Knowing God and a Productive Prayer Life (Doctrinal Bible Church in Huntsville, Alabama)

Doctrinal Bible Church

Pastor-Teacher Bill Wenstrom

Wednesday July 16, 2025

Prayer Series: Knowing God and a Productive Prayer Life

Lesson # 11

Prayer is the most ancient, most universal, most intense expression of the religious intellect and it touches infinite extremes, for it is at once the simplest form of speech that infant lips can try and the sublimest strains that reach the Majesty on high.

It is indeed the Christian’s vital breath and native air.

The words of J. Oswald Sanders, “It is indeed the Christian’s vital breath and native air,” describe prayer as the atmosphere in which Christians breathe.

Unfortunately, many Christians today are dying of asphyxiation.

Now, remember, I am not here to condemn, as I note in the introduction, I struggle with prayer myself.

In his sermon, The Disciples Prayer, Haddon Robinson recalls a story that teaches a vital principle about prayer, “When our children were small, we played a game. I’d take some coins in my fist. They’d sit on my lap and work to get my fingers open. According to the international rules of finger opening, once the finger was open, it couldn’t be closed again. They would work at it, until they got the pennies in my hand. They would jump down and run away, filled with glee and delight. Just kids. Just a game. Sometimes when we come to God, we come for the pennies in his hand. ‘Lord, I need a passing grade. Help me to study.’ ‘Lord, I need a job.’ ‘Lord, my mother is ill.’ We reach for the pennies. When God grants the request, we push the hand away. More important than the pennies in God’s hand is the hand of God Himself. That’s what prayer is about.”

We should continuously remind ourselves whom it is we are speaking to in prayer.

Reminding ourselves of God should prevent us from ignoring His hand as we reach for the pennies.

In order to have a productive and joyful prayer life, we, as believers, must learn and apply the doctrines, which pertain to God’s divine essence.

Since God is spirit, His attributes are invisible to the human eye.

His qualities cannot be perceived through experience [empiricism] or human intellect [rationalism].

Only through faith, may we understand His invisible attributes.

In faith, the believer is utterly dependent on the Word of God to understand the invisible, immaterial, infinite, unlimited essence of God.

The essence of God contains the following fourteen attributes: (1) Sovereignty: God is the absolute authority over creation and every creature. (2) Righteousness: God always does right by His creatures. (3) Justice: God always renders perfect decisions. (4) Love: God always has our best interests in mind and will do what is best for us. (5) Eternal life: God is ever present now. (6) Omnipotence: God is all-powerful. (7) Omniscience: God has all knowledge. (8) Omnipresence: God is everywhere present. (9) Immutability: God never changes. (10) Veracity: God is truth. (11) Mercy: God withholds judgment in order that His creatures might repent. (12) Compassion: God has concern for the suffering of His creatures due to sin. (13) Faithfulness: God keeps His promises. (14) Infiniteness: God is not confined by time, matter, and space.

Knowledge of God’s attributes, of His character and nature, is essential in cultivating a relationship with Him.

Only those who know the character and nature of God will be capable of moving mountains with prayer.

Since prayer is carried to God by faith, and faith is, in large measure, dependent on whom we know God to be, then the energy and productivity of our prayer lives is directly dependent on our thoughts and our personal knowledge of God.

This may answer the question as to why there is so little “real” prayer in churches these days.

People neither think about God very often nor very seriously, according to the latest polls in evangelicalism.

We worship God by meditating on His person, His attributes, and His deeds.

We can meditate on God with David’s Psalm of Praise.

