Praying to God vs Jesus

1- What does the Bible say about praying to Jesus? I mean, I know of many instances where it mentions praying to God, but i'm not sure about Jesus?

2- Is there any difference?

[Damaris]

The short answer is no, there is no difference.

The longer answer is that the word "God" is just a title, much like the title of president, king, mother, or even "miss", so the actual person you're talking about depends on the context. For example, if I, and American, mention "the president" while I'm talking with, say, a Mexican, and the Mexican also mentions "the president", we'd be talking about two different people because America has one president and Mexico has another. So even though we both say "the president" we're talking about totally different things.

In the same way, many different religions believe in one g.od, and even people who don't claim any religion tend to believe there's a g.od somewhere "out there", and thus it has become more politically correct to pray to "God" than to "Jesus". But you see, if I'm praying to God and a Muslim is also praying to "God", we're not talking about the same g.od here, so that's when using names becomes important, just like the Mexican and I would not be talking about the same president, so we'd have to start using names or other titles to know the difference between the two.

Also you might have heard about the trinity, how God is three separate persons residing in one. As far as that relates to prayers, think of it this way: say you are sending a letter to your friend, John Smith. If you send it to his address and put his name, "John" on the front, then John will be the first and possibly the only one to open it, though if he's really close to his family he would probably share it with them too. But say you sent the letter and instead of putting John's name there you simply wrote "to the Smith family". In that case the whole family would end up reading the letter first-hand. So then it doesn't matter either way, since in both cases the whole family ends up knowing what was in the letter. That's the way it is with our prayers. If we send out prayer to "Jesus" then He immediately shares it with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit; if we sent it to "God" (that is, all three of them at once) it's like they read it together. Either way our prayers are heard fully and completely.

Also, Jesus said in John 14:6, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." What this means is that we cannot approach "God" unless we first go through Jesus. Every single time we pray it is through Jesus' payment of our sins that we are able to come into His presence at all. So there is never a time where Jesus can be excluded from our prayers, rather, when we don't mention His name it's generally just under the assumption that everyone already knows who we're praying to and that we wouldn't be anywhere near God's favor were it not for Jesus' death for our sins.

Finally, there are places in the Bible where it says we should ask for things in Jesus' name, which is why it's so common for prayers to end with "In Jesus' name". Another passage says that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow and every mouth will admit that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. In other words, the name of Jesus Christ is powerful in a way that the general title of "God" is not. For this reason some Christians believe that every prayer must include the words "In Jesus' name" in order to be effective. The main reason I do not believe this is true is because in the Bible we are instructed to "pray without ceasing". In other words, the prayer never really ends. Just like when you're spending a few hours with a friend you don't have to say their name every time you begin a sentence addressing them, so it is with Jesus. He knows you're talking to Him already.

Feel free to ask more questions if you have them!