What is the abiding of the words of Jesus in me such that when I pray it happens?

Hi, I'm your host, Dan Kruver.

What makes prayer powerful?

In this episode of Light and Truth, John Piper opens John 15, verses 1 to 8, to show how God's word, when it dwells deeply in us, shapes the prayers God delights to answer.

This message was originally delivered at Bethlehem Baptist Church on December 29, 1996.

I was down in Atlanta three months ago at a conference talking about the providence of God, arguing that the providence of God rules all things from the fall of a dead bird from a limb in Africa to the movement of the planets.

And at the end, I'm sitting on the platform there before 2,000 people.

And the first question that comes, the question to answer time is, why pray if God is that much in control and I gave my answer and

subsequently I have read my answer in Charles Spurgeon much better than I said it so I'm

going to read Spurgeon to give you what I believe is the true answer to this question.

This is a sermon that he preached 100 years ago in London to about 5,000 people.

It is our full belief that God has foreknown and predestined everything that happens in heaven above and on earth

beneath and that the foreknown station of a reed by the river is as fixed as the station of a king

and the chaff from the hand of the winnower is as steered as the stars in their courses.

Predestination embraces the great and the little and reaches unto all things.

The question is, wherefore pray?

Might it not as logically be asked, wherefore breathe, eat, move, or do anything?

We have an answer which satisfies us namely that our prayers are in the predestination

and that God has as much ordained his people's prayers as anything else

and when we pray we are producing links in the chain of ordained facts.

Destiny decrees that I should pray, I pray.

Destiny decrees that I shall be answered and the answer comes.

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