QQ98-99. What is prayer and what rule hath God given for our direction in it?

A (98). Prayer is an offering up of our desires unto God, for things agreeable to his will, in the name of Christ, with confession of our sins, and thankful acknowledgment of his mercies.

A (99). The whole Word of God is of use to direct us in prayer, but the special rule of direction is that form of prayer which Christ taught his disciples, commonly called, The Lord’s Prayer.

Brakel begins his section on prayer by noting how Genesis 4:26, in its language that, “Then began men to call upon the name of the LORD,” that this shows “the exercise of religion … comprehensively expressed.”1 In other words, when Moses was inspired by the Spirit to describe in the shortest of ways how human beings turned to God and remained the faithful line, as opposed to Cain’s line, the description was boiled down to prayer. This speaks to the centrality of prayer. As there are bare essentials of doctrine, so there are the same in practice. If all else faded away, one would have this spiritual life support which is supplied with divine promises and power sufficient to begin giving renewal to any other discipline that has languished.

The Nature of Prayer

The first two clauses balance each other out—but they do not cancel each other out. That is the most crucial thing that may be said in this place. Many Christians live on these two extremes: either prayer means what it holds itself out to be and I do, as Paul says, “do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God” (Phi. 4:6) whatever they are; or else all of that is really just narcissistic and there is no actual expectation at all. But here we see that it really is AN OFFERING UP OF OUR DESIRES UNTO GOD. So,

“Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your heart before him; God is a refuge for us” (Ps. 62:8) 

And then immediately following, FOR THINGS AGREEABLE TO HIS WILL. A crucial verse is in 1 John, which I would ordinarily save for the petition, “Your will be done” (Mat. 6:11), yet these words in this answer force it here: “And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him” (1 John 5:14-15). Many may be inclined to pit the second part of that verse against the first; but actually the condition is already laid down: “if we ask anything according to his will.” How then do we reconcile this to our desires? The Psalmist gives us a significant clue. 

“Delight yourself in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him, and he will act” (Ps. 37:4-5).

The way to find the harmony between your desires and God’s will is to grow your desires into God’s will—not to banish desire or ignore His will. Prayer is given for this growth. Heidelberg Q.116 actually uses the language, “as earnestly and without ceasing, beg them from Him.” This is biblical language. For example, “Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart” (Jer. 29:12-13). And of course, what did Jesus say? “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you” (Mat. 7:7).

The clause IN THE NAME OF CHRIST calls attention not only to His authority being the way of access, but also to the fact that only Christians can expect that access. Prayer is not a hearing offered to rebels to the King. Why would we expect it to be? This is a general rule, as in, “If I had cherished iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have listened” (Ps. 66:18); and, “[the] Lord is far from the wicked, but he hears the prayer of the righteous” (Prov. 15:29; cf. Jn. 9:31). But what does it mean to ask “in His name”? Is it a formula? It is simply a reminder to formally end our prayers with those words? The idea of THE NAME, in the Bible, speaks of the authority of someone. To pray in “Jesus’ name” is to address God as those who have a right of entry that those not in Christ do not have. If it is a formula, then it is a formula of faith. It is a reminder that we “have been brought near” (Eph. 2:13); from strangers and rebels to sons and daughters.

“In that day you will ask nothing of me. Truly, truly, I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he will give it to you. Until now you have asked nothing in my name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full” (Jn. 16:23).

The next element is WITH CONFESSION OF OUR SINS. Confession in prayer means turning from sin, starting with my words. But doesn’t it say, “Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O LORD, you know it altogether” (Ps. 139:4)? And, “I thought Jesus already paid it all, and so we are already forgiven!” Yes and yes. But confession forces us to not grow numb to the daily reality of our sin, and how this naturally hardens us and forms an obstacle to our affections toward God. So he says to Christians, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 Jn. 1:9). Confession recognizes that other side of that coin that prayer is a gift of God. What’s the other side? It is simply that I have absolutely no right to come before God at all: no right, but for Christ. Confession makes the gospel front and center in prayer. And of course we cannot go on praying for other things while treasuring our sin, as the Psalm 66 passage said. 

“I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity; I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the LORD,’ and you forgave the iniquity of my sin’” (Ps. 32:5-6).

There is even corporate confession of sin that is mindful that God may withhold blessing to discipline a people group. So Daniel said, “I prayed to the LORD my God and made confession, saying, ‘O Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, we have sinned and done wrong and acted wickedly and rebelled, turning aside from your commandments and rules” (Dan. 9:4-5). 

