Remembering the Sole Purpose of Prayer
What have you been asking of God lately? What do your prayers center around? Jesus said to His disciples, "And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified" (John 14:13). That's the purpose of prayer: "that the Father may be glorified." When we pray, glorifying God should be our underlying motive and core pursuit—for what a privilege it is!
Have you ever wondered what exactly it means to give God glory? At its root, to glorify means to reveal what is hidden—as if shining a light on something worthy of exaltation. The most powerful and fundamental example of this is the Gospel of Jesus Christ—His sacrifice on the cross and resurrection from the dead for our salvation. Through Christ's work, all the hidden riches of the radiance of God—the depths of His love and Truth—became visible to the world. But the wonder doesn't stop there.
Do your prayers put a demand on the resources of heaven?
OUR GREAT PRIVILEGE
Jesus told us that we also have the great privilege of revealing God to the world. In John 17, He prayed for the disciples, saying, "And glory has come to me through them" (v. 10b). Jesus is glorified through us. When we received His salvation, we revealed Him to the world. And each time we come before Him in faith, praise His name, call upon His power, obey His Word, testify to the Good News—we are revealing Him to the world once again.
One of the essential ways we reveal Christ to the world is through our lives of prayer. God has made all the resources of heaven available to us in prayer. Why would He give us such power? To grant us our every wish? By no means!
Though we will receive an inheritance more glorious than we can possibly imagine, He has given us a greater purpose: to reveal Him until He calls us home to heaven.
TO GOD BE THE GLORY
While God does want us to pray for our needs and even our desires, prayer is for God's glory, not just for our needs. So what does it look like to glorify God through prayer?
When in prayer we align ourselves with God's will and work—that brings Him glory. When in prayer we call upon God with bold faith, trusting Him to do the impossible—that brings Him glory. When in prayer we spend time in fellowship with our Father and delight ourselves in the Lord—that brings Him glory. When in prayer we allow God to transform our hearts—that brings Him glory.
AN INVITATION FROM GOD
Prayer is God's opportunity to reveal His goodness and power. It is His opportunity to be glorified and magnified. Do your prayers give Him the opportunity to do what only He can do? Do your prayers put a demand on the resources of heaven?
As children of God, we were made for great things. We have been called to reveal Christ and to glorify the Savior, and He has given us prayer as a means of fulfilling this purpose. Is not this gift of the Lord Himself—His very presence and fellowship—astounding? He has given us Himself to enjoy if only we will take the time to do it.
Spend time today delighting yourself in who God is and what He has done. As you do, you will find yourself asking only for those things that delight His heart. In other words, your heart will be delighted in what delights His heart, and His heart will be delighted in what delights your heart. And through this relationship of shared delight, He will be glorified in you, and your joy will be complete.
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