God Will Answer Our Prayers But
“Ask, and it shall be given to you seek, and you shall find knock, and it shall be opened to you. “For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it shall be opened. “Or what man is there among you, when his son shall ask him for a loaf, will give him a stone? “Or if he shall ask for a fish, he will not give him a snake, will he? “If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him!
God will answer our prayers and give us everything we need and more ” rel=”nofollow”> Mark 11:24, ). But a wise parent will not give a child everything he or shewants. Similarly, prayer is not a magical trick to get anything we want or a “quick fix” for problems that we should be solving ourselves. God answers prayer requests in His own way in His own time ” rel=”nofollow”> Psalms 40:1-3), and will not grant requests that are against His holy and wise purposes ” rel=”nofollow”> 1 John 5:14-15), are selfish in nature, are not in our best long-term interest, or those made with impure motives ” rel=”nofollow”> Psalms 66:18, , , , , ).
Sometimes, the answer must come from within ourselves and persistent prayer will help us find that answer. We may need a new attitude or a different way of looking at things ” rel=”nofollow”> Matthew 5:8, , ), or we may need to make amends with someone ” rel=”nofollow”> Matthew 6:14-15).
What Jesus Said About Prayer
1. Pray in humility.
And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.
2. Theres no need for repetitive phrases.
And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.
3. An example:
Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.
4. Ask God for what you need in faith.
So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you seek and you will find knock and the door will be opened to you.
What Is The Difference Between Prayer And Worship
So why the confusion, among both non-Catholics and some Catholics, about what prayer to the saints really means? It arises because both groups confuse prayer with worship.
True worship does indeed belong to God alone, and we should never worship man or any other creature, but only God. But while worship may take the form of prayer, as in the Mass and the other liturgies of the Church, not all prayer is worship. When we pray to the saints, were simply asking the saints to help us, by praying to God on our behalfjust like we ask our friends and family to do soor thanking the saints for having already done so.
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No Contact With The Dead
Sometimes Fundamentalists object to asking our fellow Christians in heaven to pray for us by declaring that God has forbidden contact with the dead in passages such as Deuteronomy 18:1011. In fact, he has not, because he at times has given itfor example, when he had Moses and Elijah appear with Christ to the disciples on the Mount of Transfiguration . What God has forbidden is the necromantic practice of conjuring up spirits. There shall not be found among you any one who . . . practices divination, a soothsayer, or an augur, or a sorcerer, or a charmer, or a medium, or a wizard, or a necromancer. . . . For these nations, which you are about to dispossess, give heed to soothsayers and to diviners but as for you, the Lord your God has not allowed you so to do. The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brethrenhim you shall heed .
God thus indicates that one is not to conjure the dead for purposes of gaining information one is to look to Gods prophets instead. Thus, one is not to hold a seance. But anyone with an ounce of common sense can discern the vast qualitative difference between holding a seance to have the dead speak through you and a son humbly saying at his mothers grave, Mom, please pray to Jesus for me Im having a real problem right now.
Why Do People Pray To Saints
I found an article explaining why Catholics pray to saints. They claim that our relationship with fellow Christians does not stop at death. When a Christian dies, his soul goes to heaven and has already been perfected. Since they are closest to heaven and they constantly pray to God, then it follows that they can be asked to pray for the living.
Priests, Catholics, and adherents to this belief system argue that they dont pray to saints, but rather pray with the saints. They claim that they dont worship saints but rather ask them to pray for them.
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What Is The Rosary
Different forms of the Rosary are prayed in Roman Catholicism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, the Baháí Faith, and Islam. It may surprise some that Hinduism also practices celibacy of the clergy, separation from the world, worship of saints, fasting, processions, litanies, and use of holy water. In each of these religions, the Rosary is made of beads on a string or knotted cord. Islam uses 99 beads and the Hindus and Buddhists use ones with 100 as well as 66 beads. Prayers are repeated as the beads are counted.
The Rosary was not used by Jesus, by His apostles, or by the early church fathers. The Roman Catholic Church started using the Rosary around A.D. 1350. Protestants do not use a Rosary. Within the Roman Catholic Church, the Rosary has five sets of ten beads. Each set of ten beads is called a decade. Each decade is separated by one large bead. Different prayers are recited for different beads. The Our Father or Lords Prayer is recited on the large bead while the Hail Mary is prayed on each of the small beads.
