When You Pray 1

Hello Everyone,

Jesus gave us a “Model Prayer” in Luke 11:1-4 before He starts the “Lord’s Prayer” He says the statement “when you pray”. Let’s look at that opening statement this week read with me.

Now it came to pass, as He was praying in a certain place, when He ceased, that one of His disciples said to Him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.”

² So He said to them, “When you pray, say:

Our Father in heaven,
Hallowed be Your name.
Your kingdom come.
Your will be done
On earth as it is in heaven.
³ Give us day by day our daily bread.
⁴ And forgive us our sins,
For we also forgive everyone who is indebted to us.
And do not lead us into temptation,
But deliver us from the evil one.” NKJV

One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, ‘Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.’ He said to them, ‘When you pray…’ " (Luke 11:1,2, NIV).

What an experience it must have been to be in the presence of Jesus as He talked with His Father in Heaven.

I’m sure watching Jesus pray made the disciples feel very inadequate in their own prayer life.

They seen something in the way Jesus talked to His Heavenly Father that made them hungry to be able to talk to Him in the same way.

One of them remembered that the disciples of John the Baptist also felt the same inadequacy in the presence of their teacher. John taught them to pray.

Would Jesus teach His disciples to pray?

Now the word "disciple" means "learner and these disciples felt the need to learn from the Master Teacher who had just demonstrated that He knew how to pray.

Jesus began by saying, "When you pray… “He did not say, "If you pray." Not only did Jesus pray He expected all who follow Him to pray.

When Jesus laid aside His glory, "taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness" (Philippians 2:7, NIV), He was truly God as well as truly man, He accepted the limitations that came with being human;

As a result of this His communion with the Father was through prayer, just as ours is.

Greater Things Are Still To Come!

Pastor Phil