Prayer

Matthew 6:9-13 (NLT) -

"Pray like this: Our Father in heaven, may your name be kept holy. May your Kingdom come soon. May your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven. Give us today the food we need, and forgive us our sins, as we have forgiven those who sin against us. And don't let us yield to temptation, but rescue us from the evil one. For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen."

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Recap:

- Submitting to God, like submitting a test, means completely giving ourselves to Him to be judged, without taking anything back.

- The Bible is our textbook, which we can study to learn how God wants us to live.

- Jesus, the perfect student, sacrificed Himself to give His friends an answer key so we can properly interpret the Bible.

- Obedience to God's Word is the proof that we are actually one of Jesus' friends.

- Repentance, a complete change of our actions and direction, is absolutely necessary to become Jesus' friends.

- The Holy Spirit acts as our tutor, teaching us what's right and wrong, then helping us live it out so we can be more like Jesus. But if we don't keep talking with Him on a daily basis, we will stop growing and eventually forget what He's taught us...

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If you've spent much time in religious circles, chances are you would have at least heard the Lord's Prayer in passing. It's Jesus' instruction to his disciples (and therefore, to us) about how to pray on a daily basis.

At its absolute simplest, prayer is having a conversation with God, but so many of us have no idea what to pray about when we are talking with Him. As a result, we often end up avoiding prayer altogether. However, prayer is powerful!

So what should we talk about with God? Well when you're in a conversation with someone, you'll usually end up talking about 1 of 3 things:

1. You'll talk about them.

2. You'll talk about yourself.

3. You'll talk about someone or something else.

In prayer, the same things apply. The first topic, talking about them, is gratitude. Basically, you recognise God for who He is and thank Him for everything He is doing in your life. If we look at an example from the Lord's Prayer, we see that Jesus begins by saying, "may your name be kept holy," then ends by declaring that God has, "the kingdom and the power and the glory forever." By starting and ending our prayers with gratitude, it helps us to remember that God has been with us from the beginning and He will be with us until the end. Having this perspective will help us to see everything else that happens in our lives God's way, rather than being caught up in our own limited vision.

The second topic, talking about yourself, is petition. It is here that we ask God to meet our needs, guide us through life, and help us become more like Him. Jesus' example: "Give us today the food we need, and forgive us our sins, as we have forgiven those who sin against us. And don't let us yield to temptation, but rescue us from the evil one." One thing to pay attention to - Jesus doesn't ask for God to give us today a better house, or a higher wage, or a 7-course meal. He doesn't ask for anything more than, "the food we need." If you are always asking for more material blessings, it shows that you aren't content with what you currently have, and God will not give you anything that does not serve His purpose for your growth. On the other hand, if you learn to be content and believe in faith that God will provide everything you need for right now, you might be surprised to see the blessings that He will be willing to pour out on you.

The third topic, talking about someone/something else, is intercession. This is where you ask God to intervene in a situation on someone else's behalf so that they can know God more fully as well. This is what Jesus is talking about when He says, "May your Kingdom come soon. May your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven." This is where we pray for our family and friends to know Jesus, ask Him to help them in their situations, pray for our communities, and even ask for God to intervene in global situations (such as the situation between Russia and Ukraine right now). This is where we pray for healing, for revival, and for God's Name to be made known over the entire earth, and it is this kind of prayer that the apostle James was talking about when he said, "The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective." (James 5:16 NIV)

There is one other important element of a conversation, however - that you converse. If one person takes over a conversation and talks all the time, it gets pretty frustrating and it isn't really a conversation anymore but a rant. The same goes to our time in prayer. If we spend all of our time talking to God, even if it's on all 3 of these topics, then we still aren't going to grow as much as we are able. In order to do that, we actually need to take time to sit in silence and let God speak back to us. This can be challenging, but something that I've been finding helpful as I've been learning to practice this more this year is to set a timer - I'd encourage you to try for at least 5-10 minutes - and make a decision not to say a word from the moment the timer starts until it goes off at the end. Make sure that you find a quiet spot and you have some paper and pen next to you, so that if you think God is starting to say something to you (whether with words, pictures, a feeling, or some other way) you can start writing it down straight away, following God's advice to the prophet Habakkuk: "Write down the revelation and make it plain on tablets so that a herald may run with it." (Habbakuk 2:2 NIV)

Hopefully this has helped some of you understand prayer better and encouraged you to start making it a regular part of your day. It has to be an intentional choice, but you'll be amazed at the things that God starts speaking to you and doing in your life as you start putting that time aside. I think this mini-series will be coming to a close tomorrow (though we'll see if God gives me any more revelations from this illustration), ending on the topic of sanctification.