Prayer and Free Will

 God gave Adam and Eve the power to make the most amazingly powerful decision of all, to choose to obey God or disobey!! 

Humans were empowered to make real decisions, otherwise they would not reflect the image of the supreme decision maker, God.

And the LORD God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree of the garden,
but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for on the day you eat from it, you will certainly die.” Ge 2:16–17 CSB

God gave Adam and Eve the ability to sin, to resist His own will. This is what sin is.

This is the reality of free will. God has never removed this free will, to obey or resist His will. Why do born again Christians still sin, if they have been given a new heart and a new nature? Because we still have a free will which God has sovereignly determined that we should have.

If humans do not have a free will to obey or resist the will of God, if all our actions are determined by God, then we would have to agree with Calvin, who said “God not only foresaw that Adam would fall, but also ordained that he should.” (Calvin’s Inst., b. 3, c. 23, sec. 7.) 

.... “he fell not only by the permission, but also by the appointment, of God.” (Calvin Responsio ad Calumnias Nebulonis
cujusdam ad Articulum primum.) “He sinned because God so ordained,
because the Lord saw good.” (Calvin’s Inst., b. 3, c. 24, sec. 8.)

Does that mean every person has complete freedom to recognise the choice he or she is confronted with? Sadly not.

But if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing.
In their case, the god of this age has blinded the minds of the unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. 2 Co 4:3–4 CSB

• It is very difficult to believe if you are brought up to believe there is no God in a Communist country.

• It can be very difficult to believe if you are taught from infancy that Christians are bad people who believe in three gods.

• It can be difficult to believe in the goodness of God if you are brought up in a brutal, abusive family where you are led to believe in Jesus as a severe judge who hates you when you sin.

This is where we see the necessity of the mighty grace of God to open blind spiritual eyes.

How can we as believers penetrate this darkness?

There are many people who cannot believe only through hearing a message. They need a personal experience or direct encounter with God.

Millions of people are converted from other religions in our time through healing miracles and dreams and visions, in which Jesus personally reveals Himself.

This is the result of millions of Christians who pray for the conversion of atheists and believers in other religions. God commands us to pray and believe in His willingness to answer with great supernatural power.