What God demands from people: obedience and prayer

Recognizing God as your sovereign

God hates it when people wish to be independent of Him and, against all reason, want to think that their life will get better if they decide not to submit themselves to their creator and His service. People have sufficient discernment, insight and intelligence to be fully convinced that all God’s laws are based on God’s perfect love, God’s perfect righteousness and God’s perfect wisdom. All this means that in the eyes of God there can never be any excuse for people who purposefully rebel against Him and refuse to acknowledge Him as their sovereign.

Readiness to obey God

God wants people to recognize Him as the perfect law-giver and the perfect sovereign. This recognition in itself is not enough: it means that people also have the holy duty to submit themselves to God’s authority, to do what God wants them to do, to refrain from doing what God has forbidden.

God wants people to obey Him for the correct reasons: because He is their creator and because He is perfect in wisdom, power and love. And He only demands things from people that are in their own best interest. God wants people to obey Him because they sincerely love Him and know that everything He has created, including His laws and rules, are perfect.

Wishing to draw near to God, particularly through prayer.

Before their Fall Adam and Eve could meet God personally every day. They could see Him, hear Him and talk with Him, just like children talk with their father. For us this is not possible any more. Yet, God wants people to try and get into contact with Him, to communicate with Him and build up a relationship with Him.

People can do this by doing all they can to make their faith as strong as possible and by doing the good works that fit in with great faith.

But the most obvious way for people to get into contact with God is through prayer: addressing God with words. Through their prayers people demonstrate to their God that they believe in Him, that they respect Him and trust Him as their creator and that they realize that they are completely dependent on Him. Through their prayers people can let God know how thankful they are for their life and for God’s creation. In their prayers people can praise God for His perfectly good qualities. In their prayers people can ask God whatever they like. They can beg and plead for everything and everybody they find important.

According to the Bible prayers may only be directed to God Himself. The Biblical definition of praying is addressing the creator and the sovereign of the universe. People may not direct their prayers to angels or to deceased fellow humans.

God’s Son may not be worshipped either. What may be done is drawing near to God in prayer through His Son, whom the Bible presents as our only way to reconciliation with God.

The Bible says that all people who believe in God and approach Him with the right mental attitude can be sure that God hears their prayer and pays attention to it.

Jesus Himself has left an excellent example of the best way in which people can approach God through prayer: the model prayer, generally known as the Our Father. This model prayer teaches us that it is a good thing to start a prayer with expressing the wish that within our universe God’s name and reputation will be sanctified on an ever larger scale. It is also a good thing to include the words Thy will be done in every prayer. These words express the idea that nobody knows better what is good for us than God and nobody knows better than He what serves our interest best.