You Have To Know Why You Pray by Paul Dean

We’ve all heard the story of the young wife who cut off both ends of the ham before cooking it. When her husband asked her why – she didn’t know; that’s the way her mom always did it. Sensing she was missing some valuable information she went to her mom with the question. Answer: “I only had one pan and it was too small for the ham.” Well that leaves one a little hungry in more ways than one.

You have to know why you pray. Question: why do you pray for God to save people if God doesn’t overcome a person’s will and that person’s natural bent against Him? If you believe that people choose God, why do you pray? Or, how about this question: if God is sovereign and will unfailingly save His elect, why do you pray? If what will be will be, why pray? It seems we have two ends of a ham here.

Paul says something interesting to the Thessalonian believers; heknows they are God’s elect: that they’ve been chosen by God. He knows God chose them because he sees the evidence of God at work in their lives (1 Thess. 1:2-10). He says the reason they were saved is because the gospel they heard was accompanied by the Holy Spirit’s power. They did not believe the gospel on their own; they were enabled by the Holy Spirit and that’s why Paul thanked God for them. He didn’t thank them for coming to Christ or for being good Christians; again, he thanked God for changing them.

So the answer to our first question seems simple enough. We pray because God does overcome a person’s will and natural bent against God. We pray for God to change people’s hearts. Whether we fully embrace intellectually God’s sovereignty in salvation, we all embrace it practically when we pray. Those who argue God won’t violate a person’s will actually pray that He does just that (if they pray for God to save people). Let’s leave that end of the ham on.