- So one day while
Jesus was praying, His inner circle of
disciples were watching and listening to Him pray,
not for the first time, but on this occasion one
of them finally mustered the courage to say,
or basically to ask what they'd been wanting
to ask for quite some time. So when Jesus was
finished praying, one of them approached Him
on behalf of the whole group and they said, "Lord, would you
teach us how to pray." After watching and
listening to Him pray, they concluded that,
it's kinda funny, they concluded that maybe
they'd been doing it wrong, that they had been
praying the wrong way even though they had been
praying their entire lives. They'd been brought up praying
portions of the psalms, combinations of some
Old Testament writings, they'd been taught to
pray by their fathers and their mothers and
their religious leaders, so they were actually
still praying the way they had been taught
to pray as children, reciting memorized prayers, and then Jesus came along and well, if He was
praying correctly, I mean if that's
the way it was done they had a lot to learn. And for reasons
we will never know Jesus actually waited to be
asked and eventually they asked, and when they asked they said, Lord, we need you to
teach us how to pray, we wanna pray the
way that you pray. Now I would imagine
this is something you've never asked anyone
to teach you how to do. In fact, if someone,
imagine this, if someone after hearing
you pray suggested that you should go
learn how to pray because you weren't
doing it right, well, you would be offended. I mean, hey, you know that
prayer that you prayed before dinner the other night,
that's not how you do it, I need to sit you down
and teach you how to pray. And to that very point in about, I don't know maybe
10 minutes from now Jesus is actually gonna tell
us something about prayer that might offend you, but you won't be upset with
Jesus you'll be upset with me because I'll be
the one telling you that according to Jesus you
aren't praying correctly. So get ready because
Jesus is about to school all of us on prayer, but we should actually
be happy about that. You should be happy about that because let's be really
honest for a moment very few of our prayers ever really
get answered anyway, right? Unless we count the
prayers about things that were probably
gonna happen anyway, turns out your car
keys were exactly where you left them, right? Turns out you did in fact
find a parking space, but so did several
hundred other non prayers, they found parking
spaces as well. As it turns out
your team did win, but they were expected to win and when they weren't expected
to win, well, they didn't. But when it comes to those
other kinds of prayers, if you ever pray for what
you might consider a miracle, something big, something that
if God doesn't come through it just won't come true, occasionally, occasionally
you get a yes, but sometimes let's just
be honest you get nothing, and perhaps it was
a series of nothings that convinced you that
there's nothing to prayer, that it's a waste of time, that prayer, well,
it just doesn't work. And as we are about to
discover, you're right, that kind of prayer, the kinds of prayers that
most of us pray don't work at least not the way
we want it to anyway, but in spite of
that Jesus prayed and He taught His
followers to pray. And most of us will
continue to pray regardless of the outcome, in some ways it's
just reflexive, right? I mean, I have an acquaintance
who used to be a pastor and now he's an atheist, and we were having a
conversation one time I said, "Can I ask you a question?" And I said, "And this isn't a gotcha
question, I'm just curious, "after being a Christian and
a pastor for most of your life "do you ever accidentally pray? "Like things aren't going
well and there's sort of, "you know, to whom it may
concern or God help me." And he laughed, he said, "Yeah, sometimes I
catch myself praying." I think we all do. Anyway, back to our story. So Jesus 1st century followers, His 1st century followers
they grew up praying, but after watching
Jesus they realized there was something very
different about His prayers. It was like there was something
going on between Him and God that they weren't accustomed to. It wasn't just different,
it was more intimate, it was less scripted, there was more passion and
intensity, it was compelling, and it made them discontent
with their own prayer so they finally said, "Lord, Lord, teach us to pray." To which Jesus may have thought, I thought you would never ask. And then in typical Jesus style, instead of teaching
them how to pray, He tells them how not to pray. Now if you're not
a religious person or not a fan of
Christians or Christianity you're gonna love this part, in fact, it may be another
reason why you should at least consider
becoming a Jesus follower because Jesus begins by
pointing out the hypocrisy of so many people who
pray the wrong way. In fact, here's how He begins
His lesson on how to pray. Here's what He says, He says, "And when you pray." Again, here's the don't do. "Do not be like the hypocrites, "for they love to pray
standing in the synagogues "and on the street corners
to be seen by others." And this is the part about
Jesus that you have to love, He had no tolerance
for pretenders, He had no tolerance
for pretension, people who thought they were
better than other people. And the reason He didn't is