Then the last element it adds is THANKFUL ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF HIS MERCIES. Again, those words of Paul, “but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God” (Phi. 4:6). This totally reorients your soul. I’m sure you’ve heard the saying before that, “It’s harder to be mad at someone when you’re praying for them.” Well, it is similar here. It is harder to be sour and cynical and grumbling when we count those many blessings, as Psalm  103:2 says, “Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits.” We should first of all be thankful for that faith which both prays and believes, and all the benefits that come from its Giver. Ursinus, who authored the Heidelberg Catechism, said this about praying for faith: 

“Faith is neither kindled nor increased in any one who does not desire or ask it. No one has faith who is not thankful for it; for all those who are possessed of true faith taste the grace of God, and those who have tasted of the grace of God show themselves thankful to God for it, and desire it more and more.”2

All of these same elements are captured by the definition offered by John Bunyan in his classic work on Prayer,

“Prayer is a sincere, sensible, affectionate pouring out of the heart or soul to God, through Christ, in the strength and assistance of the Holy Spirit, for such things as God has promised, or according to his Word, for the good of the church, with submission in faith to the will of God.”3

What Bunyan meant by that affectionate expression is that we simply lay bear all that which God knows already, but which is now “poured out,” like when any number of our emotions are really real: whether it be anger or fear or bitter weeping, to fly to God as a child would naturally fly to the side of his father or mother. I will also include the definition given by Brakel because of what it highlights:

“Prayer is the expression of holy desires to God in the name of Christ, which, by the operation of the Holy Spirit, proceed from a regenerated heart, along with the request for the fulfillment of these desires.”4

Here the additional element empahsized is the new birth, that such desires are “holy desires” and such a heart is “regenerated.” 

The Special Rule of Prayer

Notice what the answer to Question 99 claims and does not claim: THE WHOLE WORD OF GOD, on the one hand; but then THE SPECIAL RULE OF DIRECTION on the other hand. In Luke 11:1, we see another angle, that the Lord’s Prayer is given in response: “Now Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he finished, one of his disciples said to him, ‘Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.’” Luke’s account focuses on the disciples’ inquiry, but Matthew’s account shows Jesus in a larger flow of thought, and of God’s design. Prayer is both God’s idea for us and Christ’s instruction to our desire to know how.

Now, to the idea that this is too restraining, or that we take it the wrong way when we make too much of the order and exact words, there are two extremes. One is to make the form exclude all other forms, or even the heart of it; while the other is to try to have the life of it without any order. The craving for form-less prayer is wrong-headed. When the persecuted church had assembled and Peter had just been released from prison (in Acts 4:23-28), they lifted up their voices to pray. When they did the words that came out of their mouths were the words of Psalm 146 and then Psalm 2, “Sovereign Lord, who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them,” and, “Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord and against his Anointed” (Ps. 2:1-2). And then of course there was Jesus on the cross, uttering the cry of Psalm 22. Now how can anyone argue that such quotations were without feeling!

Specific to the Lord’s Prayer, R. C. Sproul makes this point: 

“Notice that Jesus said, ‘Pray then like this,’ not ‘Pray this prayer,’ or ‘Pray these words.’ There is some question as to whether Jesus ever meant for us to repeat the prayer. I’m not attacking the use of the Lord’s Prayer; there’s certainly nothing wrong with its use in the personal life of the believer or the devotional life of the church. Yet Jesus was not so much giving us a prayer to recite as a pattern to show us the way in which to pray. Jesus was providing us with an outline of priorities or those things that ought to be priorities in our prayer lives.”5

So, if I can put it this way: There is form here—not a formula, but a vision. But you can’t have the vision if you minimize the form, the exact words. These are Christ’s own words. Even the structure of the Lord’s Prayer, and what all is included together, teaches us. 

For example, in the Lord’s Prayer, we see that our daily needs and our greatest needs do go together. On the other hand, there is an order. So Jesus said, not to long after the words of the Lord’s Prayer: 

Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you (Mat. 6:31-33).

So we should not be too surprised if, in the Lord’s Prayer, we find out that prayer re-orders our perspective. And if every Christian is commanded to pray in this way, and for these things, then it follows that every Christian needs these very things from the hand of God. 

Calvin wrote,

“We see that nothing is set before us as an object of expectation from the Lord which we are not enjoined to ask of him in prayer, so true it is that prayer digs up those treasures which the Gospel of our Lord discovers to the eye of faith.”6

This will be an important principle, especially, when we arrive at the petition regarding God’s will being done. As with anything else in the Christian life, God’s will is discovered in God’s word.

Uses of the Doctrine

Use 1. Prayer should not be a last resort when all else fails. We are to “pray without ceasing” (1 Thess. 5:17). And we can talk about what that means and doesn’t mean. But to come to God only when all else fails is to say to God that all else was the gain that we hoped for. Since our real treasures didn’t pan out, then we can always “fall back” on God. But the Lord does not regard such prayers, as he says through Hosea, “They do not cry to me from the heart, but they wail upon their beds; for grain and wine they gash themselves; they rebel against me” (7:14). We cannot expect an audience with God in his judgment that we wanted no part of in the days of his mercy.

Use 2. Prayer is a constant assurance that one is born again. The very simplest desire to do so, and especially in a way that would be pleasing to God and tend toward His honor in the requests we make—this is no work of the flesh, but of the Spirit.

Sproul wrote that,

“One might pray and not be a Christian, but one cannot be a Christian and not pray … Prayer is to the Christian what breath is to life, yet no duty of the Christian is so neglected.”7

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1. Brakel, The Christian’s Reasonable Service, III:443.

2. Ursinus, Lectures on the Heidelberg Catechism, 1095.

3. John Bunyan, Prayer (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 2012), 13.

4. Brakel, The Christian’s Reasonable Service, III:446.

5. R. C. Sproul, Does Prayer Change Things? (Orlando: Reformation Trust, 2009), 21.

6. Calvin, Institutes, III.20.2.

7.  Sproul, Does Prayer Change Things? 2.