4 Reasons God Requires Us to Pray

Here are four reasons God requires us to pray every day.

Our Daily Bread

When the disciples came to Jesus, they never said to Him, “Lord teach us how to preach, Lord teach us how to heal,” or “Lord teach us how to walk on water.” But seeing how important prayer was to Jesus, they wanted the same intimate prayer life that Jesus had with the Father. Don’t you? We should ask God every day to “give us today our daily bread” (Matthew 6:11). But I believe Jesus is talking more about the spiritual bread of life found in the Word than in physical bread, which will only result in us being hungry again. Yes, pray for your daily needs; but pray for the greatest need of all–spiritual nourishment from the living Word of God–because Jesus is the Bread of Life (John 6:35).

Our Avoiding Sin

Again, in the template or example of how we’re to pray, Jesus tells the disciples (and us) to “lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one” (Matthew 6:13) because we can’t deliver ourselves from the evil influence of Satan and his demons. We need the armor of God (Ephesians 6) and the help of the Holy Spirit to convict us of sin when we are tempted and to help us flee when temptation comes. If we resist the devil and submit to God, he will flee from us; so pray for that each day (James 4:7).

Our Link to Heaven

When we pray to God, we have a direct link to the God of heaven, Who is above all and over all. Nothing is too hard or impossible for Him to accomplish. If you don’t keep in constant contact with God, He sees this as you going your own way. But the fact is, the way of a man or woman might seem right in his or her own eyes; but in the end, it leads to death (Proverbs 21:2).

Our Duty to Give Thanks

Did you know that we are commanded to give thanks? The Apostle Paul wrote that “whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him” (Colossians 3:17). Even more specific, we are to “rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus” (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18). That is God’s will. Much of God’s will is not hidden in mystery but clearly revealed in Scripture, as Paul writes, “Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus” (Romans 12:2).

Conclusion

There are certainly more than four reasons to pray to God, but there are no less than these four. We need to pray for God to feed us daily by His Word, to help us avoid temptation and sin, and to connect us with God intimately and to give thanks for all things, for we know this is the will of God. Don’t you want to do that which is the will of God?