Last week we looked at the importance of prayer. We discussed how it encourages us to relinquish control over our lives, release our burdens and cares to the Lord, put our trust and dependence in Him alone, and find joy, hope, peace because of our faith in Him.
One of the greatest examples we have in Scripture of someone who understood the importance of prayer is Jesus. Though He was God, he humbled himself by becoming a man so that He might take the punishment of our sin for us and rise again to sit at the right hand of the Father, interceding for those who put their trust in His salvation.
If Jesus were to have come to earth, taken on flesh, and never have said a word in prayer to the Father, we probably wouldn't think a thing about it! After all, He is God. Yet, Jesus constantly was in prayer.
One of the main reasons Jesus spent so much time in prayer was so He could model how to live a life fully dependent upon the Lord to His disciples, and therefore, to us through the stories we read in the Bible.
In Matthew 6 during the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus teaches His disciples how to pray. He tells them to "not be like the hypocrites" who "love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men" for "they have received their reward in full" (Matthew 6:5). As mentioned in the previous blog, our motivations for prayer must be pure, and we should examine our hearts and ask the Lord for a desire to pray so that we might bring Him glory and strengthen our faith in Him. Plus, those who pray for the same reasons as the hypocrites will never find true hope, peace, or joy from their prayers. As Jesus says, the only "reward" they will receive from their prayers is looking good in front of others which will only last for the short amount of time they are on this earth. Instead of laying up treasures in heaven, they are sacrificing a genuine relationship with God because of their pride to merely appear righteous and holy.
Jesus tells His disciples that instead of being like the hypocrites, they should pray alone to their Father "who is unseen" (Matthew 6:6). This does not mean that we never pray in front of others! Absolutely not. One of the greatest joys in life is praying with fellow believers as we seek to love and glorify the Lord by laying everything before His feet together. Jesus Himself prayed before the crowds and His disciples several times. But He also went off to be alone to pray so that He might release His burdens, submit His will to the Father, and most likely to resist sin. Though Jesus never once sinned, since he was fully man but also fully God, scripture does tell us that He is able to "empathize with our weaknesses" because He has been "tempted in every way, yet did not sin" (Hebrews 4: 15). What an incredible testimony of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and what an encouragement for us to follow His example in all things, even prayer.
What Jesus is trying to help his disciples see is that prayer is not meant to be about what others think about us, which is often a temptation. We want others to approve of our words, our actions, and we often get wrapped up in comparing ourselves to one another. If that is a temptation, Jesus is encouraging us to realign our hearts to what is true-that it is God and God alone who we are praying to, the Creator of all things, the One who has granted us salvation from sin and death, and He knows exactly what we need. The people we are trying to please are none of those things, so why are we seeking to please them and glorify ourselves above God?
In Matthew 6:9-14, Jesus gives a model for how His disciples are to pray instead. He says:
“This, then, is how you should pray:
“‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.’
First, Jesus gives glory to God by acknowledging who He is, Our Father in heaven, then joining in with all creation to say, "hallowed be your name," for His name is holy as He is holy.
Jesus declares, "your kingdom come, your will be done," submitting to the will of the Father. By praying this prayer, He is declaring that He too wants God's will to be done. In the same way, we can submit to the Lord's will by declaring that we want Him to be the ruler of our lives. We want His will to be done not only in our life but in all the world! Even if we don't feel that way, or we are struggling with the desire to control our lives, we can pray that the Lord would soften our hearts and help us to release the burden of control. After all, if we truly believe that God literally holds all things in His hands, knows all things from the beginning to the end of time, do we want the burden of control over our lives? Do we want our will to be done in all the earth? When we remind ourselves of who God is, our Creator, Lord, Savior, Friend, Redeemer, etc. it becomes easier to trust that His will is the best.
Jesus asks the Father to "give us today our daily bread," recognizing that He is the one who sustains and provides for us. Not our spouse, not our job, not our parents. No one but God. What a humbling, but also, encouraging reality! Though we obey the Lord by working hard as unto Him, we can relinquish the worry of provision for He has promised to provide.
Humbly, Jesus asks the Lord to "forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors," indicating that Jesus is calling His disciples to be people of forgiveness and grace! As Ephesians 4: 32 says, "Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you." We can forgive all people. All people. There was nothing we could do to save ourselves, yet God in His mercy sent His Son to die for us even when we were enemies of Him so that we might be "reconciled to him through the death of his Son" (Romans 5:8). For that kind of love and forgiveness, we in turn can go and forgive those who sin against us because we recognize that no offense can touch us or separate us from the love of God.
Finally, Jesus prays that the Father would "lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil one." As James 1: 13-15 says, "When you are tempted to do wrong, do not say, 'God is tempting me.' God cannot be tempted. He will never tempt anyone. A man is tempted to do wrong when he lets himself be led by what his bad thoughts tell him to do. When he does what his bad thoughts tell him to do, he sins. When sin completes its work, it brings death."
However, we have died to sin and it no longer has a hold on us! Romans 6: 2 tells us that we have "died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?" Just as Christ was buried, our sin has been buried, and just as Christ rose, we have risen into new life in Him. Jesus' prayer is recognizing the fact that we are human, though, and we will continue to be tempted to sin. But if we are continually going to the Father in prayer, asking Him to guard our hearts and minds, offering ourselves as living sacrifices holy and pleasing to God, He is able to hold us in His hands and keep us from sin (Romans 12:1). Even when we do sin, we can run to Him in prayer, confessing our sin and knowing that in His grace and mercy He will help us to "go and sin no more" (John 8:11).
By looking to Jesus' perfect example, we can learn how to pray in a way that is holy and pleasing to God. Let's grow by seeking to follow Jesus' example in prayer together!
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