What Can Jesus Teach Us About Prayer
For a Christian it’s pretty straight forward, Jesus is your Lord and Savior so when He gives His disciples instruction on how to pray we should take it to heart. For many, prayer is a lost art, it is a forgotten discipline, an abandoned virtue and a bygone relic left to those without cellphones and the internet. We have filled out hearts and minds with so much undisciplined distraction that our prayer life has become anemic. If we are honest this would describe many of us. But another factor that may play into a Christian’s lack of prayer is simply not knowing how to pray. So to that end let’s look at what Jesus can teach us about prayer.
In both Matthew and Luke we have recorded what is commonly known as the Lord’s Prayer. The Lord’s Prayer is repeated worldwide on a daily basis and begins with the familiar phrase, “Our Father who art in Heaven…”. Many have taken the Lord’s Prayer as a word for word prayer to be repeated, this in itself is not a bad thing but it often becomes a mindless repetition rather than a meaningful prayer. In fact just before Jesus gave the Lord’s Prayer he said, “And when you are praying, do not use meaningless repetition as the Gentiles do, for they suppose that they will be heard for their many words. So do not be like them” (Matt 6:7-8a). So instead of just repeating what Jesus said let’s look at the heart and principles Jesus laid out for us in His instruction on Prayer and use that as our guide. Now as good Christians let’s look at Luke 11:1-4 and learn six principles on prayer from Jesus Himself to help us grow in prayer. (As a side note the Lord’s Prayer is not really Jesus’ prayer but His instructions on prayer, if you want to see the Lord praying read John 17.)
Six Principles Jesus teaches us about Prayer
1. Have Passion for Prayer
Luke 11:1 It happened that while Jesus was praying in a certain place, after He had finished, one of His disciples said to Him, “Lord, teach us to pray just as John also taught his disciples.”
The first principle of prayer we learn is actually from the disciples not Jesus. We can see that the disciples had a desire to pray and wanted to know how. You may know all there is in the world about prayer but the real story is do you want to pray? The disciples went to Jesus in order to learn how to pray. Is that something you want? Do you want to know how to pray? Ask God for a heart of prayer and a willingness to learn from the Lord. Ask God to diminish your passion for distractions and increase your hunger for prayer.
2. Have reverence for God’s person
Luke 11:2a And He said to them, When you pray, say: Father, hallowed be Your Name.
We need to approach God with reverence and awe. Hebrews 4:16 teaches us that we can come to God with confidence because of our standing in Christ. Also, we can be comforted knowing that God is our Father and we are His children but we must always remember that God is God and is always to be honored. So approach God knowing He loves you but also knowing that He is holy.
3. Hope in the world to come
Luke 11:2b Your kingdom come.
If you haven’t noticed this world is jacked up and we should pray that God puts things right which will ultimately come when Christ is enthroned as King of the earth.
4. Pray for provisions
Luke 11:3 Give us each day our daily bread.
It takes humility to ask God every day for your day to day needs. We shouldn’t wait until crisis hits to ask and rely on God, go to Him daily for the needs of the day. Quite often we have so much abundance that we don’t realize all that He has provided, He has piled abundance upon abundance and we don’t even recognize His hand. We are commanded to work and it is wise to plan for the future but we must not continue to strive for sustenance without asking God for it each day. Have you become so stressed out with work or needing work that you haven’t asked God to provide for you today? Or have you been relying on your own strength to succeed? Humbly go to God for your daily needs.
5. Seek forgiveness
Luke 11:4a And forgive us our sins
The fifth principle for prayer that Jesus teaches is to seek forgiveness for our sins. As Children of God our familial relationship cannot be changed, that is to say once you are a child of God you cannot lose your position as a child but your sin can damage your personal relationship. We should not think lightly of our sins instead we should seek to constantly clean the slate. God promises us that when we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us of all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9). As Christians the Holy Spirit will bring to our minds areas we have sinned and need to ask forgiveness for. To confess your sins to God just admit to Him any sin you have committed, acknowledging it was a sin without making any excuses and then ask Him to forgive you.
6. Acknowledge your weakness
Luke 11:4c And lead us not into temptation
This last aspect of prayer may be a bit confusion because James says God does not tempt anyone (James 1:13). What Jesus is teaching us is to ask God that we be kept from overwhelming temptation. In your prayer ask God to protect you from temptation. This will take humility of heart knowing that you are weak and prone to sin in certain ways and that you need His help in keeping you from them. There are many avenues that can lead us to sin, the world, our own flesh and the devil so we need to continually pray that God would keep us from these temptations. We should never think that we “got this” when dealing with temptation, if it wasn’t tempting it wouldn’t be temptation. Consider what Jesus told Peter, “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan has demanded permission to sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you, that your faith may not fail” (Luke 22:31-32). Which one of us thinks they can stand up to the devil himself, we must always watch ourselves and pray to be kept from temptation, this is wise and true counsel from the Lord.
So following the instruction Jesus gave to His disciples when they asked “teach us to pray” we can see six principles that we can use as we grow in our discipline of prayer. Here is an example of what this might look like,
Dear Father in Heaven, You are great and greatly to be praised, may I honor You for who You are, may Your name be known throughout the earth. My heart has been burdened lately when I see how terrible things are in the Middle East and when I hear about the destructiveness of sin all around me, I would ask that You make things right and give me patience and a godly witness as I wait for the return of Christ. I know that all good things come from Your hand and that You have given me so much and that every day I have ever lived you have sustained me so please continue to bless me in this way today. Allow me to see your hand of provision and allow me to not rely on my abilities alone but recognize that in the end all good things come from Your hand. Lord, I also know that I have sinned and that I was angry with my friend yesterday and spoke harshly with them, would You forgive me for my sin of anger and abusive speech and give me the courage to seek forgiveness from them as well. You know how often I am tempted to be impatient with my clients at work, allow me to bear the fruit of the Spirit when I interact with them and allow me to be kept from temptations that I don’t even see. Give me the strength to not go down paths of destruction but let me walk in Your ways today. Lord, I would ask Your blessing upon today and that You would allow me to be a light wherever You send me. Thank You for Christ and in His name I pray, amen.
I would encourage you to write down the principles Jesus taught us and use them on a daily basis, you will never get better teaching on prayer than from Jesus so put in place what He has taught you.
