What did Jesus teach about prayer

Hello

Jesus spent a lot of time talking to his followers about prayer. He encouraged them to pray. He taught them how to pray. He told them parables about prayer. Jesus’ first and most important command is that we love God (Matthew 22:35-38), and we do that in prayer.

Jesus’ most concentrated teaching on prayer is found in Matthew 6:5-15.

The first thing Jesus said is, when we pray, we must pray to God; we must not pray to impress other people (Matthew 6:5-6).

Jesus then warned his followers against using empty words when we pray (Matthew 6:7-8). What are “empty words”? Well, we can get an idea of what he meant by looking at how we use the Lord’s prayer today. The Lord’s prayer must be the most repeated prayer in the Christian world, but it is so familiar that it’s easy to say the words without thinking about what they mean, so the words become empty words. (Yes Folks. The words of Jesus’ own prayer can easily become the empty words that he told us to avoid, if we are not careful.) We don’t use empty words when we talk to someone we love, so we shouldn’t use empty words when we talk to our loving heavenly Father.

Of all the things Jesus taught, I think his teachings on how to pray are probably the most important and the Lord’s Prayer is absolutely central to those teachings (Matthew 6:9-13; See also Luke 11:1-4). But, today, we are not taught to take this prayer seriously.

I take it very seriously.

Here is what Jesus says he wants us to pray to our loving Father:

• May you be honored and deeply respected.

• May your kingdom come.

• May your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Do we really pray these prayers? Do we pray them from our hearts? Do we really pray that God’s kingdom will come? Do we plead with God that what he wants to happen on earth will happen, just as it does in heaven? Imagine what the world would be like if we really prayed these prayers and God answered them. It may be that these prayers will only be answered by the second coming of Jesus, but I think God is ready to answer these prayers today and, indeed, I think he is answering them. Whether I am right or wrong, we must continue to pray these prayers, really pray them, because Jesus tells us to pray them and because the world needs these prayers to be answered.

The rest of the Lord’s Prayer is concerned with our personal needs. (Jesus places God’s agenda before our agenda.)

• Give us today our daily bread,

• and forgive us our debts, as we have forgiven our debtors,

• and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. ‘
  (Matt. 6:11-13)

We need food. We need to be forgiven, but we must forgive others. (You might like to look at the article “What did Jesus say about forgiving others?” – Link below). And we need to be protected from the evil one (You might like to look at the articles “How does the devil attack the church?”. Start with “Introduction” link below).

Persistence in prayer

Luke gives us two passages where Jesus emphasizes that his followers should be persistent in prayer. In Luke 11:5-13 Jesus tells the parable of the man who wakes his neighbor at midnight asking to borrow some bread, and in Luke 18:1-8 Jesus tells the parable of the widow who demands justice from a judge. In both these parables Jesus says that we should keep praying and never give up.

What did Jesus mean when he said we will receive anything we ask for in prayer?

Every gospel writer tells us Jesus told his followers they would receive anything they asked for: (Matthew 21:21-22; Mark 11:23-24; Luke 11:9-10; John 15:7). Jesus also said if two of his followers agreed about anything they asked, it would be done for them (Matthew 18:19) and if his followers asked for anything in his name, it would be done for them (John 14:13-14; John 16:23-24). Unfortunately many of us, perhaps all of us, have been disappointed when we have prayed for something and the prayer didn’t seem to be answered. I think a couple of clues may help us here.

Firstly, Jesus is talking to his followers. People who follow Jesus are committed to doing the things he has commanded and these are the people who will get what they ask for. Jesus says this clearly in John.

“If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples” (John 15:7-8).

This is really important. If we are committed to loving and serving Jesus, and committed to following his teachings, then the things we ask for will be in accordance with his will. My own prayer life really started to take off when my prayers slowly stopped being me telling our loving heavenly Father what I want, and started being me asking him what he wants.

The second clue is found in the words “in his name”. To do something in someone else’s name means acting according to that person’s instructions. In olden times, if someone banged on a castle door and shouted “In the King’s name, I demand entry!”, they meant they were on the King’s business and had the King’s authority. So, these verses do not mean we can just ask for anything we like, and we’ll get it if we add the words “in Jesus’ name” at the end of the prayer. To put it simply, they mean we will get what we pray for when we pray in accordance with Jesus’ will.

So, what can we pray for in Jesus’ name? What can we pray for and be sure it is what Jesus wants us to have? The answer is simple – we pray for those things he has told us he wants us to have. These things include anything he told us to pray for in the Lord’s prayer, and anything he commanded us to do – for example, love God, love others, stop judging others, forgive others. So, if I pray that I will love our loving Father more, or love others more, or stop judging others, and I pray these prayers from my heart and keep praying them, our loving Father will answer these prayers and give me what I ask for. He may not make the changes happen immediately, but he will make them happen.

My own experience is that our loving Father always answers my prayer when I ask for something I know he wants me to have, even though it may take a while to see the prayer being answered. Here’s just one example: My prayer that I would love our loving Father more is still being answered, many years after I started praying it. I’ve known, since I was about ten, that the first and greatest commandment is that I should love God, but only after many years of praying that I would love him more did I first know that I loved him and actually told him that I loved him.

There’s a link to a good article about praying in Jesus’ name at the end of this article.

Jesus is Lord. May our loving Father guide us as we learn to love him more, trust him more, and pray according to his will.

God bless you and keep you safe.

Peter O

This post originally appeared on https://followtheteachingsofjesus.com/articles/prayer/119-the-importance-of-prayer.html

and is republished here with permission from Peter Oliver.