Model of Prayer

Posted by Brian Mann on Mar 7, 2010 in Blog | Comments Off

The Lord taught his disciples how to pray, in a "manner" that mainly brought them to see God as Father.  A child brings to his father his needs, messy and all, not even caring about the ice cream on the face, or the booger in the nose!   A child just comes and talks and asks; that is prayer.  Prayer is talking with God.  It is not irreverent, there is a respect to the father, but it is not concerned with the things that one may think.  Like a child we come, realizing our Father is absolutely awesome, wonderful, mighty, strong, famous, etc.  What did Jesus say to ask?  The Scripture says:

And He said to them, "When you pray, say: 'Father, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. 'Give us each day our daily bread. 'And forgive us our sins, For we ourselves also forgive everyone who is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation.'"
(Luke 11:2-4)

I have come up with some 'marking' words to remember the simplicity of prayer:

Father,

  1. Free me…to live for your kingdom and under your authority, and not for sin or for Satan or for self
  2. Feed me…with every word from your mouth and every thing I need daily
  3. Forgive me…of all my sins, for I am a sinner
  4. Fortify me…that is, make me strong like flint against the enemy and against my own inclinations toward sin; yes, let me become like you Father in character, not like others.

This is just some 'markers' that may be helpful to think about in prayer.  God is not looking for formalism in reciting the Lord's model prayer, when it says 'say this…' but rather child-like faith to come and talk.  I think that one of the biggest reasons we don't talk with God is because we don't understand that prayer is precisely that–talking with God; though it comes in forms of pleading, interceding for others, crying out for one's needs to be met; and with that in mind we are force to think about, What do we really want?  that is before we ask it.  Or at least we are challenged to work it out as we pray to God, so that our will, would be conformed rightly.  Just some thoughts, that I hope will aid someone in their conversation with God. 

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