Posted on 06/10/2017 8:12:43 AM PDT by ealgeone
Question: "To whom are we to pray, the Father, the Son, or the Holy Spirit?"
Answer: All prayer should be directed to our triune God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Bible teaches that we can pray to one or all three, because all three are one. To the Father we pray with the psalmist, “Listen to my cry for help, my King and my God, for to you I pray” (Psalm 5:2). To the Lord Jesus, we pray as to the Father because they are equal. Prayer to one member of the Trinity is prayer to all. Stephen, as he was being martyred, prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit” (Acts 7:59). We are also to pray in the name of Christ. Paul exhorted the Ephesian believers to always give “thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Ephesians 5:20). Jesus assured His disciples that whatever they asked in His name—meaning in His will—would be granted (John 15:16; 16:23).
We are told to pray in the Spirit and in His power. The Spirit helps us to pray, even when we do not know how or what to ask for (Romans 8:26; Jude 20). Perhaps the best way to understand the role of the Trinity in prayer is that we pray to the Father, through (or in the name of) the Son, by the power of the Holy Spirit. All three are active participants in the believer’s prayer.
Equally important is whom we are not to pray to. Some non-Christian religions encourage their adherents to pray to a pantheon of gods, dead relatives, saints, and spirits. Roman Catholics are taught to pray to Mary and various saints. Such prayers are not scriptural and are, in fact, an insult to our heavenly Father. To understand why, we need only look at the nature of prayer. Prayer has several elements, and if we look at just two of them—praise and thanksgiving—we can see that prayer is, at its very core, worship. When we praise God, we are worshipping Him for His attributes and His work in our lives. When we offer prayers of thanksgiving, we are worshipping His goodness, mercy, and loving-kindness to us. Worship gives glory to God, the only One who deserves to be glorified. The problem with praying to anyone other than God is that He will not share His glory. In fact, praying to anyone or anything other than God is idolatry. “I am the LORD; that is my name! I will not give my glory to another or my praise to idols” (Isaiah 42:8).
Other elements of prayer such as repentance, confession, and petition are also forms of worship. We repent knowing that God is a forgiving and loving God and He has provided a means of forgiveness in the sacrifice of His Son on the cross. We confess our sins because we know “He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9) and we worship Him for it. We come to Him with our petitions and intercessions because we know He loves us and hears us, and we worship Him for His mercy and kindness in being willing to hear and answer. When we consider all this, it is easy to see that praying to someone other than our triune God is unthinkable because prayer is a form of worship, and worship is reserved for God and God alone. Whom are we to pray to? The answer is God. Praying to God, and God alone, is far more important than to which Person of the Trinity we address our prayers.
Do you pray for others?
So you’re done - got baptized, professed “Lord”, and you’re in heaven. Godspeed.
You seriously are not taught that the Holy Spirit works through others?
Was Scripture written by human hands? If yes, how did God influence those humans? If by the Holy Spirit, why would it end there?
Looking to them for what we should be looking to the Father for is wrong, plain and simple.
God gives all sorts of different means of help to a Christian, in this way through the angels and saints. If you want to turn down certain types of help, that's up to you.
We don't.
“You seriously are not taught that the Holy Spirit works through others?”
If you were taught this, you are listening to a false teacher.
“Was Scripture written by human hands?”
It was written when God’s Spirit came upon men, moving them to record His Words.
“If yes, how did God influence those humans?”
He did not “influence” them.
“If by the Holy Spirit, why would it end there?”
There were 40 chosen men over thousands of years. Your question attempts to portray this as normative for any and all reasons, which Scripture does not teach.
The earnest of our inheritance, by the Grace of God, not by our works but by our faith in HIS Promise in Christ Jesus.
Worthy of God’s Saving Grace? Are you series? None of us is WORTHY, that’s why GOD with us went to the Cross for us, because you and I cannot pay the penalty for the deadness in our human spirit. The division for God’s righteousness is too great! Worthy? That is so Catholic Org in nature. Do you actually believe you will ever be WORTHY? God’s Word tells you emphatically that you cannot possibly earn what He gives as Grace. ... now polish your halo with your Magic Thinking rags.
I didn't say that, did I !!! I said there is no evidence of any Catholic Saints in heaven...
How do the saints and angels get our prayers? Since they are in heaven with God while they are passing along our prayers, God must approve, unless you think things happen in heaven against God’s will.
