“This, then, is how you should pray:” (Matthew 6:9a)
Honestly, I don’t know how many books have been written about prayer, probably several million. Despite our frail attempts to explain prayer, we seem to struggle doing it. I don’t always understand all the reasons as to why followers of Jesus don’t pray, but we don’t. Here are just a few of the reasons given:
- Not feeling close to God
- Wrong priorities
- Doing things in our strength, not God’s
- Praying doesn’t accomplish anything
- Don’t know how to talk with God
- No one has taught me
- Distractions
- Bored
That’s a pretty good or pretty sad list of reasons as to why Christians don’t pray. I must admit it took me several years to learn the importance of personal prayer. It is not something that happens overnight for most believers no matter how long you’ve served Him. I will admit it takes a desire and a commitment to do so because without both of these elements, we will give up when our lives are out-of-control which is most of the time if we are not being led by God’s Spirit. God is not the author of confusion, but He does like to test us to see if we’ll follow Him no matter where He sends us or what He asks us to do. Oh, how that is difficult sometimes!
This leads me to our Bible verse: “This, then, is how you should pray:” The disciples saw something different in the way that Jesus prayed, and they wanted to experience his secret. The great thing is that there is no secret. Jesus taught them how to pray through adoration, confession/forgiveness, and specific personal petitions in our lives. Of course, we’ve added through scriptural teaching the act of thanksgiving to the Lord and for what He does for us. An acrostic always helps us to remember better – ACTS!
Thomas Wright, the Associational Missionary of the Mobile Baptist Association, wrote when he worked with Henry Blackaby at the North American Mission Board a study on prayer called “A Prayer Guide for Associations and Churches: Challenging Believers to Reclaim the Church as a House of Prayer with a Passion for the Lost”. Don’t let the long title fool you. From this study, Thomas wrote a shorter prayer guide called, “Taking Prayer to the Streets”. This guide teaches believers how to pray all types of different ways personally as well as congregationally.
Thomas will be leading us in three sessions over the next year with the first session being at the PBA office on Friday, May 3 with supper at 6:00 pm and Saturday, May 4 with breakfast at 8:30 am. The theme is “Praying Like Jesus” in which Thomas will teach us how to pray for believers, unbelievers, and personal spiritual needs. I look forward to having him with us during these sessions as we learn how to pray as Jesus prayed. I encourage you to make time for this important topic in our Christian lives.
Until Next Month,
Bro. Lyle