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Luke 11 "Teach us to Pray"
Now it came to pass, as He was praying in a certain place, when He ceased, that one of His disciples said to Him, "Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples." So He said to them, "When you pray, say: Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us day by day our daily bread. And forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who is indebted to us. And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one." And He said to them, "Which of you shall have a friend, and go to him at midnight and say to him, friend lend me three loaves; for a friend of mine has come to me on his journey, and I have nothing to set before him'; and he will answer from within and say, do not trouble me; the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot rise and give to you'? I say to you, though he will not rise and give to him because he is his friend, yet because of his persistence he will rise and give him as many as he needs. "So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. If a son asks for bread from any father among you, will he give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent instead of a fish? Or if he asks for an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!" (Luke 10:1-13)
"Lord, teach us to pray". The disciples watched
Jesus as He prayed and they wanted to be able to pray that way. Years
back when I first came to Japan, I used to ride home on the train each
week with a young woman who was the secretary at the English school
where I was teaching. She lived one stop past mine on the Ome line and
so after work we would chat together to pass the time on the train.
Each week as I shared with her about my life, she realized that I had
a special relationship with God. The final week that I worked for that
company we rode together on the train again for the last time and one
stop before my station she asked me, "Teach me how to pray"
I had very little time, but I told her to talk to Jesus as she would
to a friend. Don't use any special words, but speak to Him from your
heart. I never saw this woman again, and I wish that I could have taught
her more, but the advice that I gave her still stands. The specific
words of the prayer are not important, there is no set vocabulary that
we need to use. What God desires from us most is honesty and openness.
But Jesus did give His disciples a basic model to follow. I am learning
how important models are. My son likes to play with mini-4wd racecars.
These cars come in kits that you have to put together. Everything snaps
together so it is much easier than the cars I put together with glue
when I was a boy, but because these cars actually race, there are many
little parts, gears, and axles that have to be assembled properly. So
Keita and I hunch over the box and put the car together step by step,
following the directions and pictures that are printed there. The illustrations
serve as a model for me. I can look at what the car is supposed to look
like and work from there. Now the fun part of these cars is that you
can take them down to the local toy store and race them with other kid's
cars. Keita and I went down and man it is like another world. Each boy
has his own pit-area, with a box of spare parts and three or four cars.
The cars speed around the tracks at blazing speeds and when Keita puts
our car, that we so lovingly put together on the course, it looks like
grandma is out for a Sunday drive. I look over at the other boys and
I see a kid about 8 or 9 years old grab his car, pop off the body, disassemble
the gear mechanism and the motor, and install a totally different one
in a matter of about 30 seconds. It took me a half an hour to put the
same one in Keita's car! Well I found out that there are special high-rev
motors and gears and tires and the really serious racers are really
into this hobby. Wow!
When you are first starting out with something new, you need a model.
Jesus has given us this kind of model in the Lord's prayer. But as you
get used to praying, the model is no longer necessary. Like that boy
and his racecar, when he first started he had to look at the instructions
on the box, but after a while it became second nature. In fact that
little boy could do it without even really thinking about it. This is
what Jesus wants for us in regards to prayer as well.
In the Lord's prayer He starts us off with the words, "Our Father".
He wants us to know that we are not approaching some far off power,
some spiritual force that does not care about us. We are talking to
our Daddy, who knows everything about us and loves us. When we first
start to pray we might feel uncomfortable, we might feel like we are
wasting God's time with our petty concerns, we might feel like we are
just talking out into space. But if we pray "Our Father" we
realize that God loves us and makes time for us. After a while the awkward
feelings will go away, and when it is time to pray you will run in and
jump on Father God's lap like the child of God that you are.
Jesus taught the disciples to say, "Our Father in heaven, hallowed
be Your name." The first order of business when we talk to God
is to work on our relationship with Him. If all I do when I get home
is say to my wife. "I'm hungry, where is dinner" she is not
going to be happy to cook my dinner. "Hallowed" means to give
honor, and the first thing that we should pray is that God's name would
be honored in our lives. We should not just look to God as somebody
to give us what we want, but as someone to enjoy being with, someone
to listen to our heart, someone to love and be loved by. If we just
use God, we are not honoring Him, not hallowing His name. If I just
use my wife, to cook and clean for me I am not honoring her.
The next part of the model prayer is the part that we forget most often
when we pray. This is the part that takes our focus off of ourselves
and widens our prayer life to include the rest of the world. What is
God's main concern for the world? Peace? Prosperity? Feeding the hungry
children? Actually it is all of that, but not as we usually think of
it. God wants for His kingdom to come, and His will to be done here
on earth. Folks, if that happened there would be peace, there would
be prosperity, there would be no hungry children. The number one prayer
for the world is that more people could be reached with the gospel of
Jesus, would be changed from the inside out by His grace, and live their
lives according to God's will. Don't forget to pray for the world. It
has the wonderful effect of causing you to realize how small your problems
really are.
