Did They Not Pray Hard Enough

[Drich]

Of course, that must be according to the Gospel of Drippy because matt. 21:21 says:

21 And Jesus answered them, “Truly, I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what has been done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ it will happen. 22 And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith.”

When one turns to the bible to see what it says on things like prayer one can not cherry pickk or limit one's self to just on passage on the subject being discussed. Christ tells us how to pray in Luke 11 and pairs it with a parable that completes the thought that your passage in Mat starts.

Look At Luke 11
The Model Prayer
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 (God's will not our own)
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]

A Friend Comes at Midnight
5 And He said to them, “Which of you shall have a friend, and go to him at midnight and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves; 6 for a friend of mine has come to me on his journey, and I have nothing to set before him’; 7 and he will answer from within and say, ‘Do not trouble me; the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot rise and give to you’? 8 I say to you, though he will not rise and give to him because he is his friend, yet because of his persistence he will rise and give him as many as he needs. 9 “So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 10 For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. 11 If a son asks for bread[d] from any father among you, will he give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent instead of a fish? 12 Or if he asks for an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? 13 If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!”

So to ask in God's name is to Ask what ever God's wills for your life, and at the end of the passage I left, Christ tells us what the Father Wills for us.

So, I guess their "faith" was of the shitty kind, eh?

Of course, while we are on the subject, maybe you can explain this little tidbit from Luke 11:11.

11 One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.”

Who, exactly was "jesus" praying to?

Seriously?
The Prayer Starts out: "Our Father in Heaven." Who do you think He is speaking to?

After all, you guys maintain that he and "god" are one in the same. Should a god talk to himself?

We've had this discussion before. Short answer is: God is a title and not a Name. As in God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. Or If you perfer something a little more trestial It's like saying Mr, president. We only have one president that is head up the United States, but many different indivisuals have held that office and shared that title.

In turn one God, in three personages that share that same title.

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Prayer is not a formal wishing ceremony. It's not a way for Christians to change their lots in life, and it is certainly not a way to change the mind of God. Prayer is a tool used to change the mind of the one who is praying to seek and accept God's will and to make it their own.

You are wrong.

Prayer:

a solemn request for help or expression of thanks addressed to God or an object of worship.

Nowhere does it say that it is a tool to change your own mind.

, ah no. That is what man thinks prayer is. without question without doubt. Most people believe prayer to fit your defination, that's why it is defined that way. Not in dispute.

However Christ (God the Son) tells it is not a formal wishing cermony. Matter of fact in his model of prayer we are only to ask for "our daily bread." The rest we are to pray for is what God wants us to pray for. So for a bible based Christian Prayer is not about getting God to do stuff for you or a way to get stuff from God. Or so says Christ. But if you still think the dictionary trumps what Christ had to say about Christian prayer then I can only shake the dust from my feet and move on.

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The bible didn't put any disclaimers on prayer, but GUESS WHAT ... this filthy fucking apologist will.

luke 11 cinny.

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But people pray for all kinds of things, and not just to know the will of god.

It's not a sin to ask God for things, it's just not prayer. Paul in Phillipians 4 makes a distinction between petitioning God and praying. Therefore petitions/"supplication" are not prayers.

The prayer 'template' that Jesus gave his disciples asked for a number of different things, including that god provide for their basic needs, forgive their sins, and help them resist temptation (although the way it's worded would indicate that god himself is the one doing the tempting???).

Indeed, Daily Bread is what God wants you to ask for. Which makes it a prayer.

It is a channel for communication with god, and it does not seem unusual for people to pray for things that having nothing to do with changing minds or making god's will their own. Unless that's another of those phrases that can be stretched so thin that it becomes useless.

It's down right common place that 'we' have turned prayer into a wishing cermony, but that is not what Christ established, nor is it what Paul spoke of either.