because Jesus knew men's hearts, He knew what was in there. In fact, He knew
they were not better than the people around them. In fact, they were often worse because they were hiding stuff, they were hiding behind
their elevated position in their pretension,
they're pretending. Besides He says, "Truly I tell you those people "they have their
reward in full." They have received
their reward in full. In other words, God
won't reward them because God isn't moved by or impressed with the perfect
scripted public prayers of inauthentic people. They wanted attention
and they got it from the people watching,
but not from God. Their reward was the
attention they received from the people
who saw them pray and were impressed by
their amazing prayers. Then He continues He
says this, He says, "But when you pray,
but when you pray." And this raises
several questions, when do you pray,
and why do you pray? And as we're gonna
find out in a minute, this is an important
question, where do you pray? These were the questions Jesus
was actually interested in, and His disciples knew the
answer to these questions well, they were
gonna be different than their answers to
those same questions. And as it turns out
God had not answered their prayers either. In fact God had not answered
their parents' prayers. Just like us they
prayed the same prayers over and over in many cases and they got
generally no response. They were living in
the shadow of Rome just like their parents
and their grandparents. They knew their
own tragic history. In fact, you may not know this, but about 90 years earlier
their own rulers in Jerusalem had been so divided they
actually invited Rome to Judea to help them solve their
internal political conflict and the Romans, well,
they never left. Before the Romans
it was the Greeks, it was the Persians, the
Assyrians, the Babylonians. If prayer moved God, and if God cared for His
nation, for their nation, clearly they were
not praying correctly because things were
not getting any better. So maybe they were right,
maybe they were doing it wrong. Now their religious leaders
had a completely different take on why God didn't
answer their prayers. They assured the people that, well, know God
does answer prayer, but God can't hear your prayers because you're not holy enough,
you're not obedient enough. It was their fault that God
didn't answer their prayers, and perhaps somebody has
told you the same thing or some version
of the same thing. Maybe somebody at
some points said, you need more faith and less
sin, more faith less sin. Before long in your case, God was reduced to
basically the equivalent of an instant cash machine. And you found yourself
scrambling to find the correct pin number to
get from God what you wanted, but then at the same
time, isn't this true? At the same time
you looked around and there were a
whole lot of people who weren't praying anything and well, they were
doing just fine, life seemed to just
workout for them. Anyway, back to Jesus. "But when you pray, He says, "but when you pray." This is so interesting. "Go into your room." Now again, if I were
to suggest to you that you can't just pray
while you're driving to work, walking the dog,
sitting on the bus, you may respond, who are you to tell me
when and where I can pray? Or you may say because of
your religious tradition, hey, the way I was raised I don't really feel like
I can pray correctly, I don't feel like I
can connect with God unless I'm in church. So I want you to hear these
words coming not from my lips, I want you to hear these words
coming from the lips of Jesus because He's telling us
something very, very important, something that I think we
like His 1st century audience may have missed. Here's what He said, "But when you pray, "when you pray go into your
room and close the door." Close the door. Why? Isolate myself, why in
my room not at church, not in traffic, not
just before a meal, why is that even necessary
I thought we could pray whatever we wanted to pray
anywhere we wanted to pray? And then later on
He tells us why it's so important for
you to find a place and to find a time and
to isolate yourself from everything and
everybody else around you. So back to the question I
asked just a minute ago, when do you pray? Where do you pray? Jesus says that's important and He'll explain
why in just a minute, but first this, this
next part, He says this. He says, "When you pray, go into
your room and close the door "and pray to your
Father who is unseen." Now, this is where I would
like to step out of the way and let Jesus come in and
elaborate on what He said here, but He doesn't really
need to because, well, His words are
extraordinarily clear, Jesus instructs us to pray
to God our unseen Father. Jesus instructs us to pray
to God not Him, not His mama, not the saints, not the Falcons
and not even the Cowboys, sorry, I just could not resist, but maybe I should have because
this really is important. Jesus instructs us to address
our prayers directly to God, but He's even more
specific than that, Jesus instructed
them, He instructs us to address our unseen
God in relational terms. He says, I want you to pray
to your Father who is unseen, our heavenly Father,
our Father in heaven. And again, maybe it was
His casual, conversational, relational approach to
prayer that had caught their attention to begin with. Gentlemen, He was saying, look, I want you to find a place where you can have a
