Talking With Christ

I grew up in a Christian home. We went to church religiously. My grandfather was a pastor. My mother was the church secretary. I placed my faith in Christ when I was a child. Yet with all this being true, I have to confess that I didn’t really know how to pray. Oh, don’t get me wrong. I “said my prayers’ religiously, praying before meals or before bedtime as part of the regular routine of life in the Christian home in which I was raised, but I didn’t really know how to pray.

I’m sure that was how the disciples felt. They had grown up in religious homes. They had learned their prayers. This was the Jewish culture in which they were raised. Yet they quickly recognized there was something remarkably different about the way that Jesus prayed. When they listened to Jesus pray, it wasn’t religious. It was relational!

Rich had been discipling me for a while. We always ended our Bible studies together with prayer. Really, though, it was Rich closing our time in prayer. Then, one day, everything changed. Rich and I were driving to his parents’ lake house to spend the day together sailing, and as we drove, he said, “Hey Doug, let’s pray! I’ll dial and you can hang up.” (His way of saying he would start, and I could finish.). As Rich began to pray, eyes open as he drove, he just began talking out loud to God, as if He were sitting there in the car with us. Rich was having a conversation with God. His prayer wasn’t religious. It was relational. When it was my turn to pray, I followed Rich’s lead and just began talking out loud to God, as if He were sitting in the car with us as we drove. It was my first real, conversational prayer with God.

When Jesus prayed, the disciples saw intimacy and passion and purpose and joy. Jesus was talking to His Father. They were hungry to learn. “Lord, teach us to pray!”

What followed, what we now call The Lord’s Prayer, was not meant to be memorized and recited as a religious exercise. This model prayer was meant to be a pattern for the disciples. Remember, Jesus was not telling them WHAT to pray, but rather HOW to pray.

P.R.A.Y. is a simple acronym to remember the pattern for prayer that Jesus gave His disciples.

PRAISE

“Our Father in heaven, may your name be kept holy.” Matthew 6:9

Jesus begins His prayer with praise of the Father, recognizing His holiness. When we come to God in prayer, praise and thanksgiving is a great place to start.

REQUEST

“Give us today the food we need…”. Matthew 6:11

Jesus asks the Father to meet their needs. In praying for “us,” He is bringing both His needs and the disciples needs before the Father, trusting that He will provide.

ADMIT

“and forgive us our sins, as we have forgiven those who sin against us. And don’t let us yield to temptation but rescue us from the evil one.” Matthew 6:12-13

Confession of sin is a critical aspect of prayer. We are to bring our sin before a holy God, asking for His forgiveness that we might be restored to fellowship with Him. Jesus, though, doesn’t just pray a reactionary prayer, where sin is dealt with after the fact. His prayer is a preemptive strike against sin, asking for God’s strength and leading to avoid the pitfalls of temptation.

YIELD

“May your Kingdom come soon. May your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.” Matt 6:10

Some manuscripts have Jesus closing His model prayer with “For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.” This reflects the mindset that God is Sovereign. He is the King, and the King reigns. He gets His way. We are to submit to Him. Jesus reflected this kind of submission to the Father’s will throughout His life., obeying all the way to the cross, where He prayed, “Not my will, but Yours be done!”