Prayer is essential to faith.
“When Christ comes again will he find faith on the earth?”
“It is not only important that we know how to pray but it is also important that we know how to receive answers.”
Prayer is essential to developing faith. When the Lord comes again, will He find a people who know how to pray in faith and who are prepared to receive salvation? “For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.”
For us, miraculous healing, powerful protection, divine knowledge, liberating forgiveness, and precious peace are among the answers that come when we offer up a “soul’s sincere desire” in faith.
We pray to our Father in the name of Jesus Christ, by the power of the Holy Ghost, thus engaging all three members of the Godhead in our utterances.
I’d never considered the significance of the fact that we engage all three members of the Godhead.
President Henry B. Eyring shared that his father’s prayers during a losing battle with cancer taught him the deeply personal relationship between God and His children:
“When the pain became intense, we found him in the morning on his knees by the bed. He had been too weak to get back into bed. He told us he had been praying to ask his Heavenly Father why he had to suffer so much when he had always tried to be good. He said a kindly answer came: ‘God needs brave sons.’
“And so he soldiered on to the end, trusting that God loved him, listened to him, and would lift him up. He was blessed to have known early and to never forget that a loving God is as close as a prayer.”
As sons we need to be prepared to have our bravery tested from time to time.
We pray in the name of Jesus Christ because our salvation is in Christ, and “there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.” We come unto the Father in the sacred name of Jesus Christ because He is our Advocate with the Father and He does plead our cause. … We never want to take His name in vain with rote and repetitious words.
Interestingly, many of us are more likely to take his name in vain while praying than in anything else we say.
We pray by the power of the Holy Ghost because “he that asketh in the Spirit asketh according to the will of God.” When we pray with faith, the Holy Ghost can guide our thoughts so that our words harmonize with the will of God.
This is how the will of the child becomes aligned with the will of the Father.
“It is not only important that we shall know how to pray, but it is equally important that we shall know how to receive the answer to our prayer, to be discerning, to be alert, to be able to see with clear vision and understand with clear intention God’s will and purpose concerning us.” – Melvin J. Ballard
The answers we receive in prayer may not be what we would desire. But in times of trouble, our prayers become a lifeline of love and tender mercy. In our pleading, we may be strengthened to go forward and fulfill all that we have been ordained to do. To His Saints living in perilous times, the Lord says, “Let your hearts be comforted … ; for all flesh is in mine hands; be still and know that I am God.”
As we become spiritually mature we come to recognize the lifeline even when the answer is not what we might wish.
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