Should Catholics Pray To Saints
This is where people begin to have a little trouble understanding what Catholics are doing when we pray to saints. Many non-Catholic Christians believe that it is wrong to pray to the saints, claiming that all prayers should be directed to God alone. Some Catholics, responding to this criticism and not understanding what prayer really means, declare that we Catholics do not pray to the saints we only pray with them. Yet the traditional language of the Church has always been that Catholic pray to the saints, and with good reasonprayer is simply a form of communication. Prayer is simply a request for help. Older usage in English reflects this: We’ve all heard lines from, say, Shakespeare, in which one person says to another “Pray thee . . . ” and then makes a request.
That’s all we’re doing when we pray to saints.
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This Doesnt Violate Scriptures Prohibition Against Consulting The Dead
Praying to the dead is strictly forbidden in the Bible. Deuteronomy 18:11 tells us that anyone who consults with the dead is detestable to the Lord. The story of Saul consulting a medium to bring up the spirit of the dead Samuel resulted in his death because he was unfaithful to the LORD he did not keep the word of the LORD and even consulted a medium for guidance .
doesgo around close to Himyour isnt angels arent dead. didnt
And as for the dead being raised, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the passage about the bush, how God said to him, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? He is not God of the dead, but of the living you are quite wrong.
Why Do Catholics Pray To Mary
In the Roman Catholic church, Mary is seen as a mediator in her own right and therefore, worthy of receiving prayers from Christians.
Veneration of Mary and the practice of praying to her is supported by the Roman Catholic doctrine of Assumption, which holds that after she died, Mary was taken up into heaven like Jesus physically and spiritually. This was a popular idea since before the Middle Ages, but not made official dogma in the Catholic Church until Pope Pius XII declared it so in 1950.
Such unique devotion to Mary is also supported by the Roman Catholic doctrine of Immaculate Conception, which refers to Marys conception, not Jesuss conception. The doctrine states that as the mother of God incarnate, she was without the stain of original sin from her own conception. Pope Pius IX authorized this idea as official church doctrine in 1854.
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What If I Pray To God And Also Pray To Saints
As part of the Ten Commandments, God said: I, the LORD, your God, am a jealous God. In what way is God jealous? The footnote in the New American Bible says that he is demanding exclusive allegiance. God demands that acts of allegiance or worshipincluding prayerbe directed exclusively to him.Isaiah 48:11.
We offend God if we pray to anyone else, even to saints or holy angels. When the apostle John tried to worship an angel, the angel stopped him by saying: Dont! I am a fellow servant of yours and of your brothers who bear witness to Jesus. Worship God.Revelation 19:10, NAB.
Will You Still Pray To Saints
Yeshua, our Messiah, commands us that when we pray, we must pray to our Father in heaven . Paul even wants us to lift our prayers TO God . Christians can directly come before Gods throne of grace , and Christ is the one who will intercede for us . With these passages, it is clear that we dont need any dead saint to make an intercessory prayer for us!
When people pray to saints, they kneel before their pictures and statues and give an offering to the point that they worship the saint more than God. In our country, the Philippines, we have MORE festivals dedicated to saints than the festivals we have dedicated for God or Christ!
Can you believe that? And people still like to think that they dont worship dead saints but only pray with them?! Let us stop fooling ourselves and OPEN OUR EYES to the plain truth that God is not pleased with this type of worship! God would so far call it an abomination and idolatry !
Praying to saints is a VAIN religious practice. It is time to stop praying to dead people and let us start directing our prayers to God in the name of His Son, Yeshua Christ. OUR FOCUS OF WORSHIP AND PRAYER SHOULD CENTER TO GOD and not to any dead saint. It is time for us to stop following human tradition. It is time for us to stop praying to saints!
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Bible About Mary Herself
In addition, Mary was not holy. In Marys prayer, The Magnificat, Mary calls God her Savior. The prayer is found in Luke 1:47. Mary states that she needs a Savior, and she calls God her Savior. Since only sinners need a Savior, Mary admits in prayer to God that she needed a Savior. She said this just after Jesus was conceived in her womb. Jesus was not immaculately conceived.
