Prayer is an important part of my daily life. I’ve seen it work time and again in stunning, miraculous ways that literally made my hair stand on in. So, you want an example do you?
I was at a prison ministry event last year and prior to giving my testimony everything that could’ve gone wrong during the event had gone wrong. Before I went onstage I prayed and prayed and prayed that God would hold satan at bay and allow His Holy Spirit to reach these tough men.
After speaking I asked those inmates who wanted Jesus Christ in their lives to raise their hands. 400 out of 400 hardened prisoners did so. In prison any sign of weakness can get you killed, (literally). Becoming a Christian is sometimes viewed as a sign of weakness in prison, and it made it all the more spectacular that every single one of these tough men openly accepted Christ in front of their peers.
If you haven’t seen miraculous results, then you are truly missing out on an amazing phenomenon. I’ve seen it many times, but never get used to it. I would be lying if I said that everything I pray for is always granted. I prayed for my five year old nephew, but he died a painful death from brain cancer. I prayed for his father, (my brother Jim), but he committed suicide.
Sometimes the answer is no. I accept God’s answers as He gives them. He is the “creator” and I am the “created”.
I was thinking about the manner in which we should pray. The disciples asked Jesus how to pray and He responded with a sample prayer. It is commonly referred to as the “Lord’s Prayer”, and most believers know it by heart. Although we can recite it, have you ever really examined it line by line and tried to understand the significance of what Jesus was teaching? Nothing is insignificant in the Bible, so I assume the prayer has specific content that we should include and is put in this precise order for a distinct purpose.
In my opinion, Jesus did not give us this prayer to recite verbatim. I think it is important to include everything Jesus gave us in this sample prayer in our own prayers; however, remember that the Bible specifically commands that our prayers are to be from the heart, and not to be recited mindlessly in vain repetitions, or chanted.
As you will remember it was given by Jesus Himself. So the Lord’s Prayer starts out: Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be your name. This indicates that we should first and foremost give God His due and acknowledge that He is in heaven high above us and we are to glorify and praise His name above all names “right off the bat”. How often do we just jump in to the heart of the matter and ask God for His help in whatever is vexing us without acknowledging who He is and telling Him how much we appreciate Him and what he has done?
Next Jesus prayed: Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. With this statement we recognize that God’s will is what we really need and truly desire in our lives and not necessarily our own will. We concede that we don’t know what is best for us and God in His perfect wisdom does and will exercise it in our lives. There used to be a television show called, Father Knows Best, that title is indicative of this notion. God’s will for our lives is the best thing for us, albeit it is difficult or often impossible to understand some things such as tragic events. We should also acknowledge this in our prayers and ask for understanding (or peace if it is a tragedy or similar thing that is simply incomprehensible for us to grasp at this point in our lives).
The Lord’s Prayer goes from there to: Give us this day our daily bread. Daily bread can be interpreted as His providing us with our worldly needs and not merely food. We aren’t asking for the moon, just enough to get us through the day. God supplied the Israelis “manna” and He supplies our needs with equal vigor. This is not necessarily pheasant under a glass with caviar, but what we really need in life.
Next Jesus mentions forgiveness: Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. He felt it important enough to point out that we are to forgive others in the same manner He forgives us. In nearly fifteen years of writing Words for the Day I’ve probably heard more people say that this is the most difficult command to follow; nonetheless it is very important as evidenced here. So important in fact that God instructs us to ask for His help with it. Selah . . .
Jesus instructed us to specifically pray for strength in resisting temptation: And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. This statement demonstrates how powerful temptation is and how we cannot resist it on our own. We need God’s mighty hand to help us to resist satan’s most effective tool, temptation.
Jesus closes His sample prayer: For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. He closes by again praising the Father and acknowledging that it is He that created the Universe and all of creation, and we were created by Him for Him. That’s twice in the same prayer that He makes that point, does that tell you something? It is important to honor and glorify our Creator and acknowledge that it is He and not us that deserves the respect. We should close our prayers with tremendous praise for our awesome God.
The Bible tells us to pray without ceasing. That means throughout the day we need to call upon God to help us get through the day. As we claw our way through life, we should remember to praise God’s holy name and thank Him for what He has done and continues to do.
Sure we can ask Him for things and His help when we need it, but we should remember our manners and who exactly it is we are talking to. God loves us more than anyone including our closest family member and/or friend, but He is also a heavenly King and Creator of the entire Universe and should be treated with respect. He does not and will not sit on His throne disengaged from us. He wants our full attention. This is a good thing and the tremendous price that He paid for us on Calvary is ample proof to all but a few fools of His incomprehensible love for us.
The prophet Daniel learned of the decree not to pray, (upon threat of execution in a den of lions) and below is what he did. I like his courage and mettle . . . So did God; He delivered him and blessed him mightily. Prayer works. Why not try it right now using the aforementioned content and structure along with your petitions?
Daniel 6:10
Now when Daniel learned that the decree had been published, he went home to his upstairs room where the windows opened toward Jerusalem. Three times a day he got down on his knees and prayed, giving thanks to his God, just as he had done before.