I wouldn’t have thought signs and favors would figure so prominently into what prayer is for. Isn’t it at least a little bit like singing the blues, something that lets you express what you feel so that you can acquiesce to what you cannot change or, if you’re not feeling blue then channel your appreciation and express your gratitude. But what do I know?
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Here Jesus is voluntarily submitting to the very purpose for which he came. He basically changed his will here. But there is no admonition for people to only ask what God wills for their lives.
Apparently, he had second thoughts about this, so in John’s Gospels he says:
John 12: 27 “Now My soul has become troubled; and what am I to say? ‘Father, save Me from this hour’? But for this purpose I came to this hour.28 Father, glorify Your name.” Then a voice came out of heaven: “I have both glorified it , and will glorify it again.”
it is always entertaining to see those who claim to be literate to insist on a “literal” interpretation of biblical texts, especially out of context.
The text is set to reveal the God of those who read it. There are those who love God and those who see themselves as God. The latter use prayer to instruct their magic genie to create reality according to their own wishes, the former use prayer to listen to God to make his wishes for reality come true.
That you will receive whatever you ask is a literal honeytrap, as you will be served by reality accordingly.
One of the nice subtleties of prayers is “whatever you ask in my name”. Those who “don’t get it” like the big church liturgies therefore put “and this I ask in the name of Jesus” on the end of a prayer. The funny thing is that it is like with the Pharisees, if you need to put this sentence at the end of the prayer like a first class stamp it only emphasises that it is most likely not in the name of Jesus if you need to say that it is.
Considering that you should pray to make yourself help to fulfil Gods wishes for making reality the way he wants it to be you should know how it works as you can see how you change. If however you ask Santa to bring you the ultimate present to change reality how you want it to be - be my guest. Whilst it is forgivable to believe in Santa when you are a child, to believe God to be Big Santa and then to say there is no God because he does not give you your presents for reality upon prayer is as childish as one can get.
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Sure, that is a possibility. As I happily conceded:
[NB: For those in any doubt, the last line is intended as self-deprecating sarcasm.]
Honestly, you could well be right, Klax, maybe its cognitive bias - a psychologic phenomenon, rather than spiritual one. Genuinely I mean that. But therein lies the rub. I say prayer works; another’s are emphatic that it doesn’t, still others on the fence - who can say for sure with 100% certainty. Who can say which of us has taken the red pill and which is content taking the blue? Who can say which of us is really experiencing the world as it truly is? For that we would need an objective outside observer who can omnisciently see not only what has happened, but how we see it, and how we respond to it. A being both willing and able to communicate with us, and provide assurances of the efficacy of prayer. Some say such a being exists, others are emphatic they do not, still others are on the fence. And so the square is circled. 
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Liam, if prayer works apart from psychologically - which it cannot not - and ‘by the Spirit’, transpersonally in some ineffable way, deep calling to deep, which are fine, then it will be statistically detectable. Everywhere that searchlight is played, it isn’t. That is not a possibility. That is an iron fact. God is obviously not willing and able to communicate with us except, as He says, by His Son and ineffably by the Spirit. In the context of the iron facts of life, a couple of weeks ago I was sorely exercised by memories of a man - a reformed, deeply penitent gangster - I’d befriended in my 1% outreach from the Church’s 1%. No sounding I made could detect him. I prayed this; he was on my hopeless heart. Within a week I received news and was able to extend a little finger. Because he reached out in dire desperation, that week, to the Church. Was there a supernatural circuit there? Or was there Dasein? In [God’s] providence? How could one possibly tell? I’m glad regardless. My yearning was returned. So I will continue to make intercessory prayer in the sure and certain knowledge that the laws of physics will not be broken, in fact they will be reinforced. Dasein is one of them. Prayer is Dasein.
Liam,
I wonder if I might fraternally plea that we refrain from using the terminology of speaking about whether “prayer works”? in this way?
At worst, it makes it sound like magic, like asking if certain incantations will or will not cause certain effects our outcomes. It “works” when we get what we want, if we don’t get what we want, it failed to “work.”
At best, it still makes God appear a convenient means to achieve our real desired ends. How would I feel if I overheard my child, hoping for a particular gift (say a new bicycle) say, “Maybe I’ll ask my father for one… maybe that will work…” I would personally feel as if i had been reduced to a convenient means to get what he really wants.
Prayer is, by Christian definition, speaking with God, and his hearing us. If I have spoken to him, and if he has heard me with favor, then the praying has indeed “worked”, regardless of my request being granted, no? If so, I could say prayer has “worked” my whole life, even if God in his wisdom had chosen not to grant a single one of my requests.
