I suppose I am an efficiency nut, but I was thinking the other day about effective and efficient prayer. Are their any guidelines as to how to pray? The Bible is full of suggestions about prayer and the answer is yes; however it would take a book to present them all. I will make a few observations that my research about prayer is beginning to yield and encourage you to conduct some research of your own. It is an important subject as we are instructed to pray constantly and there are ways that we can pray more effectively.
The disciples asked Jesus how to pray and he gave them what is commonly referred to as the Lord’s Prayer. If we look at it, the first thing Jesus started with is, “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name”. We know from the Ten Commandments that we are to honor our earthly father and mother, so it is fitting that Jesus begins the prayer by glorifying and honoring our heavenly Father.
Next Jesus prays, “Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven”. The Living Bible states, “May your kingdom come soon”.
We should all be less interested in staying in this old world one day or even one second longer than absolutely necessary, and most interested in seeing God’s eternal kingdom ushered in. If you are enjoying this old life and not particularly enamored with the idea of it being destroyed, remember Lot’s wife was warned not to look back on Sodom, but she could not resist the temptation. She turned back and gazed longingly at that wicked city with all its evil allure and was turned into a block of salt because of it. Jesus instructs us to pray for God’s return. All Christians should recognize this world for what it is, evil, and look forward every day to the Lord’s return and our chance to enter into His eternal kingdom.
The second part of this portion of the prayer was that, “God’s will be done”. God should be in “first place” in everything. We should put Him first and fill out thoughts with His concerns, take up His character as a model for our own and serve and obey him in every way. We should try our best to understand God’s purpose for our lives and fulfill it. We should actively pray that God will help us to accomplish His will for our lives and not let people, objects, goals, and desires, (the world), take Him out of first place in our lives.
Next Jesus prayed, “Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors”. Jesus just asked for enough food for today, not an entire month. Remember how God fed the nation of Israel in the desert. He gave them manna every day. If someone tried to hoard more than one day’s worth it would rot. Why? God wants us to rely on Him on a daily basis! We are in His hand always. We rely on Him for the air that we breathe, the food we eat, water, our next heartbeat, et al.
Jesus makes His next point by asking forgiveness for sins. But in light of God’s forgiveness of our own sin; He instructs and expects us to forgive others as well. Forgiving someone who has wronged us is not easy; therefore it is entirely natural that Jesus tells us that we should pray for God’s help with this difficult task. We want the person who hurt us to feel our pain, and holding a grudge appeases our desire for revenge. But Jesus calls us to forgive those who hurt us. We should ask ourselves what prevents us from achieving this and pray for God’s help in the matter as we cannot be forgiven if we are not willing to forgive others.
Next Jesus prays, “And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one”. Satan is a constant threat. He knows our weaknesses and offers them up at our most vulnerable time. We must pray that God will not let us yield to temptation and since satan’s powers exceed our own, we pray for God’s assistance in accomplishing the foregoing. With God’s help we cannot be defeated by satan and/or his horde of fallen angels.
Jesus closed out the prayer, “For Yours, is the kingdom, and the power and the glory forever. Amen”. Once again Jesus acknowledges Almighty God for who He is and bestows honor and glory upon Him, thus concluding the model prayer. Jesus included what he deemed as key points to be covered when we pray in this prayer, (Matt. 6:9-13). Personally I try to include all of these points in every prayer that I pray and encourage you to do likewise.
Jesus gave us many other prayer tips as did others throughout the Bible.
We are to pray in private personally and directly to God and not like hypocrites praying on the street or in public where they can be seen and heard by others. We do not have to go through a priest or preacher to pray. We should not use vain repetitions or long flowery speeches. We should keep in mind that God already knows our needs before we even ask for them. Our prayers are offered in obedience and love. God is our Father and we as loving children should come to Him to ask for His advice and assistance, and we should praise and honor Him for what He does and intends to do for us. The Bible makes it plain that we should be persistent. Remember the parable where the lady kept persistently beating on someone’s door late in the night until finally they got up and gave her some bread. Or the comparison to an annoying drip, drip, drip, of water. Persistent prayer pays off and God encourages us to persistently petition Him. He also commands us to pray constantly.
Do not be afraid that God is too busy to listen to you especially for the relatively small things in your life. That is limiting to a God who knows no limits and is insulting to God. He is a personal God and wants an intimate relationship in everything we do. He has the capacity to run His creation and listen to your every concern simultaneously as the Supreme multi-tasker. I could go on for hours, and I encourage you not to stop here. Pick up your Bible and study how you can make your prayer life more effective and thus reap unlimited rewards in your life. It is how we communicate with God almighty. Remember when Jesus died on the cross the veil that separated us was destroyed. We now have direct access and we should take full advantage.
Pray for our Country.
Have a great weekend and go to church this Sunday!
Psalms 34:17
The righteous cry out,
and the Lord hears.
And delivers them out of all
their troubles.
The Lord is near those who
have a broken heart,
And saves such as have a
contrite spirit.