Teach Us To Pray

We pray to worship God, to confess our failings and our weaknesses, to make our needs known to Him, to intercede for family, friends, country, and for those in authority over us, to ask His blessing. We pray to a God we do not see but who sees us. A God who created all physical and spiritual matter, who planned and designed the atoms and the cell, who is beyond our comprehension, but who has revealed Himself to us in three persons. This God has made us part of His family and wants to have a relationship with us. And prayer is how we come to know Him and who He is.

In God’s revelation to us as being one God in three persons, He has presented Himself in scripture in a way that allows us to know how to approach Him. Isaiah 63:16 says; "You, O Lord, are our Father, Our Redeemer, from of old is Your name". Jesus tells His disciples in Matthew 6: "when you pray, go into your inner room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father", and again "Pray then in this way: "Our Father who art in heaven, Hallowed be your name". Jesus is telling us to address our prayers to the Father. And notice that the best way to begin our prayer is by worship and praise. Yes, we can address our prayers to Jesus, and I believe those prayers will go directly to the Father, and that is because we come to know the Father through Jesus, who said; "All things have been handed over to Me by My Father; and no one knows the Son, except the Father, nor does anyone know the Father, except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him". (Matt. 11:25) We need to realize, though, that (as my Hispanic friends might say) it is "more better" to address the Father.

Here is an example from Paul’s prayer for the Ephesians in chapter 3. "I bow my knees before the Father (this reflects the attitude we go to prayer with)

from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, (acknowledging that we all owe our existence to Him)

that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, (proclaiming our faith that He is able to answer our prayer)

to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, (Paul’s request for the Ephesians)

so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; (the reason for the request)

and that you, being rooted and grounded in love,

may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God." (the desired result).

And that is also my prayer for you.