More reflections on prayer from E. Stanley Jones. This is taken from a longer meditation on the implications of John 15:3, "You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you."
"[Jesus] also cleansed prayer. He found it as magic and mere petition and left it as communion. Prayer was no longer getting something out of God, but God getting something out of us. It was a pulling of ourselves to God, that, through this higher contact with higher power, higher purpose might be achieved."
I assume that prayer as higher contact with higher power is a widely-shared notion of prayer among United Methodists. What about the last part? Do you agree that God's ultimate goal for our prayer time is to use it to get a higher purpose out of us? Has God gotten a purpose out of you that was higher than personal petition?
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