GodSprings - 24, March, 2017

Do I Know How To Pray?

Pray then like this:

Luke 6:9a

George Muller, known as the man of prayer was once asked how much time he spent in prayer. He replied, “I live in the spirit of prayer. I pray as I walk, when I lie down, and when I rise. The answers are always coming.”

Prayer for him, was a way of life. Jesus too knew that. And it is because of that reason that Jesus stops in the midst of his discourse on the Sermon on the Mount which compares the false standard of religion of the Pharisees with the true standard of God.

If prayers are to be a way of life, then it’s necessary that we understand how we need to pray. Jesus here is teaching the same prayer which he taught to the disciples when they asked Jesus in Luke 11, “Lord teach us to pray.”

The new age spirituality showcased on the televisions has made people to believe that prayer is simply a way for you to get what you want. Send in your request and put in a cheque for such and such cause and you will have health and prosperity. This is what they advocate on television. Somebody has rightly called it as the name it and claim it theology.

The Bible teaches that God is sovereign and man His servant. But the recent view teaches that man is sovereign and God is his servant. We are in the command position and God is in the role of a servant who must deliver.

When Jesus told, this is how we need to pray, he didn’t teach us about the posture of prayer. He doesn’t tell us about the place of prayer. He doesn’t tell us about the time/times of prayer.

Jesus says those aren’t issues at all. In any posture, in any time, under any attire prayer is fitting because pray is a total way of life. When Jesus says to pray like this, it doesn’t mean that you have to say it in exact words but rather it was a model for us to pray. Our prayers need to follow the pattern that Jesus has set before us.

When we look at the prayer that Jesus teaches we see that each and every phrase focuses on God. The focal point of the prayer then is on the glory and honour of God and extension of his kingdom.

The prayer that Jesus teaches, asks us to accept whatever God brings in. We are not to accept it bitterly or passively as a theological thing but we need to accept it as His will.

This Lenten season can we check what’s our theology of prayer? Does it assume that God has to give what we demand? In our prayers who is sovereign – We or God?