Finally, it is amazing that the Roman Catholic Church has adopted the title Queen of Heaven for Mary. It is amazing since the title occurs five times in the Bible. Each time it is applied to the idols of the goddesses called Ashtoreth,Astarte and to the wife of Baal or Molech . Why did the Roman Catholic Church give the name of an idol to Mary? It may be that God allowed that to happen to further reveal that Roman Catholicism is a false religion.
In summary, praying the Rosary does not provide forgiveness of our sins, relief from punishment, or provide certain graces nor does it give us victory over hell. Praying the Rosary is a deceptive practice that cannot be found in the Bible. It is heretical.
Intercession For Others Isnt Optional For Christians
Love of God and love of neighbor go hand in hand. The saints are our neighbors and our brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ. When we grow in fellowship with our fellow Christians, we grow in fellowship with Christ. This is the vision of the Church that the New Testament gives to us.
2 Corinthians 1:11St. Paul commands the Christians in Corinth to pray for him.
1 Timothy 2:1Timothy commands the Christians to pray for each other
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Why Do Catholics Pray To Saints
But what does the Communion of Saints have to do with praying to saints? Everything. When we run into trouble in our lives, we frequently ask friends or family members to pray for us. That doesn’t mean, of course, that we can’t pray for ourselves. We ask them for their prayers even though we’re praying, too, because we believe in the power of prayer. We know that God hears their prayers as well as ours, and we want as many voices as possible asking Him to help us in our time of need.
But the saints and angels in Heaven stand before God and offer Him their prayers, too. And since we believe in the Communion of Saints, we can ask the saints to pray for us, just as we ask our friends and family to do so. And when we make such a request for their intercession, we make it in the form of a prayer.
Praying To The Father
In the so-called Lords Prayer, which is really a template or a specific order in which we pray, and we can see a great outline for us to use. The disciples never came up to Jesus to ask Him, Lord, teach us how to heal, teach us how to multiply bread, or even, Lord, teach us how to preach or Walk on water. The only recorded time that I have found where they asked Jesus to teach them something was when they saw Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he finished, one of his disciples said to him, Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples . They must have known and seen His prayer life and His intimate relationship with the Father and they wanted that. They had seen a similar prayer life in Johns disciples and in Jesus, more so. Jesus then gives them the starting point in saying, Father, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come . Jesus gives no other option to Whom we must pray and that is the Father, through Jesus name as He is our High Priest and Mediator .
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Intercession Of The Dead For The Living
On the basis of the intercession for believers by Christ, who is present at the right hand of God , it is argued by extension that other people who have died but are alive in Christ might be able to intercede on behalf of the petitioner .
Aquinas quotes Revelation 8:4: “And the smoke of the incense of the prayers of the saints ascended up before God from the hand of the angel.”
Both those for and against the intercession of saints quote Job 5:1: “Call if you will, but who will answer you? To which of the holy ones will you turn?”.
Jesus’ parable of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16:1931 indicates the ability of the dead to pray for the living. The intercession of the dead for the living is shown in 2 Maccabees 15:1417 an intercession on behalf of Israel by the late high priest Onias III plus that of Jeremiah, the prophet who died almost 400 years earlier. “And Onias spoke, saying, ‘This is a man who loves the brethren and prays much for the people and the holy city, Jeremiah, the prophet of God.'”
What Angels Can Teach Us About Saints
It turns out that the biblical models for prayer to the saints are more obvious than many of us realize. We can find what we are looking for in the many stories of the angels in Scripture. But, before we can present the evidence we need to make an argument as to why it is admissible.
Saints are like angels. First, we need to remember that the saints are regarded as being like angelsin that both are in heaven in the presence of God. Certainly this is a reasonable inference from the entire book of Revelation, in which both saints and angels are depicted as being present in the heavenly court. Moreover, Jesus declares in Matthew 22:30 that we will be like the angels in heaven when it comes to the absence of marrying in heaven. Finally, in 1 Corinthians 6:3 St. Paul tells us that we will judge the angels. It is safe to say that we are at least their heavenly peers.
Saints were not yet in heaven. But why do we even need to consider the angels? Assuming there is evidence of communication with the angelswhich we will get to shortlywhy are we limited to that? If the saints are on par with the angels, as argued above, then we should have plenty of examples of believers conversing with them, if we have instances of that happening with angels.
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