Praying in the Will of God

What does the Bible say?

• 1 John 5:14-15
• Matthew 21:21-22

This is where people get confused in reference to prayer.
The Bible teaches us to pray specifically and without doubting when we know God's will.
What these verses don't say is that God only hears our prayers when we pray specifically, knowing his will.
However, they do reveal that God won't answer prayer that is contrary to his will.
So now we need to break down the primary biblical categories of prayer... and there are 2, each with numerous sub-categories.

1. Petition Prayer
2. Praise Prayer

We’ll begin with the latter first because it is the simplest to wrap our minds around.

- Praise prayer is all about who God is and what God has done, is doing, and will do.
- The first Petition Prayer can be broken down into two primary sub-categories that should help us with our discussion tonight.

1. Prayer within the known will of God
2. Prayer outside of the known will of God

- The first sub-category, prayer within the known will of God, has to do with our knowledge of who God is and what God’s desires are for His children.

Where can we find these things? Scripture.
In fact, the safest way that we can know that we are praying in God’s will is to pray God’s Word.
In many instances, God's will is clearly revealed to us. The more we know Scripture, the more we can be sure of God's will when we pray.
However, the fact remains, we are human, imperfect, and weak. We won't always know God's will. His infinite thoughts, ways, plans and purposes can't always be understood by our finite, limited minds... and some things are not clearly spelled out for us in God’s Word.
It is, however, my opinion that a diligent search of God’s Word and an intimate knowledge of God Himself will clearly guide an individual, in any situation, who desires to truly and earnestly pray in God’s will.

- Which brings us to the 2nd sub-category, prayer outside of the known will of God.

There are a number of these prayers in scripture: Job petitions God for an explanation, David petitions God for deliverance and for healing, Solomon petitions God for understanding, Habakkuk petitions God for His help, and the list could continue.
So I think that the real question that we all have to answer is how are we to pray when we do not know what God’s will is in a specific situation.
This could become a very long study... if we were to break each situation that we might face down into categories (prayer for healing, prayer for financial situations, prayer for relationships, and so on) this study could go on for hours or be spread over the span of the rest of this year and well on into the next.
And in each case, if an individual would like guidance in any specific area on how to pray it would be my pleasure to offer guidance and a partner in study and searching to aid you in a pursuit of knowing God’s will.