God’s promises and our prayers
by Pastor Joshua Pfeiffer
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All these were constantly devoting themselves to prayer, together with certain women, including Mary the mother of Jesus, as well as his brothers (Acts 1:14).
God makes promises to us, but he also asks us to pray for things. How do these two go together? On the one hand, a person may think, if God has promised something, surely there is no need to pray. On the other hand, someone could suggest that even if God has not promised a certain gift, perhaps we could still coerce him if we only pray hard enough? Both take us down spiritually unhelpful paths. We see the middle path in our text today, where God’s promises and our prayers are kept together.
In Acts 1, we have the account of Jesus promising the gift of the Holy Spirit before his ascension. He says this will be the power the disciples need to be his witnesses to the ends of the earth. But even though this promise of Jesus is as clear as they come, when the disciples gather again in Jerusalem, what do we find them doing? Not simply going about recreational activities or even piously waiting in silence. Instead, we find them devoting themselves to prayer. It doesn’t say explicitly what the content of these prayers was, but I sense that this connects with the promise of the Spirit they just received.
In other words, the promises of God and our prayers can never be played off against each other, but instead, belong together. In fact, it is precisely because God has promised something that we can be confident and bold in asking him for it. Martin Luther picks up on this reality in his explanations of the first four requests in the Lord’s Prayer. Namely, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, and give us today our daily bread. For example, he says, ‘God comes to rule as king even if we don’t ask for this to happen. But in this prayer, we are asking: “Father, come and rule over us”’.
Are you struggling to pray? Why not read a little section of Scripture, look for a promise of God, and turn this into a prayer? The promises of God and our prayers belong together.
Heavenly Father, thank you for the promises in your word. Help me not to use them as an excuse to neglect my life of prayer. Lead me, by your Spirit, to pray according to your promise. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
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