Updated:- Sunday, October 29th, 2023
1). Introduction
Most of the literature that I have read online defines prayer as a variety of things. Some say it’s a conversation, relationship, and open communication between God and humanity. While others claim, it’s adoration and worship. They have one feature in common: inadequate biblical supporting authority. So, what is prayer?
Table of contents
- Introduction
- What is the Nature of Prayer?
- What are the Features of Adam’s Prayer?
- How did they Communicate?
- Why did Audio-Prayer Start?
- We Must Wait to Hear Abel Prayer
- In the Presence of God
- Could we Enter or Leave the Presence of God?
- Is there a Biblical Definition for Prayer?
- Could we Have a Relationship With the Lord God Without Prayer?
- What is the Purpose of a Name in Our Prayer?
- What Necessitates Prayer?
- Is Your Prayer a Relationship?
- Our Prayers Have Moved Beyond
2). What is the Nature of Prayer?
To understand the nature of prayer we must return to its origin. Starting at the end only tells us what prayer has become. However, what was it from the beginning? If we start there then we will become aware of the components of an effective prayer.
Also, as we trace the history of prayer, and of praying from the start of humanity, we will receive a very clear understanding of it, its nature, and the motive for praying. We shall develop a fascinating definition for prayer.
3). What are the Features of Adam’s Prayer?
Not once did we read in the Bible that Adam prayed to God. Why? He had power with God, yet he never prayed. How is that possible?
So why are we even talking about him since he never prayed? But, if we perceive the reason he had so much power with God and never prayed, like we know prayer, we will comprehend prayer and praying and the reason it’s done.
Since the creation of the universe and of man, until now, prayer has been very dynamic. It transcends time. It goes beyond space, place, and people. And yet nothing is more stable than prayers to the Lord God.
The mode and motivation for praying have also evolved. Adam never prayed. He had no need for it.
4). How did they Communicate?
At first, communications between Adam and the Lord were unique. They were conversational—but silent!
Before Adam sinned there was no actual conversations between him and God. God alone would speak but Adam would act on His words.
However, after he sinned conversations between them emerged.
So, what is the definition of the exchanges between Adam and God, and God and Adam? The presence of God.
When the Lord wanted to communicate to Adam whatever He “thought” Adam knew.
Similarly, when he wanted to respond to God, whatever he thought God knows. They were connected by a very strong and powerful Wi-Fi-like network, which was possible via Adam’s living soul.
Adam only started to hear sounds, much like we do today after his Wi-Fi died. After his living soul died. After he died.
5). Why did Audio-Prayer Start?
Conversations between them weren’t for the same or similar purposes as ours are with God today.
Adam was the physical manifestation of a holy Lord God. He was His hands and feet and mouth and so on. He used him to perform physical tasks like speaking. God spoke through him.
When Adam replied to God he wasn’t asking or making petitions. He made no request of God. His whole existence was to worship Him, in all that he did.
At first, Adam lacked nothing except a wife. And even after God gave him his wife, Eve, communications between them remained unchanged. Then sin entered and changed everything.
It radicalized how they interacted; how he and his wife communicated and why.
Sin introduced audio-prayer. Before it there was no need for sound.
As a result, by the time we reached the lives of Adam’s first two sons, we observed how they interacted with God, (Genesis 4:9-16).
6). We Must Wait to Hear Abel’s Prayer
However, after Adam’s living soul died, humanity could only communicate with the Lord God audibly by speaking.
And the Lord said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: Am I my brother’s keeper?” (Genesis 4:9).
Today, is this how we pray to God? No!
Owing to the fact that Cain murdered his own brother Abel, before the latter could communicate with his God, we must wait until his substitute pray to hear him prayer.
“And Adam knew his wife again; and she bare a son, and called his name Seth: For God, said she, hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel, whom Cain slew”, (Genesis 4:25).
Spiritually, Seth replaced Abel. Therefore, after the birth of Seth scriptures describe him as the first-born instead of Cain (Hebrews 11:4).
Therefore, from a spiritual perspective, when Seth speaks it is Abel who speaks.
Consequently, the Lord utilized Abel’s spiritual substitution to introduce an audible petition by man to God because He was pleased with his offering, (Genesis 4:26).
Despite Noah finding grace in God’s eyes He never revealed His name to him.
7). Prayer – In the Presence of God
Then, as a person enters into and departs from a house, so too could one enter into the presence of God and leave it.
Thus, Adam and Eve were the first persons to open our eyes to the “presence of the Lord God“.
The Bible says, “and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden” (Genesis 3:8).
Later, the similar actions of their unrighteous son continued what the parents demonstrated first.
“And Cain went out from the presence of the Lord”, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden (Genesis 4:16).
Next, we read of Satan leaving the presence of the Lord.
“So Satan went forth from the presence of the Lord”, (Job 1:12; 2:7).
Finally, Jonah also tried to escape the“presence of the Lord”, (Jonah 1:13,10).
The Lord God communicated to them through His presence. Outside of it there was no contact. God didn’t speak to them and they couldn’t hear Him.
Again, in every epoch, the Lord God makes provision to save those who obey His commandments.
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8). Could we Enter or Leave the Presence of God?
Today, in our current quantum of time, could we enter or leave the presence of God as those before us?
The High Priest usually, stands in the presence of God and ministers clone rolex datejust ladies rolex calibre 2671 m279175 0014 chocolate dial to Him on his own behalf and on the behalf of the people.
All the works of Christ Jesus are completed. And he is our high priest, (Hebrews 2:17).
Seeing that he enters into the heavens on our behalf and he is always making petitions for us there, we cannot move out of the presence of God being obedient to Him, (Hebrews 9:24).
