Reflection Question: How did you learn to pray?
The next devotion of the Christian is prayer. How do you teach someone to pray? I’d say a good place to start is by taking a look at how Jesus trained his disciples to pray. Read this section from Matthew 6:5-13
Don’t pray like religious people (Mt 6:5)
Jesus begins his training on prayer by telling his disciples how not to pray. Don’t pray horizontally. As in, don’t pray to impress others. It’s a warning that applies to every spiritual discipline. A way to know if this is happening is to ask yourself whether you look down on others based on your personal practice of certain spiritual disciplines, or are you making sure that other people know that you are doing spiritual disciplines so that they will think well of you. If you answer yes to either of these, a motive other than the gospel has slipped into our heart and needs to be expelled.
Do pray in secret (Mt 6:6)
Now this is easier said than done. We are social creatures and naturally want to behave in ways that cause others to think well of us. Jesus doesn’t just leave us there feeling guilty but instead gives some very practical advice- pray in secret. When we are alone with God on a regular basis, prayer is more likely to become what it was intended which is to know God like a child knows their father.
It is helpful for a young disciple to be challenged to choose a place, a time, and a plan for how they are going to practice this discipline of secret prayer. Talking about the details of that and troubleshooting with them as they go will help establish this very essential Christian discipline.
Don’t pray like pagans (Mt 6:7,8)
Jesus then gives another teaching on what prayer is not. It’s not to be pagan. What he means by that is that prayer is not to be seen as a means to getting God to do what you want. Ancient paganism was filled with rituals and incantations that were participated in for the purpose of getting rain when you needed it or protection from danger or whatever. This is not the framework for Christian prayer.
The framework for understanding Christian prayer is a child interacting with a loving parent. Notice in this section how many times Jesus refers to God as Father. Even the beginning of his model prayer (often times called the Lord’s prayer) begins by calling God Father. Fathers are not to be seen as vending machines but as persons that we love and listen to. Prayer is speaking to someone with whom we are in a relationship and the relationship takes precedent over anything that we might get from them. Jesus then moves on to giving an example of what prayer should look like.
The model prayer (Mt. 6:9-13)
The most effective way to teach something to someone is to model it. The main way that Jesus taught the disciples to pray was by doing it. In fact, it was his prayer life (See Luke chapter 11) that spurred the disciples on to ask Jesus how they should be praying . It can’t be emphasized enough that making disciples primarily comes from displaying what it means to follow Jesus in our own lives and letting others pick up on that as we go. A really effective way to teach someone to pray is to pray with them. It usually starts with you doing most of the praying and the new disciple nervously attempting their hand at this very new and strange experience. What I find is that God’s Spirit really takes over as a new babe in Christ takes the scary step of praying out loud and I walk away from the experience examing the power and sincerity of my own prayer life.
So what is in this model prayer.
9"This, then, is how you should pray:
" 'Our Father
As was said before, the framework for understanding Christian prayer is a child to a Father. It is clear in Jesus’ teaching on prayer that this is the way we should think about it. This includes both intimacy and awe.
in heaven, hallowed be your name,
Just like a good earthly father, a child sees him not only in the context of a close and intimate relationship, but also as an authority who should be respected. In God’s case this includes reverence and worship.
Notice that we’ve started our prayer making much of God for who He is way before we make much of ourselves by asking for something. The prayer makes it clear that the relationship with God is first and foremost and the tangibles that we might get from it are secondary. And what is our response to who God is?
10your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Submission to God’s kingdom agenda. Starting with our own life and extending to every place where we have influence, we are all about the reign of our King. He knows what is best for extending that reign and we want that to be the filter for every one of our prayer requests. Now this doesn’t sound very good for us getting the things that we need. It appears that God’s concern for his kingdom leaves us out in the cold trying to scrape up some sort of existence. We couldn’t be further from the truth.
11Give us today our daily bread.
God, the good King and Father, is concerned with the very smallest details of our life. He is concerned with our daily needs. They are part of his kingdom agenda, in fact him answering these simple, concrete prayers display his rule and reign to others who are being invited to join the movement.
There is also a sense of desperate dependence in this request. Give us “today” our “daily” bread. It makes it sound like our need for God to make good on our request is like our need for oxygen. With each breath we take, we are thanking Him and humbly asking for another. This is to be the attitude of the follower of Jesus regarding prayer.
12Forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
Asking for Forgiveness
We now find a request in the prayer that isn’t for something material but spiritual – forgiveness. This seems a little strange since as Christians we are all forgiven “once for all” (See Hebrews 9:26). It’s called justification and it happens the second that we receive the free gift of God’s grace provided for us on the cross. So why is Jesus asking his followers to ask for something they’ve already been given?
I think of it like my marriage. My wife has already promised that no matter what she is going to forgive and love me until death do us part. Knowing this doesn’t mean that I now do things that hurt her and refuse to ask for forgiveness because she’s already required to forgive. It means that even though she is required to forgive, I still confess my sins to her (which isn’t news to her) and ask her to forgive me. It is good for me to do this because it helps me grow as a husband. It is also good for her to hear it because it restores the intimacy of the relationship.
No Christian will ever outgrow the need to ask God for forgiveness. This prayer reminds us of the need to revisit the issue of our forgiveness again and again. It is also a big part of working with a new follower of Jesus. A big part of that first year of growth is coming to the place of really owning the truth that everything sinful from my past is forgiven and reinforcing that by going to God (and often times to others) and asking for forgiveness.
Forgiving others
This next part takes us into one of the most difficult but life giving, God glorifying parts of the Christian life and is a natural outflow of receiving forgiveness from God. In another part of the Sermon on the Mount (where this prayer comes from), Jesus teaches how to be “sons of our Father”. He states in Matthew 6:44,45 “But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.”
We’re never more like our Father than when we are giving grace to someone and the clearest way to do that is to forgive. We never exhibit more proof of our receiving grace than when we give that grace to others. Jesus tells a story in Matthew 18 about a servant that is in debt a bazillion dollars to the king. The king threatens to throw him in jail until he pays back the money. The servant begs the king not to do so and the king absolves the servant’s debt completely.
Then the story gets really bizarre. The servant is walking home from the king’s office and he sees a friend who owes him 5 dollars. He asks the friend to give him the money and the friend begs the servant for mercy. The servant has the friend thrown into prison until the debt is paid. This story is laughable. I’m pretty certain that when people heard Jesus tell this story, they laughed out loud. How could anyone do such a thing?
But we all do it. We receive an absolution of our spiritual debt (aka bazillion dollars) from God and then refuse to give forgiveness to the people in our lives who owe us a few bucks. Receiving the forgiveness of God will eventually lead to a grace giving life toward others. If it doesn’t, we probably don’t get grace and we are not Christians yet. This is what Jesus is getting at when He says: “For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.”
The final portion of the prayer deals with temptation and the devil.
13And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one.'
Attitude toward sin
Asking God to not lead us into temptation is a little strange. For one, God can’t tempt us (see James 1) so asking Him not to do it is a bit overkill. Also, temptation isn’t sinning so why would we need to stay away from it? Jesus is using a provocative way of getting our attention in the area of temptation and sin. He is saying that the follower of Christ is so committed to following God’s ways that not only are they wanting to stay away from sin but even from temptation.
This is similar to other places in the Bible where we are called to “flee” from sin (see 1 Corinthians 6:18) Going up to the line, dabbling, trying to get away with as much as possible before crossing over into sin – these attitudes have no place in the disciple’s life.
This attitude regarding sin also reveals the disciple’s attitude regarding his or her susceptibility to falling into sin. Just like we need God for daily bread, we humbly admit our need for spiritual daily bread from God to stay free from old habits and patterns and free to embrace the new life that is found in Christ.
This will be an important part of the conversation with any new disciple. On almost a weekly basis, the new disciple will be finding parts of their lives that do not line up with their new life in Christ. They will be needing help to navigate how to turn away from their old life and embrace the new.
Deliverance from Satan
The final request of the prayer is the asking for deliverance from Satan. When the new disciple made the decision to leave the kingdom of Satan (aka prince of this world) and realign their allegiance to God as their King, they put themselves in harm’s way. They now have an enemy who hates them and would like nothing more than to destroy them (See John 8 and 10, Ephesians 6, 1Peter 5:8).
We need to be aware that this enemy exists but that he’s no match for our King. Knowing and living the truth is one of the biggest ways to fight this schemer, but prayer must also be an essential part of winning the war. Jesus himself prays for his disciples in John 17 that they would be protected against the evil one.
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