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Prayer is a way of cultivating a personal relationship with God, by bringing to Him our needs and desires and acknowledging our dependence on Him. God loves us and wants us to open our hearts to Him.
Prayer to God for our own needs and in thanksgiving for the things He has done helps us to cultivate the greatest commandment, to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind”; prayer for the needs of others helps us to fulfill the second, “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Luke 10:27).
Prayer is not a magic formula; sometimes God wants to give us the strength to bear up under trial, rather than to take away the trial, as we would wish. All our prayers should be offered in the spirit of Christ’s prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane: “not as I will, but as you will be done” (Matthew 26:39).
God already knows our needs, so we don’t have to impress Him with fancy language. Nor is prayer a way to show our holiness to others; rather, we should offer our prayers to God in simplicity and sincerity of heart. Jesus offered His disciples a model for prayer which can still guide us today:
Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. (Matthew 6:5-13)
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