{"id":2885,"date":"2010-03-10T10:00:51","date_gmt":"2010-03-09T23:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/?p=2885"},"modified":"2010-03-10T10:00:51","modified_gmt":"2010-03-09T23:00:51","slug":"why-pray-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/2010\/03\/10\/why-pray-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Pray? &#8211; #2"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Continuing on with <em>Why Pray?<\/em>, inspired by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.raystedman.org\/\">Ray Stedman\u2019s<\/a> book, <strong>Talking with My Father, Jesus Teaches on Prayer. <\/strong>\u00a0Read his book, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.raystedman.org\/talking\/\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><strong>\u00a0So, <span style=\"color: #ff0000\">why pray?<\/span> Because <span style=\"color: #ff0000\">prayer transforms our life<\/span><span style=\"color: #ff0000\">.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0There is an old saying, <em>\u201cSeven days without prayer makes one <span style=\"text-decoration: underline\">weak<\/span>.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Ray Stedman writes that prayer is to be our life and our breath and as prayer was the secret of the Lord\u2019s amazing life, therefore, we know WE MUST PRAY. He also says that the purpose of prayer is not to give information to God, but to <strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline\">change us.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8230;. the purpose of prayer is not to inform God about our needs, but to conform us to His will. Prayer doesn&#8217;t change God. Prayer changes us. It changes our attitude from complaint to praise. It enables us to participate in God&#8217;s eternal plan. It makes us aware of our total inadequacy&#8211;and God&#8217;s infinite sufficiency.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong>People who are familiar with the strengthening ministry of prayer in their individual lives have an undeniable joy and glow that is wonderful to see. They can approach every circumstance with that compelling air of triumph that marks the authentic Christian faith, and in their lives the ministry of prayer is very evident.<\/p>\n<p>God is relevant to life-and knowing God enlarges life\u2026God is the ultimate reality, and we are intended to know Him and experience Him on a daily basis. When we do so, life becomes vibrant, exciting, and awesome.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><em>\u00a0<\/em>Without oxygen, our\u00a0physical body dies.\u00a0Without prayer, our spiritual being dies. Prayer draws us closer to God, it strengthens us to face daily challenges and it transforms us into the person that God desires us to be. (2 Corinthians 3:18)<\/p>\n<p>See also <a href=\"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/2010\/03\/03\/why-pray-1\/\">Why Pray &#8211; #1<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/2010\/03\/03\/why-pray-1\/\"><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Continuing on with Why Pray?, inspired by Ray Stedman\u2019s book, Talking with My Father, Jesus Teaches on Prayer. \u00a0Read his book, here. \u00a0\u00a0So, why pray? Because prayer transforms our life. \u00a0There is an old saying, \u201cSeven days without prayer makes &hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/2010\/03\/10\/why-pray-2\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2885"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2885"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2885\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3143,"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2885\/revisions\/3143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}