Therefore, were it possible to move out of the presence of God because of sin, Christ’s continual actions, in heaven, place us back into His presence?
Consequently, if we obey Jesus he will save us; therefore, he commands that “that men ought always to pray, and not to faint”, (Luke 18:1).
Note he never says that we should pray always, as most misquote this verse, but that we should always pray. Two different things.
The former is continuous prayer, but the latter is continual, that is, never forgetting or abandoning prayer.
Not only that, but we have additional assistance. Gabriel, (the Messenger from God), stands in the presence of God, and ebdesign ice mint he comes to our aid as he did to those before us, (Acts 10:31; Luke 1:19) when we pray in the name of our Lord.
He comes when we pray in the one true name that is greater than, all other names (Ephesians 1:21 & 3:15).
He came when Daniel, Cornelius, and Zacharias, Elizabeth’s husband, prayed in the name of the Lord (Luke 1:13, 19).
And he will come to your assistance when you pray in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
9). Is There a Biblical Definition of Prayer?
The Bible says nothing of prayer again until after Noah, the son of Lamech, Genesis 5:30.
A conversation is bi-directional. Noah lived to be nine hundred fifty years (950) old, (Genesis 9:29). The Lord spoke to him many times.
If “prayer is conversation with God; the intercourse of the soul with God, not in contemplation or meditation, but in direct address of Him”; then Noah never prayed.
Similarly, if : “Prayer is a spiritual communication between man and God, a two-way relationship in which man should not only talk to God but also listen to Him.”
Then, many of us are not praying and have never heard Him.
Examine the life of Noah. On numerous occasions, the Lord God spoke to him. He listened. Then he obeyed. But, not once did he converse with God. Conclusion: he too never prayed!
10). Could we Have a Relationship With the Lord God Without Prayer?
How was it possible that a man who “found grace in the eyes of the Lord”, and “walked with God”,(Genesis 6:8-9), could attain to this position having never prayed?
In every segment of time, God makes provision to save those who obey Him.
No place in the Scriptures reveals either Adam or Noah making any request of God.
Their communication (or lack of it) with Him wasn’t in request, conversation or prayer, but in obedience to His commandments, (Genesis 6:22; 7:5).
They simply listened when God spoke and did as He requested.
Therefore, Noah never called on the name of the Lord as Seth or Abraham did, (Genesis 13:4), because he was ignorant of it.
Considering our definition of prayer today, If Noah didn’t know the Lord as Jehovah and never prayed to Him, what does that say about his relationship with Him?
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11). What is the Purpose of a Name in Our Prayer?
“And to Seth, to him also there was born a son; and he called his name Enos: then began men to call upon the name of the Lord”, (Genesis 4:26).
All prayers to the Lord God involve a name “in direct address of Him”. Therefore, before Genesis 4:26, there is no scriptural reference of anyone calling on the name of the Lord God. They had no name for Him.
In other words, before that time nobody prayed to God as we perceive prayer today.
Not even Noah. He couldn’t pray without a name for his God.
“And I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name of God Almighty, but by my name Jehovah was I not known to them” (Exodus 6:3).
The following verse of scripture explains the meaning of the name Jehovah.
“That men may know that thou, whose name alone is Jehovah, art the most high over all the earth” (Psalm 83:18).
Jehovah = most high over all the earth.
He didn’t know that God Almighty = Jehovah.
12). What Necessitates Prayer?
God never appeared to Noah. But He appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, yet they never knew Him by the name Jehovah. And neither did Noah who was their predecessor.
So to recap: Adam never prayed to God before he sinned. Sin necessitates prayer. God spoke with many men after Adam, but few responded.
Revisit God and Cain’s conversation. In it, was Cain praying?(Genesis 4:9).
In many instances, the Lord was speaking to them; however, it wasn’t a dialogue, but a monologue where He alone spoke. And in other instances, whenever God spoke the person He was addressing sometimes replied.
However, these interchanges could not be described as prayers because of the nature of them. A conversation is not a prayer, neither is a prayer a dialogue.
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13). Is Your Prayer a Relationship?
Similarly, by the same token, neither is a prayer a relationship. The act of praying (to pray) is a verb. But relationship is always a noun. Nevertheless, a relationship with God will generate prayers always.
But how does a man form a bond with a Spirit? How does humanity worship a Spirit?
We also learned that Noah had power with God but did not pray. The name of God Almighty is necessary to directly address Him during prayer. He was unaware of this name.
“Unto the place of the altar, which he had make there at the first: and there Abram called on the name of the Lord [Jehovah]”, (Genesis 13:4).
Whose name do you call on in prayer?
If, during the time of Cain prayer wasn’t a request or conversation what was it?
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14). Our Prayers Have Moved Beyond This!
Our prayers have moved beyond the realm of the presence of God. They are beyond conversation, and they transcend the relationship. Owing to the finished work of Jesus Christ they have moved to a higher plane in heaven.
Speaking is just one medium by which we attain to that realm.
A name is critical for prayer to the Lord God. Therefore, as soon as you really learn to pray, and commence to utilize the name of Lord Jesus Christ in your worship of God: problems start.
But they are temporary. They come to discourage you from using the authority that’s in the name, of Jesus Christ.
As a Christian, all the problems that you will face in this life will surface as soon as you start to demonstrate your authority in Jesus’ name.
All that Apostle Paul endured he did because he received a revelation of the power of the name, of Lord Jesus Christ, (Acts 9:16).
Next, I will investigate, the “higher-level” or realm of prayer.
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God, Is Our Lord Jesus Christ, The Father, the Son,
and the Holy Ghost, and there is none else but He, Amen.
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