Friday, June 19, 2020
A Lifestyle of Prayer
“Once Jesus was in a certain place praying. As he finished, one of his disciples came to him and said, ‘Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples’” (Luke 11:1 NLT).
Imagine if you could attend a class taught by the finest person in their field from any period in history.
For instance, you could study music under Beethoven. You could go to a drama class where Shakespeare is the professor. Maybe you’d like to study philosophy under C. S. Lewis.
How about a class on prayer taught by Jesus Christ? That sounds good to me. I’d be in that class.
The disciples had the same idea. Luke’s Gospel tells us, “Once Jesus was in a certain place praying. As he finished, one of his disciples came to him and said, ‘Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples’” (11:1 NLT).
So, Jesus gave them this prayer, which we often refer to as the Lord’s Prayer. The Bible, however, never addresses it as such. In fact, I don’t think it was a prayer that Jesus Himself prayed because He would never need to pray, “And forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.” Jesus never sinned.
I think it could better be described as the Disciples’ Prayer. But call it what you like. It’s a model for all prayer.
It’s sort of like when you want to build a home. Maybe you visit a model home first, which is supposed to feel like an actual home. In the same way, this is a model, a template, for all prayer.
Jesus gave us this prayer, which shows that prayer can be taught. We learn by listening to others pray, and we learn by reading the Scriptures. But we need to learn how to pray.
We also need to get into a lifestyle of prayer because we have complete access to the Creator of the universe through prayer.
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