(August 23, 2015 at 4:35 pm)Rhondazvous Wrote: [quote='Drich' pid='1029191' dateline='1440343122']
What your sister did may have been fervent and effectual, but it was not a prayer. Look at the example of the Lord's Prayer in luke 11 starting at verse 1. It begins with recognizing God deity and authority. Then we ask for Him to usher in His final kingdom over this world, and over our own hearts and minds. Then We are permitted to ask for our daily needs, and to keep from evil... That's it. This is the only model of prayer we have been given. We don't have to pray those exact words,we can take that formula and put our own words in those subject matters. But those subjects make up what Christ Himself identified as a prayer. Everything else is petition. Petition meaning wishing or asking.
Why aren't petitions prayer? Because prayer is meant to change our minds to align ourselves with what God wants, not change what God is doing to suit what we want. That idea is perverse. Does that mean we can't ask God for stuff? Absolutly not. Paul in his writings tells us several times we are to pray and petition God. The thing is most of us (pop Christianity as well as the rest of us) no longer know the difference between the two.
If you or your sister truly wanted to pray for your cousin you should ask that she find true contentment in her heart with what ever God has or has not given her. Not to ask God to conform to her will. If not getting something like a baby determines whether or not you maintain your belief means, you don't have the basic elements need to have had even been saved to begin with. Meaning because our greatest command is to love the Lord God with all of your being. If not having a baby becomes between you and God, then you can not have the love for God that is required to accept the atonement offer by Him.
God is not a genie that we can trade worship for wishes. This is what your op says you thought/think God is. If you three, had such a corrupt picture of God why would God then answer your petition? By doing so it would only strengthen your corrupt idea of God. Why would a God who wants to love you and you love who God really is.. Why would He support something that would only take you further from Him?
Know, God indeed answers ALL prayer. We have just forgotten what prayer really is.
Quote:Mark 11:24 "Whatsoever things you desire when you PRAY..."
verse fragment theology, and you wonder why God does not answer your 'prayer.'
Again God does not answer your 'prayer' because you have a corrupt idea of Him, and to answer your prayer would only re-enforce your inaccurate view of who God is.
Your verse fragment is apart of a greater teaching that is meant to turn the faith of Peter into strong belief. it starts at verse 12, and follows through 14. then picks up again at 20 through 26. We know this because in context Jesus is speaking specifically to Peter.
Quote:Jesus didn't make a distinction between petition and prayer, so where do you get that from?It's not a new concept. Petition and or supplication is woven through out the new and Old testaments
https://www.biblegateway.com/quicksearch...rsion=NKJV
https://www.biblegateway.com/quicksearch...rsion=NKJV
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/petition
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/supplication
Again prayer is as follows because Jesus Himself told us when we PRAY say:
11 Now it came to pass, as He was praying in a certain place, when He ceased, that one of His disciples said to Him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.”
2 So He said to them, “When you pray, say:
Our Father in heaven,[a]
Hallowed be Your name.
Your kingdom come.[b]
Your will be done
On earth as it is in heaven.
3
Give us day by day our daily bread.
4
And forgive us our sins,
For we also forgive everyone who is indebted to us.
And do not lead us into temptation,
But deliver us from the evil one.”[c]
The above prayer is Christ teaching 'us' How to pray. What prayer is. And again if you look at it, Christ's prayer is about changing our hearts and minds, not a way for us to Change God's.
Quote:Why do Christians give us grief about the sanctity of life if god is going to let a baby die because the person praying didn't follow some fucking formula?The formula is not about saving a baby. it's about getting your sister to accept it maybe God's will that she first learn to love/want Him more, than the baby. Again Our greatest command is to Love God with all of our being first, and then everything and everyone else follows. If God gave her baby first, then she would be lost to Him.
If we can learn to ask for the ablity to do this our capacity to love expands 10 fold. so the 'left over love' is far greater than anything we could offer on our own.
