We run our website the way we wished the whole internet worked: we provide high quality original content with no ads. We are funded solely by your direct support. Please consider supporting this project.
Prayer and Co-Reigning with God
God’s primary objective is a world in which free agents love God and one another. For this to be possible, people need a stable environment and freely chosen, irrevocable, morally responsible say-so. Prayer is simply the spiritual side of our morally responsible say-so. We influence things by what we do through our bodies and in our communication with God.
More specifically, God’s most important goal in creation is for humans to enter into a personal relationship with him. Relationships and communication are two sides of the same coin. We relate to others only as we communicate with them and they communicate with us. Hence, it makes sense for God to design a world that strongly encourages our communication with him. He conditions what he will do and what happens in the world on the basis of whether or not his people align their hearts with his in prayer. He designed a world so that a great deal of it revolves around and hinges on our communication with him.
God designed the world not only so he will influence us but also that we might influence him. If we pray, things that should get done may get done. If we don’t, these things will not get done. Just as the outcome of events genuinely hangs in the balance of our morally responsible decisions and behavior on a physical level, so too on a spiritual level. Our prayer really does make a difference!
We may think of prayer as the central way our God-intended place of authority is restored. Because God is relational and his central goal for creation is love, almost everything he does is through mediators. God’s specific goal for humans from the start was to have us mediate his loving lordship over the earth. He created us to have dominion over the world (Gen 1:26-31). The NT declares that God wants a bride who will reign with him on earth (2 Tim 2:12). For this reason, God gives us say-so not just on a physical level but also on a spiritual level. He empowers us to pray.
We may think of prayer as an essential aspect of our co-reigning with God. He wants his will carried out on earth, but he wants it carried out in cooperation with us. Thus to a significant degree, God’s reign is applied on the earth only when we are co-reigning with him by agreeing with him in prayer.
God’s will is like a business check that must be cosigned in order to be validated. We the church are the cosigning party and prayer is our signature. (This illustration comes from Paul Billheimer, Destined for the Throne.). Hence the essence of prayer is, as Jesus taught, to align our will with the Father’s so that his rule is established on earth as it is in heaven (Mt 6:10). In prayer we begin our eternal job of mediating the Father’s will and reigning with Christ on earth.
—Adapted from Is God to Blame? pages 129-130
Photo credit: Alejandro Hernandez. via Visualhunt.com / CC BY
Category: General
Tags: Authority, Love, Prayer, Spiritual Warfare
Related Reading
What is the warfare worldview?
The warfare worldview is based on the conviction that our world is engaged in a cosmic war between a myriad of agents, both human and angelic, that have aligned themselves with either God or Satan. This is the view that is presupposed throughout the entire Bible, and it’s especially evident in the New Testament. For…
A Blessing for Ash Wednesday
Sarah (Rosenau) Korf via Compfight For those of you observing the Lenten season (and for those of you who are not), we thought we would share this poem by Jan Richardson. Rend Your Heart A Blessing for Ash Wednesday To receive this blessing, all you have to do is let your heart break. Let it…
6 Things the Church Fathers Can Teach Us about Spiritual Warfare
Image by Christina Saint Marche via Flickr Unlike our thinking today about the source of good and evil in the world, the early church fathers, including Irenaus, Athenagorus, Origen, and others before Augustine, possessed a warfare worldview. Here are 6 ideas that are common in their writings: The Reality of the “World-in-Between” The church fathers assumed…
Did God Cause the Polar Vortex?
When is this polar vortex thing going to end? It’s March, and even in Minnesota we expect to see temperatures warmer than this. With all of the sleet and cold in the south, it seems like schools are closing more than they are open. While this is not a catastrophic event like a hurricane, tsunami,…
Loving Enemies in the Day of ISIS
The following excerpt from Myth of a Christian Religion discusses Jesus’ command to “turn the other cheek.” Whatever our response to the persecution of Christians in the world, we must take this passage seriously. While this excerpt does not tell us exactly how to respond, it can be used to shape our attitude and stance…
A Lesson in Otherness
http://youtu.be/VeK759FF84s Long, long ago, a third grade teacher taught her class a lesson they will never forget. You won’t forget it either. This video is nearly 15 minutes long, but it’s so worth your time. Let’s love one another.