Author: MacArthur, John
Genre: Bible Studies / Devotionals
Tags: Prayer
Series:
Rick Shrader‘s Review:
This is a 1995 reprint by Victor Books of an earlier study by MacArthur on prayer. I was taken by the title and was not disappointed. Prayer must be our primary way of fellowship with God and our first weapon in our fight for truth. The bulk of the book is a study on the Lord’s Prayer, part by part. MacArthur also brings in many valuable quotes and observations form a variety of authors. At the end of the book he interacts from his very Calvinistic position on how we are to reconcile God’s sovereignty with man’s free will in prayer. In the last section on praying for men’s salvation, he has an extended discussion on sovereignty explaining, from his perspective, the difference between God’s “desire” for man’s salvation, and God’s “purpose” for his election. Still he admits, “If God did not act in response to prayer, Jesus’ teaching about prayer would be futile and meaningless and all commands to pray pointless. Our task is not to solve the dilemma of how God’s sovereignty works with human responsibility but to believe and act on what God commands us about prayer.” The book is full of good thoughts on various kinds of prayer. “Impotence in prayer leads us, however unwillingly, to strike a truce with evil. When you accept what is, you abandon a Christian view of God and His plan for redemptive history.”
Quotes from this book:
“A few years ago someone suggested that we were living in post-Christian America. Although it struggles to deserve a nominal Christian label, today it is more like sub-Christian America.” John MacArthur, Alone with God, p. 65.