Coffeeville First Baptist Church
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This week in our “Glad You Asked” series, we consider questions that were asked by the church about prayer. There were three questions asked about prayer. Those questions were, “Does prayer make things happen differently than God intended,’ ‘if you say God does not heal anymore, then why do we have a prayer list,’ and ‘how do we pray?’” Next week we will answer the question, “How do we pray?” This week I will address the first two questions, “Does prayer make things happen differently than God originally intended,” and “If you say God doesn’t heal anymore, then why do we have a prayer list?” These questions are related and essentially ask, “Does prayer change God’s mind?” First, let me clarify my view regarding the question, “If you say God doesn’t heal anymore, then why do we have a prayer list?” This question likely comes from some statements I made a while back about how believers today are not given the gift of healing as we see it in the New Testament. When I said those things, I did not in any way mean to imply that God does not heal people anymore. God can certainly heal anyone He chooses, and there are documented cases of people who were told by medical professionals that they had a permanent or terminal condition only to later be declared cured or healed with no medical explanation. Also, if God chooses, He can certainly through the Holy Spirit still give someone the gift of healing. However, we just do not have any real evidence of anyone having been given that gift since New Testament times. In fact, just the opposite is true. Most who claim to have the gift of healing have easily been proven to be frauds. Their antics and deceit make a mockery of God and the true work of the Holy Spirit. To be clear, God can still heal people and does. There is just no proof that He still gives individuals the gift of healing as we see it in the New Testament. With that hopefully clarified, we come back to our main question, “Does prayer change God’s mind?” This question creates a difficult situation for us because if we can change God’s mind then He is not God, but if our prayers do not make a difference, then our prayers are worthless. “Does prayer change God’s mind?” The short answer is, “No.” Prayer does not change God’s mind. For God to change His mind would mean that His original way of thinking was wrong, and through our prayers we somehow showed God a better way of thinking or doing things. I think we would all agree that is impossible, but then we read of events such as those recorded in Exodus 32:7-14. After Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt, we told Moses went up on Mount Sinai where God spoke to Moses giving him the Ten Commandments and other instructions on how to lead the people. While Moses was away on the mountain, the people made an idol in the form of a golden calf. They proclaimed the golden calf as their god, built an altar, and started offering sacrifices to it. In response to this, God told Moses that He would bring His wrath on the people, but Moses prayerfully pleaded with God to show them mercy (Exodus 32:7-13). Is it possible that the prayers of Moses changed God’s mind? Based on what I mentioned earlier, we would say, “No,” but then we read verse fourteen. Verse 14 states, “So the Lord relented from the harm which He said He would do to His people.” To make things a bit more complicated, Moses later wrote these words in Numbers 23:19, “God is not a man that He should lie, nor a son of man, that He should change His mind.” So, which is it? Can prayer change God’s mind or not? To reconcile all this, there are some things we need to consider. The Bible clearly teaches that God is unchanging. The Bible teaches us that God knows all things past, present, and future because He has always been and always will be. Revelations 22:13 tells us, “He is the Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and end.” 2 Samuel 22:31 tells us, “God’s way is perfect, and His Word proves true.” Malachi 3:6 states, “For I the Lord do not change…” There are many other verses that speak of the immutable nature of God. His Word, His will, and His ways do not change. We also need to consider that while God is unchanging, His plans are unfolding. What I mean by this is God’s plans are shown to us over time and not revealed to us all at once. Also, there are parts of God’s purpose and plan that may never be fully known to us. 1 Corinthians 2:9-11 states, “No one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God.” Hebrews 1:1 tells us, “Faith is being sure of what we hope for, and certain of what we do not see.” There are some things prepared for us though not all those things are known to us, at least not all at one time. The passage we looked at in Exodus seems to indicate that God changed His course of action based on Moses’ prayer, but if we carefully consider that passage, we see those events were all part of God’s plan to reveal some things to Moses. You see, it was God, in verse seven, who told Moses to go down to see the situation and what the people had done. Moses was on the mountain and did not know the people had turned from God and corrupted themselves. Also, what Moses pleaded in prayer, in verse thirteen, was God’s own promise to His people. Mose said, “Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, to whom you swore by your own self, and said to them, ‘I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have promised I will give to your offspring, and they shall inherit it forever.’” When we carefully consider this passage in Exodus, we realize that Moses did not change God’s mind. The whole situation was a result of God’s plan to show Moses the rebellious and corrupt spirit among the people that needed to be dealt with. It was about aligning Moses’ will with God’s will, not the other way around. You see, prayer is not about changing God’s mind; it is about changing our minds and our ways of seeing things so that our will lines up with God’s will and His ways. I said earlier that next week we will look at how to pray but consider this. When Jesus was teaching His disciple to pray, He never told them to ask God to change. He told them to pray that God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Prayer is not about changing God’s mind. It is about aligning our will with God’s will. James 4:2-3 tells us, “Yet you do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures.” Prayer is a powerful and personal way for us to participate in God’s plans and purposes. Yet, too many of us are guilty of being amiss in our prayers, myself included, because we think prayer is all about asking God to do this or change that for us when we should be praying for God to help us align our thoughts with His thoughts, our plans with His plans, and our will with His will. That leads us into the second part of our study on prayer where we will answer the question, “How should we pray,” which we will cover next week. Does prayer change God’s mind? “No.” Should prayer change us? “Yes.” The question is, “How are you asking God to change you?”