Rev 5:8 And when he had taken the book, the four beasts and four and twenty elders fell down before the Lamb, having every one of them harps, and golden vials full of odours, which are the prayers of saints.
Angels and saints don't get my prayers or any other Christian's prayers...Those events in Rev. 8 are set in the future...During the Tribulation...This verse alone ought to be enough to convince even the weakest believer:
Heb 4:16 Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.
We don't send our prayers to angels and saints or the mother of Jesus or to Catholic priests...God told us Christians to come right directly to Him with our prayers and petitions...That's what Christians do...
You may disagree with this interpretation, but it is indeed based in scripture.
There are talking donkeys based in scripture as well...You don't have one of those, do you???
If personal interpretation of scripture is to guide us to God, then you have no right to discount my right to my interpretation. It is not necessary that you accept this interpretation, but you have no standing to impose your interpretation on me.
2Pe_1:20 Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.
Private interpretation isn't involved...It is believing scripture and then comparing scripture with scripture and rightly dividing the word of truth that leads to truth...
I know that saints and angels are not God therefore my communications with them are not worship.
The bible warns agains worshiping gods...It warns about worshiping the Queen of Heaven...Do you pray to the Queen of Heaven???
Sure He is unless there is another Son of Man. Matt 25:31-46
John 12:47 If anyone hears my words and does not keep them, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world but to save the world.
God told us he infuenced those human hands...He never told us he infuenced the hands of anyone in the Catholic religion...In fact, those influenced human hands warned us about your religion...
God told us he infuenced those human hands...He never told us he infuenced the hands of anyone in the Catholic religion...In fact, those influenced human hands warned us about your religion...
Very true the first time. Judgement Day is another matter Matt 28:18/John 5:21-22.
FOR others.
Not TO others.
And honestly, yes since Jesus and the Holy Spirit are interceding for us according to the will of God, then technically we don’t need to pray for each other.
But God has commanded us to do so. So we obey and do it.
Wrong order.
Accepted Christ, got seated in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.
Then got baptized.
Salvation is easy. It's by faith so that no man may boast before God.
John 1:10-13 He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.
John 3:3-8 Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?” Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
John 3:14-18 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.
John 5:24 Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.
John 6:40 For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”
John 11:25-26 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?”
Acts 16:27-31 When the jailer woke and saw that the prison doors were open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, supposing that the prisoners had escaped. But Paul cried with a loud voice, “Do not harm yourself, for we are all here.” And the jailer called for lights and rushed in, and trembling with fear he fell down before Paul and Silas. Then he brought them out and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” And they said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.”
Romans 3:20-30 For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it—the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith. For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, since God is one—who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith.
Not through praying to them once they are dead and off this earth.
No, it's not reasonable to interpret it that way because it not taught or even alluded to ANYWHERE in Scripture.
How do the saints and angels get our prayers? Since they are in heaven with God while they are passing along our prayers, God must approve, unless you think things happen in heaven against God’s will.
You didn't answer the question.
How DO they get our prayers?
If I am wrong, and I am unintentionally ‘worshiping’ other beings, is this still a sin?
Yes.
Wrong is wrong and God does not offer excuses for disobeying something He clearly commanded us to do. If you are interpreting it wrong, that's on you.
HE made it clear enough.
If so, since I am already saved by accepting Jesus as my Lord and Savior, why does it matter?
If that's your attitude, you might want to seriously consider the validity of your profession.
Heresy. They're off this earth, but they're certainly not dead.
Yah but you don't know whether they are in heaven or hell...
**Nothing is “triune.” That is man made foolishness.**
Wrong. There is “Hillary, Bill, and Chelsea”. They’re triune.
Seriously, you are right. Triune, trinity, three coequal persons in the Godhead (certainly not coequal though, cuz two do only what is the will of God the Father).
No phrases “God the Son” or “God the Holy Ghost”, in the scriptures. Not there. Zero.
Jesus Christ defined the Father as a Spirit. (John 4:23,24)
So my question to the feuding trinitarians is this: Where is God the Father NOT at?
The Father is IN Christ, and Christ is IN the Father,...LITERALLY. Jesus Christ spent an ample amount of the book of John explaining that fact.
The ark of the covenant plainly shows that. Wood was covered inside AND outside with pure gold. And also, inside the golden covered interior, was the wisdom and the life. (Note that those things were not in direct contact with the wood, or the construction instructions would have directed it to be made that way.)
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