So Peter was kept in prison, but the church was earnestly praying to God for him.
Verse 5
Peter was kept in prison, but the church earnestly prayed to God for him. Why do they pray earnestly? I think God knows everything and Peter had done righteous things not against God’s will. So if all the things are done by God’s goodwill, I think we shall follow his operation.
So I am wondering why did the Church pray earnestly? What is the purpose of God to make the Church pray earnestly after receiving prayer? He released Peter by God’s authority.
We know all things happen by God’s will and God always operates the universe with his Goodwill. So we trust God’s goodwill and accept all his doing about us. But sometimes, there is a description of earnest prayer in the Bible. Jesus has done this one before being crucified on the cross. Peter and Paul as well. They did pray every day very earnestly. But why? They know Jesus is with them always so why?
Basically, I have to consider the purpose of prayer. Jesus teaches about the prayer in the scripture. Jesus prohibits the repetition of prayer because God knows all about our needs before our prayer. Then why do we have to pray if God knows all things about us?
Basically, we have to reconsider prayer. Does prayer request our necessities? If so, we don’t need to do it. But the prayer is not a request of our necessities. Then what is prayer? God let me know that the prayer is to harden the resolve. Because we are so weak in both body and belief. So even though we know what shall we do and what will happen it could not be accepted by our thinking and mind. So, we are getting help from our God to get trust more and resolution to do something hard. This is real prayer.
When we look into Jesus’ Lord’s prayer, we can find easily that 70% of the prayer contents are composed of confirming the current fact. And only 30% are general requests, not concrete ones. Because God knows already what we needed concretely. So we don’t need to pray in detail about our necessities.
Now, then if we interpret prayer like this concept, we can know what Jesus’ prayer was before being crucified. That was to harden His resolution of being crucified. And Paul / Peter’s every prayer is to harden their will and belief in Jesus and God not to be weakened by their resolution.
The earnest prayer of the church written in today’s scripture Acts Ch 12 could be for hardening Peter’s resolution not for his release. His release was done by God’s will. Maybe God wanted to give joy and resolution more to the Church through releasing Peter. So, sometimes the Apostles were dead even though the Church’s prayer. Because the operation is completely God’s will and we shall follow his goodwill with complete faith. So healing and release are happened case by case by God’s goodwill and plan. We don’t know in detail what God’s plan we just trust his goodwill in us. Hallelujah.
So, as result, the purpose of prayer is to harden our resolution and solidify my faith in God’s goodwill. Because I am so weak and every time the devil’s wicked soul is tempting me to leave my faith and resolution.
After God’s letting me know the purpose of prayer I have more intention to pray more eagerly not to be tempted and to continue my resolution for my God/Jesus’ glory and love.
I trust all my necessities are fulfilled enough when I pursue God’s kingdom and his righteousness first. And actually, I see and can confess that all the things are fulfilled completely not to be short to live. Hallelujah. My prayer is not requesting my daily necessities but for my way and my resolution for God’s kingdom and his righteousness. Hallelujah.
It opened for them by itself
Verse 10