The Model Prayer

Why do you pray?
In Luke 11, one of the 12 apostles asked Jesus how to pray, so He gave him an example prayer.

First, Jesus instructs the apostles to address the Father and express their desire for the Father's will to be done. Even in prayer, Jesus wants us to put God first.

In Matthew's account of this story, found in Mt. 6, Jesus instructs his apostles to pray "Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven." When I pray, I often find myself asking for selfish things: "Help me to pass this test." "Please allow me to be able to afford this house." "Please make me a better Resident Advisor." Things like that.

However, by following Jesus' example, I ought to ensure that - first and foremost - the things that I ask for will benefit God, that they will show His glory to the world! Following Jesus' example, I should pray things like "Help me to pass this test so that I may have a career in which I can spread Your word, but ultimately - Your will be done." "Please allow me to be able to afford this house so that I can have others in my home and share my blessings with them - but Your will be done. If You do not want me to have this house, then I am okay with that." "Please make me a better Resident Advisor so others can see You working through me. Please help me to become better so I can use my leadership position to spread Your gospel." If I always put God first in my prayers, then I'll know that everything I'm asking for is actually something worth asking for.

Second, Jesus instructs them to pray for the things that are necessary for life. "Give us this day our daily bread." He instructed the apostles to pray with a mindset in which they were only concerned with having what they needed that day, trusting God to provide for them. Interestingly, Jesus didn't tell them to pray "Give me what I need." as I am prone to do, he said to pray for "us." One of the lessons which I think we can take from this is that we should pray for others.

After studying this verse, I began praying for the necessities of life in a different way. Usually I'll say something like "Please bless others as you have blessed me with the things I need to survive and please continue to bless us today." That's just an example - the words we say aren't the focus of this post - it's about the attitude we have when we pray. Let's pray for others, so that they can be blessed with the same things that we have been blessed with.

Finally, Jesus prays about forgiveness and temptation. Mt. 6:12, 13 - "and forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil." Jesus instructs the 12 to pray that God forgives their sins the way they forgave others who sinned against them. Once again, He uses "us" - when we pray, let's be sure to pray that God forgives everyone whom He has saved by His grace. We should also pray that those who are not yet saved will be saved, so that they too may have forgiveness of their sins.

When Jesus describes to the apostles how to pray about temptation, he uses interesting language: "lead us not into temptation." The immediate question would be: does God lead some people into temptation? Well, no. In James 1:13, we are told that God does not tempt. So what is happening here?

When someone makes a habit of sinning without repentance and totally rebels against God, to the point that there is not even a tiny speck of desire for God in their entire being, the Bible states that God "gave them up." We can see an example of this in Rom. 1:20-32. God continued to "hold them in his hand," to bless and protect them, waiting for them to change their minds. However, once they began to live in absolute open rebellion against the Lord, once they denied his protection...

He withdrew his protective hand, reserving access to His blessings and His protection for when they changed their minds. He never forces anything on anyone.

I believe that this is what Jesus is speaking of in this passage. He, in essence, told His disciples to pray that "When we are totally immersed in sin to the point that we totally refuse Your help, please don't give up on protecting us and blessing us - do something to show us the truth; do something that will deliver us from the evil that plagues us."

In my prayers, I include something along those lines and I would encourage each of you to do the same. I usually say something like "When I am utterly blind on something and the truth on the issue literally does not exist in my mind, please do not give up on me - show me the truth somehow and I will come around."

What can we draw from this beautiful example of a prayer? In this model prayer, Jesus instructs the 12 in much more than just praying for these four things, but today we talked specifically about praying that:

1. The Father's will is done before our own.
2. The Lord will bless us and everyone else with the necessities of life, day by day.
3. He will forgive the saved of their sins.
4. God will do everything to bring us back to the faith if they we away.

From now on, if we have not yet incorporated these things into our prayers, let's make sure to do so - let's learn to pray as Jesus instructed his 12 apostles to pray.

Thank you for reading!
- Bro. Ethan