Amazon.com Book Description (ISBN 0913573922, Paperback)

Bringing our requests to God has always been central to the practice of Christian prayer. But why is petitionary prayer so important? In Prayer: The Cry for the Kingdom best-selling author Stanley Grenz explores the petitionary dimension of prayer and provides practical guidance for developing a more fulfilling life of prayer.

As Grenz recognizes, Christians instinctively know that they have the great privilege of coming before God with their needs and desires. Yet for many Christians petitionary prayer seems to be at best a pointless exercise. Grenz tackles this view head-on. He presents petitionary prayer as the central way in which we engage in God's work in history. Through this kind of prayer we open up our daily circumstances to God's divine resources. At the center of all petitionary prayer, Grenz argues, is the cry to God that his kingdom might come into the world.

Grenz develops this understanding of petitionary prayer by exploring key questions that many Christians ask: What does it mean to pray "according to God's will"? How can I become a person of prayer? Should we persist in petitioning God for our needs? Does prayer really influence God? In the process of engaging these questions, Grenz offers advice on how to pray more effectively and issues a pertinent challenge to the contemporary church to recapture what it means to be a church that prays.

Filled with wisdom and featuring an insightful foreword by Eugene Peterson, Grenz's Prayer: The Cry for the Kingdom will help readers from every Christian tradition foster a richer personal and communal life of prayer.