Tuesday February 11
“Lord, Teach Us to Pray”
1 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."
Luke 10 ends with Jesus commending Mary of Bethany, the sister of Martha and Lazarus, for “choosing that good part, which will not be taken away from her”. She had chosen to “sit at Jesus feet” over serving in the kitchen when Jesus was a guest in their house. We talked about as important as it is to serve the Lord as ambassadors and be “good neighbors”, we must remember that at the heart of everything we do should be intimate worship with the Lord. Colossians 3:17 teaches us: “And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.”
Now interestingly, Luke 11 begins with a lesson on the subject of prayer. Prayer is connected to worship like our beating heart is to our body. There can be no worship without prayer, and no prayer without worship. They are intimately connected to each other. Someone correctly said, “Prayer is not only the shortest distance to God’s mighty throne, it the only way in.”
An overview of Luke 11 shows us in this chapter that our Lord's teaching in it grew out of a prayer meeting, a miracle, and an invitation to dinner. Jesus used these occasions to give instructions about four important topics: prayer, Satan, spiritual opportunity, and hypocrisy. It is important that we today understand these topics and apply these truths to our own lives.
As we study the life of Jesus in the Gospels it is very obvious that prayer was a priority in His life and ministry. In Luke 11:1, Jesus is praying and when He finishes one of His disciples asks Him to teach them to pray as John the Baptist taught his disciples to pray. We usually think of John the Baptist as a prophet and martyr, and yet our Lord's disciples remembered him as a man of prayer. Remember John the Baptist was a "miracle baby," filled with the Holy Spirit before he was born, and yet he had to pray. He was privileged to introduce the Messiah to Israel, and yet he had to pray. Jesus said that John was the greatest of the prophets (Luke 7:28), and yet John had to depend on prayer. If prayer was that vital to a man who had these many advantages, how much more important it ought to be to us who do not have these advantages!
John's disciples had to pray and Jesus' disciples wanted to learn better how to pray. No where in the Gospels do we find the disciples asking the Master to teach them how to preach, to be good teachers, to be better leaders, or do great signs. But they did asked Him to teach them to pray. We today sometimes think that we would be better Christians if only we had been with Jesus when He was on earth, but this is not likely. The disciples were with Him and yet they failed many times! They could perform miracles, and yet they wanted to learn to pray.
But the greatest argument for the priority of prayer is the fact that our Lord was a Man of prayer. Thus far we have seen that He prayed at His baptism (Luke 3:21), before He chose the Twelve (Luke 6:12), when the crowds increased (Luke 5:16), before He asked the Twelve for their confession of faith (Luke 9:18), and at His Transfiguration (Luke 9:29). The disciples knew that He often prayed alone (Mark 1:35), and they wanted to learn from Him this secret of spiritual power and wisdom.
If Jesus Christ, the perfect Son of God, had to depend on prayer during "the days of His flesh" (Heb. 5:7), then how much more do you and I need to pray! Effective prayer is the provision for every need and the solution for every problem.
I’ll never forget in my Bible college years hearing Dr. Falwell often saying, “Nothing of eternal value is ever accomplished apart from prayer.” I believe it is John Wesley who is credited for saying, “The devil trembles when the weakest Christian gets on his knees”.
Today, maybe our prayer should also be, “Lord, teach us to pray”!
God bless!
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