private conversation with your heavenly Father. I want you to find a
place where you can say what needs to be said in
whatever tone you need to use, whatever words you
feel are appropriate, I want you to pray in private
so you're not distracted. I want you to pray in private so you can pour out your heart. And then your Father, your Father who sees
what is done in secret. This is amazing. According to Jesus,
according to Jesus, God sees you praying alone
with the door closed. Your heavenly Father who
sees what is done in secret, will reward you. There's that word again, right? Reward. secret prayer according
to Jesus is rewarded. Now remember at the
beginning the religious folks who prayed publicly,
what was their reward? Well, they were
seen by the public. Those who pray in secret,
what is their reward? What's our reward? What's your reward? You're seen, you're seen
by your Father in heaven. What if that's true? What if God sees you pray? What if you knew with certainty God saw and heard your prayers? What would you pray if you
were absolutely confident that God sees you
when you're praying and He hears your prayers? That's what Jesus says. Then Jesus gives
us another not to, but He shifts His attention away from their religious
leaders to the Romans and their pagan
priests, He says, now here's something else
not to do when you pray. "And when you pray do not keep
on babbling like the pagans, "for they think
they will be heard "because of their many words." That Greek term babbling
actually sounds like babbling. The Greek term there is
(speaking in foreign language). He says, don't keep (speaking
in foreign language) don't say the same thing
over and over and over. Repetition doesn't move God, link their style
doesn't impress God, He's not looking for the right
word or even the right words. In fact, on another occasion
Jesus makes this point through a very
interesting parable, in fact, He creates an entire
parable to make this point. It was directed at some of
the professional prayers that He mentioned earlier, men specifically
who were confident in their own righteousness and just pretty much looked
down on everybody else. So here's what He
said in the parable. He said, one day a Pharisee
and a tax collector both went to pray in the temple. And the Pharisee's
prayer was eloquent, but it was pretty
much all about him. He kept reminding
God how good He was, how good the Pharisee was. But the tax collector, the tax collector's
prayer was very different. In fact, it's interesting
when Jesus said the tax collector
went up to pray because everyone in Jesus'
audience would assume that God wouldn't even hear
the prayer of a tax collector, that God would ignore the
prayer of a tax collector. Here's what He said, "But the tax collector
stood at a distance." That is he stood up
against the wall, he stood as far away as he could from the Holy of Holies
there on the Temple Mount. "He stood at a distance "and he would not even
look up to heaven, "and he beat his
breast and he said, "'God have mercy
on me a sinner.'" Not really an
academy award winning prayer performance, right? "Have mercy on me a sinner "Amen." But Jesus in the parable gives the tax collector
two thumbs up. Basically He was saying, folks, that's what
I'm talking about. We're like, really, have
mercy on me a sinner? Is that even a prayer? Now in my experience and
this is just my experience, in my experience the
men whose prayers I found to be most impressive, usually long and
loud and dramatic, the men in my
experience who prayed the most impressive prayers, they often live less
than impressive lives behind the scenes. So if you hesitate to pray
because you don't know what to say, this
should be comforting. What you say when you pray, what you say when you pray
is far less consequential than if you pray. Back to Jesus, He
goes on and He says, "And when you pray, "do not keep on
babbling like the pagans "for they think
they will be heard "because of their many words,
because of their many words." Then He says this, "Do not be like them." People who equate
length with merit. And then He says something
really interesting, "For, for," Now what Jesus says next, what Jesus says next
actually explains why we don't need a lot of
words or the correct words. In fact, what Jesus
says next kinda pulls the rug out from underneath
why most of us even pray. And I think He did
this on purpose. He said, the reason you
don't need to go on and on and on and on and on is because, "Your Father knows what you
need before you ask Him." So what did you say? (mumbles) Wait a minute, will you? Okay, He already knows? Yeah, He already knows. Well, if He already knows
then what's the next question that comes out of our mouth? If He already knows,
then why ask or why pray? Have you ever wondered that? I think that that's
exactly the question that Jesus wanted them to ask. I think He's got them
right where He wants them, He's got us right
where He wants us, this is the question He
wants us to look up and ask, well, if God already knows me,
and if God knows what I need, why in the world
should I even pray? It's why the disciples
wanted to be taught, He just prayed so differently. But we shouldn't be surprised that God already knows
what we need, right? I mean, if God is God,
if God is omniscient, then all that shouldn't He know? I mean, if you have to inform
God, is that really even God? And this brings us
to the tension Jesus
