Prayer is the human aspiration after God. Invocation, adoration, supplication, are modes of thought whereby mankind endeavor to reach out to God. Prayer may also take the form of affirmation of divine law, spiritual truth.
The Lord's Prayer, which Christ Jesus gave his followers, includes adoration, petition, affirmation of truth, repentance, as modes of reverent approach to God. The Gospels show that Jesus' prayers were not only humble petitions to the Father but also positive declarations of the ever-presence and all-power of good, God, and of man's sonship with the Father.
Jesus' affirmations of Truth manifested healing power because they were based upon his spiritual understanding of the divine Principle of all being. At the tomb of Lazarus, Jesus declared: "Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me. And I knew that thou hearest me always." John 11:41, 42; And he restored the evidence of Lazarus' existence.
