On Wednesday Night, July 26th, we will continue our prayer study. We will be reading “The Lord’s Prayer” which begins with the words “Our Father.” Jesus was using this Model Prayer to teach His followers to pray. By beginning the prayer with “Our Father”, Jesus seemed to be teaching that our ability to pray was based on a close personal familial relationship with God.

Back in 1980, the Southern Baptist Convention President at the time was Bailey Smith. He got himself into a “heap of trouble” when he said that God did not hear the prayers of Jews. He said “it’s interesting to me at great political rallies how you have a Protestant to pray and a Catholic to pray and then you have a Jew to pray… With all due respect to those dear people, God Almighty does not hear the prayer of a Jew. For how in the world can God hear the prayer of a man who says that Jesus Christ is not the true Messiah? It is blasphemy. It may be politically expedient, but no one can pray unless he prays through the name of Jesus Christ… The only prayer I believe God hears from anybody who has been denying Jesus is, ‘Lord, be merciful to me a sinner and save me for Christ’s sake.'”

What do you think?  Does God hear (and respond positively to) the prayer of an unbeliever?

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