wants us to address. He was so wise to start, He
was so wise to begin with. You wanna know how to pray,
Here's how not to pray. Because now we're
confronted with the issue that many of us wrestle with
when it comes to prayer, right? Because many of us
if we're honest, many of us have reduced
prayer to informing God about our needs, our
wants, and our wishes, or about the needs, wants
and wishes of other people, people we care about,
but mostly, mostly ours. But if God already
knows why tell Him? If God already knows
why inform Him? If God already knows
knows why pray? But again, Jesus prayed and Jesus encouraged
His followers to pray. So what are we missing? And I think it's at this
point in the dialogue that the disciples
stand back and realize, okay, we were right, we have
not been doing this correctly, we haven't even been
praying for the right reason perhaps that's why God
doesn't answer our prayer. He certainly had
their attention, I think He probably has ours, maybe we've been doing it wrong, maybe that's why you
quit doing it at all. And if you're still
offended by the suggestion that perhaps you
don't pray correctly, then you're exactly
where Jesus wants you. He's pretty much telling
everybody in His audience and probably most of us that
we don't know what we're doing. So they're listening,
they're watching, nobody in Jesus' audience
moves and here's why, they don't say anything,
they don't interrupt Him because they'd been around
Jesus long enough to know that He may actually
teach them how to pray, He may actually
resolve this tension, or He's just deconstructed their entire prayer
paradigm, right? What He reconstructed or what
He launched into a parable where they're
trying to figure out which character in
the parable is God and which character
in the parable is me, well, He just leave us
hanging because sometimes, you know, Jesus would leave
the question in the air and just walk off. But fortunately for them, and
I think fortunately for us, He speaks directly in to the
tension that He's created. "This then, this then, He says, "is how you should pray." You ask for it guys, here it is. "Our Father in heaven,
our Father in heaven." Not dear Jesus, your
heavenly Father, your perfect heavenly Father. Now this raises a really
important question, does this mean that God is male? Does this mean that
God is masculine? What about heavenly mother? What about heavenly being? What about heavenly deity? And you know what? Those are valid questions. In fact, Jesus Himself says
that God is not a person, Jesus on another occasion said
that God is actually spirit. John who knew Jesus intimately
said, no, God is love. But when we pray and
this is so important and I really don't
want you to get hung up over the terminology because Jesus is telling
us something so important. Jesus is inviting us into
something more intimate than spirit or concept
or being or deity or even ruler or judge, He's inviting us into
something relational, personal, non formulaic. In fact, Peter who
knew Jesus intimately, who was standing, he was a
part of this conversation, maybe he's the one who
even asked the question, later Peter would write, "Cast your cares on Him." Him being God, "Cast your cares on Him knowing,
knowing He cares for you." It was intimate, it was
personal, it was relational, and Jesus I think is
accommodating to our capacity. So He says, look, the best way, the best way for us mere
mortals to approach, understand, and relate to an otherwise
incomprehensible God whose image we bear, but whose ways are
oftentimes not our ways, the best way to approach
God is to approach Him as a perfect Father. Now for some of us that
is not a problem at all. For me, that's just not
a problem, I am a father and I was raised by a
really, really good father. For me, it's the
perfect picture, but your experience may
be very, very different. In fact, your experience
may make this imagery or this terminology challenging
and here's some good news, your heavenly Father knows that, your heavenly Father
appreciates that, your heavenly Father
is willing to enter into that tension with you. So here's my advice. Just bring all that
with you when you pray because if Jesus is
correct, and I think He is, to opt for any other image, or to opt for any other concept
other than heavenly Father, it may mean that
you miss something. Perhaps it means you'll
miss out on something. He continues, "Our Father in heaven." And then here's the
part we oftentimes skip. "Hallowed be your name." His point is this,
that when we pray, remember He says, this
is how you should pray. When we pray, we should pause and acknowledge
who we are addressing. The great God who has
no equal, no rival, the uncreated Creator who by the way has invited
you to address Him as Father. Think about it,
infinite and intimate, infinite and intimate. When we pray we should
pause right there. We don't, but we should. "Heavenly Father, hallowed,
hallowed be your name." What an honor it is to
address you directly, to know I'm known, to
know that I'm heard, to know that you've considered
me in relationship with you. Now let's be honest, it's difficult to do
that in traffic, right? This is why Jesus
began the way He did. You wanna know how
to pray, He says, you gotta get alone,
you gotta get quiet, you need to create some
space to appreciate what's taking place, don't just say your prayers,
don't just say your prayers. Here's the bottom line. When we pause, this
