Prayer doesn’t change God’s purposes but it changes us in order to align with God’s purposes. May this understanding of prayer help us to pray aright with reverence and with fear.