After getting your relationship right with the Father, and praying for
the lost world to know Him, then Jesus gets around to the prayer that
usually we are most concerned with: daily needs. "Give us day by
day our daily bread." Really this includes all of the things that
we need, a place to live, a new visa, a husband or wife, help at our
jobs, health and strength for our bodies. All of these things that worry
us most we need to lift up to the Lord. The best way that I have found
to do this is to pray right as I begin to worry. I once saw something
in a store that was called a "worry stone". It was a round
smooth stone which a person could rub and rub as they worried about
their problems. It is a very good picture of what worrying is. Worry
is when you think the same thoughts over and over again. "What
am I going to do?" "What am I going to do?", "I
hope he will get better" or "She is just so selfish".
But like that stone, just rubbing up against that thought again and
again isn't going to do any good. Instead as you find yourself rubbing
and rubbing the same thought. Grab it and pray it up to the Lord. Instead
of thinking "What am I going to do". Pray, "Lord, show
me what to do." Instead of repeating "I hope he will get better"
in your mind, pray it, "Lord, please heal him". Instead of
complaining about how selfish she is, pray, "Lord, change her"
or "Lord, teach me to deal with her selfishness." Perhaps
you won't see fire come down from heaven, or a sudden change in that
person. (Don't put it past the Lord though, it has been known to happen.)
But you will find that your mind is put at ease. The thought that has
captivated your mind, the worry that would not let you sleep, is replaced
by a sense of peace that you can't really understand. God promises this
in Philippians 4:6-7 "Be anxious for nothing , but in everything
by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be
made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding,
will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.
Finally, after we have put all of the things that worry us firmly into
God's care we are freed up to consider the spiritual battle that we
are in. For actually the biggest problems we face are never really physical
things at all. It might look to us as if they are flesh and blood, or
time and space, or visas and money, but actually we are fighting against
spiritual forces in a war for the control of our minds and actions.
And this is a battle that is waged in prayer. There are two main elements
that we need to be concerned with. First is the issue of forgiveness
which of course is linked arm in arm with the problem of our own sins.
The number one problem in prayer life is that when we sin, like Adam
and Eve in the garden we feel ashamed and no longer want to talk to
God. During sin I feel like thinking about God or talking to Him would
spoil the pleasure of it. After sin I feel like hiding that sin from
Him, except that is impossible to do, once I start to talk to God, He
sees all the way to the bottom of my heart and sure enough the issue
cannot be avoided. So, invariably, my solution is to avoid talking to
God. But God has promised us that if we confess our sins He is faithful
and just to forgive us. (1John 1:9) Not only that but He will also cleanse
us from all unrighteousness. Jesus wisely links this not just with our
own sins before God, but also the sins of others toward us. If we get
into the habit of forgiving others it is much easier to go before God
and ask for His forgiveness.
This is how we deal with sin that we have already fallen into. But we
need to go one step further and deal with the origin of sin, the source
of sin in our lives. "And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver
us from the evil one." We pray to avoid as much temptation as we
can and for God to rescue us from those that we cannot. This is not
the prayer of someone who is holy, and therefore is impervious to temptation,
but rather the prayer of someone who realises just how vulnerable he
is to attack from the enemy. There are two reasons why we sin. The first
is that our minds and wills are so conditioned by our old sin nature
that our first thoughts tend away from God and toward sin. But the second
is that the evil one, Satan, is constantly trying to lead us into sin.
Satan wants for us to be away from God and he knows that sin is the
most effective way. Satan knows that absolutely nothing can seperate
us from the love of God, but our own shame can cause us to hide from
Him, to draw away from Him. This is why Satan tempts us and the very
area wherein we are weak, we will find plenty of opportunities to fall.
The key to victory over sin is simple. Do not fight this battle on your
own. Take every temptation, every weakness in your life to God, call
for the heavenly rescue team when it looks like you are going to fall
into sin.
The words of the Lord's Prayer are the model of how we should pray to
our Father. Focus in on the relationship first, climb up on your Papa's
lap and whisper in His ear. Then let Him speak to you and show you what
His concerns are, His love for the world, and His kingdom. After this
quality time, take all of the worries that are weighing in on you to
Him and as His peace invades your heart you will find that He will start
to work with you on the deeper spiritual issues of sin and forgiveness.
Remember, this is a model prayer. Use the words as an example to get
you started, not as some magic formula that you have to get just right.
At first you will need to look back at the words again and again, but
as you get used to praying this way, you will be able to change gears
on the fly, be more sensitive to the leading of the Spirit and go deeper
in prayer with God. This is just one of many prayers in the Bible. Another
whole book of prayer, the Psalms, also has many excellent model prayers
that you can do the same kind of thing with.
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