is so important, when we pause to
reflect on who God is, we gain a better
understanding of who we are and why we're here. We gain a better understanding
of the relationship between the Creator
and the created. This is the place in
prayer where we recenter, this is where we
regain our bearings, this is where we remember the
broader context of our lives, our little lives that are, well, they're only
made significant not because of what we
accomplish or how long we live, they're made significant
because of whose image bear, and whose children we are. And if you skip
over, a rush by that, you will be tempted to skip
over and rush by what follows. In fact, you'll
resist what follows and what follows is why we pray, what follows is the
purpose of prayer. It explains why you
need a place and a time, why you need to close your door or walk outside to get
away from the things that distract you, the pressures
and the responsibilities that leave us with
the impression that
this is all there is, and that we are
all that matters. When we rush by
addressing who God is, basically prayer reduces
God to a good luck charm, prayer becomes a reflex, sort of a last glance in the
mirror before leaving home, a wish me luck before a
presentation or an exam. If we don't begin by
experiencing some sense of awe, our Father in heaven,
Creator of all things, great is your name, skip that and what He says
next will be lost on you. It's why what follows rarely
ever shows up in our prayers, it's why our prayers I
think are so predictable and oftentimes so ineffectual. Dear heavenly Father,
thank you for this day, now here's my list, gotta run. Back to Jesus and the disciples. Jesus teach us how to pray, teach us how to
pray like you pray. Okay, He says, this then
is how you should pray. "Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name." Got it, love it, so we
won't pray show off prayers, we won't keep repeating the
same thing over and over as if God doesn't already
know what we need, we're gonna pray to
God and not to you, and we're gonna
address God as Father, so what's next is, is this
when we ask for staff? "Your kingdom come, "your will be done on
earth as it is in heaven." Wait, your kingdom, your will? I mean, what about my kingdom? What about my will? What about my family, my job,
my lack of a job, my health? What about my fear? What about my bills? What about my daughter
who won't talk to me? I mean, what about me? To which I think Jesus
would smile and say, I've already covered that. "For your Father, "for your heavenly Father
knows what you need "before you even ask." Oh yeah, I already
forgot that part. So I don't need to
start with all that? Jesus would say no. You see, when we pause to think
about who we're addressing, when we pause and acknowledge
who we're talking to, what else is there
to say other than, you first, your agenda
first, your kingdom come, my kingdom can wait. This is what Jesus
was talking about in the Sermon on the
Mount when He said, "Seek first the kingdom of God." His point is the
point of prayer. The point or the purpose
of prayer is to align or realign ourselves with
God's will, with God's purpose. The purpose of prayer, the purpose of prayer
is to surrender our will not to impose it. Heavenly Father,
before I ask anything I want you to know that what
I want, I want what you want, your will be done. Prayer is not about moving
God, but being moved by God, it's not about convincing
Him to do our bidding, but allowing Him to
get us to the place where we are willing to do His. In fact, this was
the very thing, the very thing we find
Jesus wrestling with in the Garden of Gethsemane
right before He was arrested, you're familiar with
this story I'm sure. Father, He prays, I dread this, I don't wanna go
through with this, there's nothing about this
I'm looking forward to, yet, remember this? Not my will, but yours be done. And here's something
interesting, do you know what hung in the
balance of His willingness to submit to the agenda
of His heavenly Father? More to the point, do you know who
hung in the balance? You did, I did, we all
did, the world did. Jesus in this moment teaching
His disciples to pray, teaching us to pray, Jesus is inviting us to pray
and to live as He prayed, and to live as He lived, submitted to the will
of our heavenly Father. To be blunt and to be
maybe a little personal, according to Jesus if we
pray with any other posture than a posture of submission
to His will, His agenda, we aren't doing it right. This is why I like to pray
on my knees when I can, and my dad taught me this. Now in our culture we don't
bow our knee to anyone, right? I mean we're Americans, but Jesus says you should
bow out of gratitude, out of gratitude
that you can address your King as your Father, we should bow out
of recognition that His will should be done even
when it conflicts with ours. And isn't it true, we usually skip that
part in prayer, don't we? And I'm like you, I get this, I've got my own little kingdom, I've got my will for my life,
I have an agenda of my own, and Jesus assures us that
our heavenly Father knows all about our fragile
temporary little kingdoms, so we don't have to start there. In fact, we shouldn't
start there. Heavenly Father, your
agenda before mine, your kingdom, a
kingdom of conscience, a kingdom fueled
by a new command, a kingdom where
what's best for people is what's best because they
