What Does Prayer Do?

What Does Prayer Do?

I once sat through a church service where the preacher said these actual words:

“It won’t do any good to pray for them. Prayer won’t change anything.”

My wife and I sat in stunned silence. Those words were written into his sermon.How could any preacher say that? How could any preacher believe that? How could any preacher even think that?

The truth is—ironically—he was probably right. His prayers won’t ever change a single thing. So this is a good place to ask the most important question you will ever ask about prayer.

What does prayer actually do?

There are many things we could say. Prayer conforms our minds to God’s. Prayer breaks our hearts for others. Prayer reveals our own desires to ourselves. Prayer unites us with other believers.

But ultimately, prayer changes things.

Prayer works. The Apostle James once wrote this:

James 5:16

“Pray for one another so that you may be healed. The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much.”

Every time we pray, something happens in heaven. There are many unbiblical pictures of what that means. There are a lot of fancy ideas and crazy pictures of how heaven works. I'm not that fancy. I'm not going to tell you that I can see what's going on in heaven and I don't have some special story to tell. All I can tell you is that God hears. Every time a child of God prays, God hears that prayer.

God hears you.

Here are the thoughts of the Apostle John on that:

1 John 5:14

“This is the confidence which we have before Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.”

But that’s only the first half of the verse. The second part is what really hits home w for me:

1 John 5:15

“And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests which we have asked from Him.”

What does that mean? Don’t ever let anyone tell you that prayer doesn’t change things. That is not the God I have come to know and love. I have seen Him at work. I know that He hears—and I know that He cares.