Psalm 145:1 I will exalt you, my God the King; I will praise your name for ever and ever. 2 Every day I will praise you and extol your name for ever and ever. 3 Great is the Lord and most worthy of praise; his greatness no one can fathom. 4 One generation will commend your works to another; they will tell of your mighty acts. 5 They will speak of the glorious splendor of your majesty, and I will meditate on your wonderful works. 6 They will tell of the power of your awesome works, and I will proclaim your great deeds. 7 They will celebrate your abundant goodness and joyfully sing of your righteousness. 8 The Lord is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love. 9 The Lord is good to all; he has compassion on all he has made. 10 All you have made will praise you, O Lord; your saints will extol you. 11 They will tell of the glory of your kingdom and speak of your might, 12 so that all men may know of your mighty acts and the glorious splendor of your kingdom. 13 Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and your dominion endures through all generations. The Lord is faithful to all his promises and loving toward all he has made. 14 The Lord upholds all those who fall and lifts up all who are bowed down. 15 The eyes of all look to you, and you give them their food at the proper time. 16 You open your hand and satisfy the desires of every living thing. 17 The Lord is righteous in all his ways and loving toward all he has made. 18 The Lord is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth. 19 He fulfills the desires of those who fear him; he hears their cry and saves them. 20 The Lord watches over all who love him, but all the wicked he will destroy. 21 My mouth will speak in praise of the Lord. Let every creature praise his holy name for ever and ever. (NIV84)

In a children’s book entitled, Is A Blue Whale the Biggest Thing There Is?, Robert Wells illustrates God’s power in creation by taking us from a size we can grasp to one we can’t.

He writes, “The largest animal on earth is the blue whale. Just the flippers on its tail are bigger than most animals on earth, but a blue whale isn't anywhere as big as a mountain. If you put hundreds of blue whales in a huge jar, you could put millions of "whale jars" in a hollowed out Mount Everest, but Mount Everest isn't nearly as big as the earth.” Wells goes on to compare the earth to the sun, then the sun, which scientists say is a medium-sized star, to the red super giant star called Antares. Antares, he says, can hold fifty million of our suns, but the Milky Way galaxy holds billions of stars, including super giants like Antares. The comparisons are endless, and Wells illustrates that point perfectly. He ends the story by writing, “When we approach a God of this magnitude in prayer, let us come humbly, knowing that he is awesome in power, that there is good reason the Hebrews referred to him as El Shaddai, the Almighty!”

Jeremiah the prophet said, “Ah sovereign Lord, you have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and outstretched hand. Nothing is too hard for you!”

Jesus, in Mark 14:36, said, “Abba Father, everything is possible for you….” and in Luke 1:37, Elizabeth’s miraculous pregnancy brought forth the praise that “nothing is impossible for God.”

The good news is that God, who is all-powerful, is the same God who is holy, loving, and wise.

When we approach our heavenly Father in prayer, therefore, we must remember all these spiritual truths and we must believe that He cares for us and knows us intimately; indeed, He knows us better than we know ourselves (cf. 1 Pet. 5:6).

J. I. Packer sums it up well when he writes, “What matters supremely, therefore, is not, in the last analysis, the fact that I know God, but the larger fact that underlies—the fact that He knows me. I am graven on the palms of His hands. I am never out of His mind. All my knowledge of Him depends on His sustained initiative in knowing me. I know Him because He first knew me and continues to know me. He knows me as a friend, one who loves me; and there is no moment when His eye is off me, or His attention distracted from me, and no moment, therefore, when His care falters.”

Too bad we do not approach this subject with as much amazement as the youngster in Sunday school class who recites the Lord’s prayer, “Our father, who art in heaven, how’d you know my name?”

Just as, in Psalm 145, David rejoiced for him knowing God, he also rejoiced, in Psalm 139, for God knowing him.

Psalm 139:1 For the director of music. Of David. A psalm. 1 O Lord, you have searched me and you know me. 2 You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. 3 You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. 4 Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O Lord. 5 You hem me in—behind and before; you have laid your hand upon me. 6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain. 7 Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? 8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. 9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, 10 even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. 11 If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,” 12 even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you. 13 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. 14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. 15 My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, 16 your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. 17 How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! 18 Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand. When I awake, I am still with you. 19 If only you would slay the wicked, O God! Away from me, you bloodthirsty men! 20 They speak of you with evil intent; your adversaries misuse your name. 21 Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord, and abhor those who rise up against you? 22 I have nothing but hatred for them; I count them my enemies. 23 Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. 24 See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. (NIV84)