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You are of course correct; and I should have been more careful in my language. Prayer is a means of communicating with God relationally, petition (asking for ‘stuff’) is only a subset of prayer. Of course, I would say the statement ‘I say prayer works’ is remains true even if God does not answer my petition in the affirmative. But I freely admit I didn’t make that clear.
Thanks for the gracious reminder, Brother. 
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For those who see answers to prayer as ones will being done it is reinforcing a distorted view of reality.
I guess I’m not sure why the phrase, prayer works, would be considered something to avoid. I believe prayer works. Just as mentioned it comes with a regulations like many things. I think though if you live a life of using prayer as a wishlist of material desires and supernatural intervention that you’ll be disappointed. I also believe that God works in faith. I think that , as Liam stated, as prayers are answered there will always be a possibility that some secular means just coincidentally seems to help. Or I believe , even if it can’t be tested, that in the gap of unlikely coincidences it was the father who reached out.
1 Corinthians 1:18
New American Standard Bible
The Wisdom of God
18 For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
I think that goes for a lot of , if not all of, faith. Faith does look silly. Faith looks silly in every shape and form. I think that there is definitely a reason why the gates to hell are wide and the gates of heaven are narrow. It’s very easy to doubt God, Jesus, and faith if you demand absolute concrete evidence. I think there is a bunch of evidence there, but it all requires that faith and without faith, it’s nothing. But I’m perfectly fine with that.
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The best answered prayer I ever heard was Peter Kay’s. A superb Lancashire English comic actor. He said that when he was a child they were too poor for him to have a bicycle and he prayed every day to God for one. Then he realised God didn’t work that way and so he stole one and asked for forgiveness.
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Faith is to trust in something to be true in the absence of proof. If you have proof you only have knowledge
Not sure how much of my replies you have read, but Marks gospel doesn’t mention “in my name”. Apparently only Johns gospel is the right one? But then we have an issue with John 14:12 where Jesus promised same and even greater works to those who believe in him. Forget praying to him. You yourself have the ability, if you believe, to raise the dead and walk on water, among others.
Can you share which Bible verses are to be taken literally and how do you decide which is literal and which isn’t? I find Christians here a bit extreme on a hyperbole. For instance, a saying:” it’s raining cats and dogs” usually applies to a very strong rain. In the same manner, Jesus promising that your small faith can move mountains should mean you should be able to accomplish great things. But this hyperbole means absolutely nothing, apparently, since believers in Jesus cannot do anything different from what a nonbeliever can do. I’m all for figures of speech but calling a sunny day in Arizona desert “raining cats and dogs” is a bit extreme in my view.
As stated you’re confusing some of it.
A very common confusion that people make, and why I have brought it up several times in various threads on BioLogos, is the difference between the laying on of hands to preform a supernatural miracle versus prayer.
When looking at the examples in scripture you see one man’s faith once being answered by Jesus to heal the sick from a distance. Jesus had the authority to do it. You can see that in that story.
For every apostle, and every other healing you see it taking one of two things.
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One of the 13 men appointed by Jesus Christ himself given the ability to instantaneously heal the sick and raise the dead in their presence. They did not pray from rome for the dead in Jerusalem to get up. They always went there and was in their presence.
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You see it as a person who received the power of the Holy Spirit through the laying on of hands of the apostles. These were men and women who the 13 laid their hands on and blessed with this authority and power. But you’ll notice these recipients themselves could not in return may their hands on others to give them them special power.
If prayer was meant to do that, then there would have been no need for the laying on of hands.
If, as Scripture seems to suggest, making disciples of all nations is one of the most significant things that can be done to honor God and save sinners…
I find that, on average, believers in Jesus tend to accomplish this with at least some greater frequency than do nonbelievers…
Christians can do things that non believers can’t.
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We can say we are part of the body of Christ.
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We can say that we are in a covenant with Go through Jesus Christ.
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We can say we will receive eternal life and not be destroyed.
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We can baptize the lost into Christ.
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We can pray to God and know he is listening to us and working things out for the better of us Christians collectively.
Substitute Mohammad or Krishna in there and what’s the difference?
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When you replace Christ with those others what you get is the opposite of what I said. You get the things they can’t say and so.
If only this worked for Baal worshippers. Christian apologists would save their lives.
Same with Him. Opportunity cost.
Considering that the interpretation of a word is receiver dependent only one who thinks of himself as a perfect receiver could accuse the sender of being imperfect.
The omission of “in my name” is entirely forgivable as if you have not understood by reading the text that how you ought to pray the single words won’t rescue it.
It is funny when atheists accuse religious fundamentalists of taking the bible literally, but sad when they do it themselves, particularly when claiming to know better.