Wednesday, February 3, 2010: Prayer (part 1)

[Durruck]

I wanted to kick off my time as a Verse of the Day poster with an epic thread. I recently finished a study on prayer, and it was amazing to me how much I didn't know about prayer. So I'm going to re-post portions of the text for the next few weeks. All content is used with permission.

Matthew 6:9 "This, then, is how you should pray:”

Throughout the New Testament, we see Jesus withdraw to pray, many times on his own. But this is one time that Jesus comes forward and gives us a very specific idea of just how we're expected to pray.

Matthew 6:9-13 (New International Version)

9"This, then, is how you should pray:
" 'Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
10your kingdom come,
your will be done
on earth as it is in heaven.
11Give us today our daily bread.
12Forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
13And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one.[a]'

Footnotes:

1. Matthew 6:13 Or from evil; some late manuscripts one, / for yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.

I don't believe that God expects us to repeat these exact words as some part of a ritual. Over the next few weeks, I'll begin to unravel just what it is that Jesus was telling us.

 

[cc.slim]

A perfect kickoff! What is the easiest for us to do (prayer) is the most important!

 

[Durruck]

After a few hours, I realized this wasn't enough of a study for me. So I'll post what I was going to use next week - the first part of the instruction that Jesus was giving.

Matthew 6:9 "... 'Our Father in heaven,

Praying to our Heavenly Father – As Christians we have an intimacy with God that not even the greatest of the Old Testament saints enjoyed. Not one of them called God Father. There is a relationship that is between us and God: if we didn’t talk to our earthly father, the relationship would suffer. The same holds true with our Heavenly Father.

So keeping in mind that our prayers are a line of communication, or "speaking"... do you pray as if speaking to a master? Your servant? Or do you speak as if to your father?

..."hallowed be your name,"

Hallowing God’s name – when we speak to God, we should realize that we are not talking to a servant or butler who is supposed to fetch us what we ask. Instead, we are talking with Almighty God – and that should fill us with awe us cause us to hallow His name.

So the point that Jesus is making is that we need to check ourselves at the door. When we pray, we need to keep in mind that we shouldn't be making demands in our prayers, we shouldn't be deceptive or greedy or malicious. We're talking the our Heavenly Father, the perfect and immeasurable creator. We need to make sure we're approaching Him with the respect He deserves.