are your image bearer as well, "Your kingdom come,
your will be done." Now, how can I help? And where am I possibly
getting in the way? "Your kingdom come, your
will be done on earth." Right here, right now, right here, right now in
my life, in my family, in my relationships
with my resources, and my community on
earth as it is in heaven. Here's the thing,
this is His point, until we get there, until our
wills are surrendered to His, come on, what's the point of
continuing until our wills to the best of our knowledge
are surrender to His, aren't we just users, consumers? Doesn't it basically reduce God to a cosmic vending
machine, an app? I mean, consider this, if you quit praying because
God didn't answer your prayer as legitimate as your prayer was maybe the healing of
a friend or a parent, so you quit praying because
God didn't answer your prayer and then you just gave
up on God altogether, what does that say
about your view of God? You assumed unanswered prayer
said something about God, but really it says something
about your view of God. If there is a God, God
should answer my prayer, God didn't answer my prayer,
my very legitimate prayer, so clearly God doesn't answer
prayer, God doesn't care, I'm not even sure God is there. And you know what? That's understandable. It's understandable if God is
simply a favor distributor, if God is simply a divine
healer waiting to be summoned, or a lifeguard waiting
to be called into action, but what if Jesus was correct? What if God your heavenly
Father is more than that? What if He's none of that? What if His plan includes
you, but it's bigger than you? Include you, but it
doesn't center on you? What if prayer does
it begin with asking? What if prayer begins with
recognizing and submitting? What if we're to begin
by remembering who God is and who we aren't? So His will takes
precedent over ours. To press this just
a bit further, the reason and I
know this is personal and you might be
right in the middle of a situation like this, the reason you find yourself
from time to time praying or trying to pray your
way out of a situation that you behaved your way into, the reason you find yourself
in that situation from time to time is because you don't
begin your day this way, you don't begin your
prayers this way, you don't begin surrendered
to your Father's will. So you, and we, and I, we get our unsurrendered
selves into situations we can't get ourselves out of, situations we would have
avoided if we had begun the day and continued the day in, thy
will be done, posture, right? And then even when
you find yourself in a mess that you
created yourself, how do you pray? It's still about you, right? Help me, save me,
rescue me, you know. And does God hear those prayers? I think so, but here's the thing
and here's Jesus' point, your heavenly Father would like to help you avoid those prayers and you avoid those
prayers by beginning your day surrendered
to His will. This is why we pray. So I have a suggestion, between now and next time, and next time we'll get to
the us part, the give us part, the part that we usually
begin with, right? But anyway, between
now and next time I want you to try praying
this way, the Jesus way, alone, undistracted,
informal, short, begin by addressing
God as Father, take a moment to
reflect on His greatness and His goodness to
you, His closeness, the fact that He's
infinite and yet intimate, and then tell Him that
His deal, His agenda, His kingdom is gonna be
your priority all day long. In fact, use Jesus' words, your kingdom come, your
will be done right now, your kingdom come, your will
be done right now, right here, I am happy to participate. And if that is a
sticking point for you, if you're not quite ready to say thy will be done in my life before you even know
what His will is, that is okay, you just learned
something so important, so pause there and identify
what's keeping you, come on, what's keeping you from
praying, thy will be done. And I'll give you a
clue, it's usually fear, fear of losing something, fear of having to
give something up, fear of having to give somebody
up, fear of being left out. But you know what? Discovering that is progress, you've just identified where
God wants to work in your life. Perhaps you've just
identified, think about this, you've just identified
where God is trying to rescue you from a God
helped me prayer later on. If you can't honestly pray,
thy will be done in my life, pay attention to that tension
because that's why we pray. So does prayer work? Well, this kinda
prayer always works. It always works on us, and ultimately it
always works for us because it puts us in our place. Praying like Jesus
will determine the
length of your prayers because the length of our
prayers are often determined by the condition of our hearts. Think about this, Jesus prayed for
maybe 20 seconds before giving Lazarus
back his life, but He prayed all night
before laying down His own, and in both cases Jesus already
knew what God's will was, but in one case He needed
more time to get there, and He did, and of course
we're glad that He did. So this week, this
week, when you pray, pray like Jesus
instructed us to pray. Start with your
heavenly Father not you, start with your heavenly Father
and declare His greatness, and then surrender your will. Declare His greatness and
then surrender your will. And we will pick it up
right there next time in part two of grown up prayers.
