And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you. The result was getting that something-forgiveness. In the grace program which the Apostle Paul was presenting, the reason for forgiveness is because we have already been forgiven by God. The result is believers walking according to their vocation as Ephesians 4 instructs. We can clearly see that God has always wanted His people to forgive, but the reasons for, and results of, that forgiveness have changed.
Prayer operates in much the same way.
There is no doubt that God's people in all ages have been admonished to pray. What we want to focus on in this study is the differing reasons for, and results of, that prayer. Those differing reasons and results are the key to understanding how prayer is intended to work in the Age of Grace. In order to understand the reasons for, and results of, prayer in any given age we must understand the basic principles of operation in that age. Prayer will operate the way all other issues operate in the economy of any given age.