Prayer’s Role in the
Salvation of Our Soul
The Rev. Kurt P. Nemitz
D
o you go to your door and open it unless you hear someone knocking? Or
do you randomly give something away unless someone asks for it first?
Doubtless this reality of human nature was in our Lord’s mind when He
said: “I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find;
knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he
who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.” (Luke 11:9, 10)
So how then do we knock on the door of the Giver of all good things,
the Infinite and Almighty God? How do we ask and seek for what we need
most of all – the help we need for us first to become, and then to persevere as
genuine human beings; to become useful participants in the grand community
of mankind here and now; and tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow in
heaven?
Through prayer. For as it is succinctly put in Secrets of Heaven, “Prayer,
regarded in itself, is talking with God.” (# 2535)
Consequently, prayer is essential for our becoming wholly human; it is
vital to our salvation.
I have felt urged to write about this because it seems we may have been
overlooking the importance of prayer in both our worship and personal life. As
a result many adults and even children may not have been adequately enabled
to the reach up to grasp the gentle hand that our merciful Lord stretches down
to draw us up to Himself in heaven.
Let me begin this consideration of prayer by asking this question: “When
is the first time prayer is mentioned in the Word?”
If we take prayer literally as the act of “talking or conversation with God,”
the first time prayer occurs is in the very first book of the Word – the third
chapter of Genesis – where Adam and Eve seek to excuse themselves to God
for eating of the forbidden fruit. But after that prayer is mentioned again in the
very next chapter, and here in a more usual sense, for we here read of people
“calling on the name of the Lord”:
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