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by Kevin Pauley
He was praying in a certain place, and when He finished, one of His disciples said to Him, "Lord, teach us to pray, just as John also taught his disciples." - Luke 11:1 HCSB
Have you ever thought about your prayer life? Have you ever examined it and wished that you could be better at communicating with God? We should develop the Master’s mindset[1] as we address His Father in prayer.
The disciples had prayed before they asked Jesus to teach them, but as they watched Jesus that day, they realized that there was something different about the way He prayed. What He gave them was not a sacred formula to be repeated over and over but a consistent pattern for prayer.
First, we are to approach God lovingly. We are to address Him as “Our Father”, a term likened to daddy or papa. However, we also need to keep in mind that He is not just any father, but our Father “in heaven.” Though He loves us and is our papa, He is also the Sovereign of the universe. We need to honor His name as holy. Triune God is totally free of the darkness of evil. Let reverential respect remain.
We should pray for the advancement of His kingdom. In fact, this should be the primary consideration in every request we make. We should be utterly devoted to His cause and our devotion should be rooted in humility. When we pray, we usually ask Adonai to bend to our will. Instead, we should approach Him seeking His will in each matter and determining what, if anything, He wants us to do about it. We should ask for our daily bread, not like spoiled children, demanding (as Todd Bentley and those like him would) that God send angels to the corners of the world and bring us money!
We should also pray with an attitude of forgiveness. We cannot approach Holy God with bitterness and rancor in our hearts. We cannot ask for forgiveness of Yahweh Shaphat when we will not extend it to our fellow man.[2] Yeshua taught that if we come to worship and suddenly realize there is unfinished spiritual business with a brother that we should leave our gift at the altar and go deal with that business first. Only then can we return to our worship.[3]
We should pray for sanctification, practical holiness and deliverance from sin. Practical holiness will enhance our relationship with Adonai and will improve our prayer life which will in turn give us the power to be more holy. We need to start this cycle up as soon possible. We need to add to these prayers a determination to do our part to avoid sin as much as we can, [4] recognizing however that without Elohim’s power we are truly helpless.[5]
Last, we should make sure that we spend time praising Him for all the wonderful things that He IS – not just the admittedly wonderful things He has done.
Kevin Pauley is a pastor and writer. He lives in Illinois with his wife, Lynn, their five children and two dogs. His internet address is Berea.
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