SCIENTIFIC PRAYER
We now come to a definite teaching regarding prayer. We shall receive that for which we ask. It shall be opened to us when we knock and we shall find that for which we are searching. This teaching implies the definiteness of spiritual and mental work. God is Intelligent Mind and Spirit, and there is a direct response from this Universal Intelligence to OUR intelligence. If we ask for bread we shall not receive a stone. But we are told that we must ask, believing, if we are to receive.
Here again we are meeting the law of cause and effect in the teachings of Jesus. Prayer is a mental as well as a spiritual function of intelligence. It is a certain manner of approach to the Spirit, a conscious act of the mind, a concrete experience of the knowing faculty. Prayer should be direct and specific, and should always be accompanied by a positive receptivity. God cannot answer prayers which have no meaning. The answer to prayer is in the prayer when it is uttered or thought. We do not pray aright when we are in opposition to the fundamental harmony. The whole teaching of Jesus, relative to (page 57) prayer, is that God will answer when we pray aright. Jesus points to the fact if we, being human and consequently limited, know how to give good gifts to our children, how much more will God give good things to those who ask and he explicitly tells us to ask directly for what we want. If we ask for bread we shall not receive a stone. This must be true if we are dealing with intelligence.
"Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets." How clearly this states the Law while referring to the prophets who had already taught the same law.

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