God looks on the heart more than anything else, really. Jesus said, “Your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him” (Matthew 6:8 NKJV). If that is the case, then why pray? The answer is pretty simple. Prayer is not informing God; prayer is inviting God. When I call out to the Lord in prayer and offer my petition, I’m not informing God of something he doesn’t already know. Rather, I’m inviting God into my situation, into my challenges, into my problems.

The value of prayer is that it keeps me in touch with God. When people ask me to pray for them, I always try to do it immediately so that I don’t forget. When Christians are facing a crisis and ask other Christians to remember them in prayer, that is a good thing to do. Jesus said, “If two of you agree on earth concerning anything that they ask, it will be done for them by My Father in heaven” (Matthew 18:19). There is no question about it: there is power in unified prayer.