The Easter Season - 96 Days of Time with God - Day 11 - TEACH US TO PRAY

 

"LORD, TEACH US TO PRAY"

As Jesus continued on in His journey to Jerusalem, He made time to stop and pray.  In this one incident of His praying, after He finished praying, one  of His disciples said to Him,

“Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.”

First, we can only wonder what Jesus prayed about on this occasion.  Maybe He thanked His Father for things that already happened with people and His disciples during this final journey to Jerusalem, and then asked for continued guidance for the next portion of the journey.  Maybe He prayed that people would accept His teaching and be healed in body and spirit.  He likely prayed for continued strength in His determination to go to Jerusalem and face His suffering that was to happen in Jerusalem.  What else?  Do you have any ideas as to what He may have prayed?  If we were walking in His steps, what would we have prayed?  For release from the ultimate mission?  For deliverance from wickedness?  For support from His disciples?  Only God knows, because He heard the prayers of Jesus.

Second, the disciples were possibly so struck by the actions and words of Jesus as He prayed to His Father, that they said, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.”  But, why did they mention John’s way of praying?  They must have heard John pray.  Did they not hear Jesus pray, and therefore wanted to be able to pray like He did?  We don’t know.

Third, and most importantly, they wanted to learn to pray in a way that they had not been able to.  That’s a noble desire.  Should we not also want to have that desire?  We may sometimes feel inadequate to pray for certain situations.  We may be sorely lacking because our few times of praying and the content of our prayers.  Or, we may be often prayer and just want to pray better, more, and constantly as we are taught to do in the New Testament.

Fourth, the disciples were taught something about prayer by Jesus, the best teacher on prayer there ever could be.  And thus, He taught them about prayer by giving them a form of prayer, an outline of for prayer, maybe not exactly meant to be a specific prayer, but to be a way of prayer, a model for prayer, suggesting content for a prayer. 

The version presented here says, “When you pray, say, Our Father…..”. 

Other versions say, “When you pray, pray like this, Our Father…..”. 

There's an obvious difference between "say this" and "pray like this".  Jesus does not say that we should always use these exact words, though we can at times.  Jesus does give His disciples a form of prayer as in a "how to pray".

I recommend that we all delve into the model of what we call “The Lord’s Prayer” and discover how we can pray more effectively and not just repeatedly say the words as though they are always complete and sufficient to express our prayers to Our Father.  Look for a study of “The Lord’s Prayer” on line.  We need to know how to pray so we can successfully continue on our journey to our final destination of gaining eternal life.

OUR PRAYER TODAY IS

“Lord, teach us to pray.”