Acts 4:29

…make us brave enough to speak your message.

Luke 11:5-8

This is a short parable showing us that the persistence in our prayers moves the hand of God. This doesn’t need much elaboration.  It is simple - if you keep it up, God will show up. 

This enters into the type of prayer that we call intercession. It is the act of intervening on behalf of someone else. In this parable the friend was asking for bread for a friend of his. He was requesting help for someone close to him.

Intercession is bridging the Gap to God for another person’s need. 

If you are praying for someone. Don’t quit. Don’t give up. Because if you don’t give up, God will show up.

As I read the Sermon on the Mount there are several main things I see Jesus trying to point out. One is the connection of a relationship.

I could go over to my neighbor’s house, whom I seldom see, and ask him fire up his grill and cook me a hamburger because I’m hungry. Yeah, I could do that, and I would love to see him look at me and tell me I’m crazy. However, if I went upstairs and asked my wife to make me a hamburger because I was hungry, she would put down her book and do it for me.

What’s the difference in the two questions? It’s the relationship I have with the two parties. I’m not that close with my neighbor, but with my wife, we have a very close relationship.

Andrew Murray comments that Jesus is telling us the prayer of a child owes its influence entirely to the relation in which he stands to the parent.

Earlier when Jesus begins His message to those gathered on this mountainside, He tells everyone:
“God blesses those who work for peace, for they will be called the children of God.” (Matthew 5:9)

I’ve mentioned it before, but it’s worth noting again that in the Old Testament God was the God of our Fathers, but in the New Testament, Jesus reveals God as a Father. He begins this imagery here in this beatitude. If I am a child of God, then that makes Him my Father.

Because of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, we are put in a right relationship with God the Father, and the favor that God the Father shows Jesus, His Son, He now sends our way. This allows us to ask the Father for the things we need.

I can only think of the popular tv commercial: I don’t want to grow up, I’m a …. kid. You know. I don’t want to grow up and lose the simple faith of a child who is in awe of everything his parent does.

Could it be that the effectiveness of our prayers is found in the relationship that we have with our Heavenly Father?

How is your relationship with God the Father? Is there something separating you and God?

“And even when you ask, you don’t get it because your motives are all wrong—you want only what will give you pleasure.” James 4:3

This is the second time Jesus addresses prayer. The first time, He revealed that God is not the God of our Fathers, as much as He can be God our Father and that when we pray in secret, He will reward us openly. Now Jesus comes saying that we can be assured that our prayers are heard and they will be answered.

There is no words that say “we might get it answered.” Or most likely “it won’t happen.” This is tough for me because I have prayed many times and have many unanswered prayers. I remember praying day and night for my Grandpa who was dying of Parkinson’s disease and as I would help take care of him, begging God to heal his body here on earth. That never came. Harvey McDonald did receive his healing several years ago when he went to his Heavenly home.

Jesus tells us to do three things:
ASK,
SEEK,
KNOCK.

According to James (seen above) we must ask with the right motives. Ill motives keep prayers unanswered. But, still it amazes me that in this passage, Jesus says this with an “unconditional” context. No small print or asterisks or footnotes to be seen.

Asking implies that we need something. So we are to ask God for what we need.

Seek… What or whom are we seeking. Could this be seeking for answers? Or even God Himself? Or by finding God do we find the answers we are seeking?

Knock. I see a room with a door and God is in this room. When we knock, He lets us in to be with Him. Simple stuff. But yet complex. Or do we make it complex… I’m going to try to keep this simple. It seems that’s the way God wants it to be.

“Keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for.”

Simple.

Are you making your prayers too complicated?

Jesus gives us a great model to prayer in Matthew 6. Here Jesus says that our prayers should be like this. Remember that Jesus is the first person in history to reveal Jesus as a Father. In the Old Testament, it was the God of our Fathers and Jesus brings a new insight that God is our Father.

We need to start off our prayers talking about God to Him, instead of hitting the timer and then starting at the top of our list and off we go. The order is reversed here. Instead of starting with us and our needs, we start off focusing on the Father and honoring His name.

“Come and set up your kingdom, so that everyone on earth will obey you, as you are obeyed in heaven.” Matthew 6:10

God is a King. After all, he has a kingdom, and if we are to pray to Him as a Father, then that makes us King’s kids. If we are His kids then part of this kingdom is ours. The irony is that even though we are King’s kids, we live in a world dominated by sin. So our prayers should be for God’s love to be made known in those we meet everyday so that God’s kingdom can grow.

“Give us our food for today.” Matthew 6:11

Simple truth that we should ask for what we need today. Don’t worry about tomorrow. It’s okay to pray for what we need. Notice that this is the shortest part of this prayer. Ironic isn’t it? If you’re like me, it’s what I spend the most time on.

“Forgive us for doing wrong, as we forgive others.”Matthew 6:12

We need to remember that we are only forgiven as we forgive. We must never lose the art of asking for forgiveness.

“Keep us from being tempted and protect us from evil.”Matthew 6:13

We might be kids of a sinless God, but that doesn’t mean that we won’t sin again. Here we see the need to pray that we are kept from sinning. (1 Corinthians 10:13)

Summing it up:
Focus on God and who He is and What He is. Then, ask God for what we need today, for His forgiveness, and for His protection from sin.

K… I can do that.

When you pray, what do you spend most of your time asking God for?

“6 But when you pray, go away by yourself, shut the door behind you, and pray to your Father in private. Then your Father, who sees everything, will reward you”
Matthew 6:6

Yesterday’s lesson taught that we don’t need to go to a specific place to worship. John 4:19-24

Today, we see, ironically, that Jesus tells where we are to pray. In secret. Not where everyone else is so we can be seen, but in the place where only we know that it’s done.

Why does God want us alone? Well, why does my wife want me alone? For undivided attention. This is hard! Really hard! Sometime I feel on the verge of ADD. Other times I am so driven to check something off a list and get to the next thing that to “get alone with God” is the hardest thing to do.

I struggle with this. But, I’m challenging this process. I’m finding my “closet.” Could it be that in the hidden places God reveals himself? Is it in the place of secrecy that a revelation is revealed?

Finding the place of secrecy is fulfilling in that God promises that it will be rewarded. How? Don’t really know, but He says it. What kind of blessing or reward does He bring? I think that this is only up to Him. After all, “He rewards those who sincerely seek him.” – Hebrews 11:6

So get somewhere quiet. Your drive to work. While in the shower. First thing when you wake up or before you go to bed. It’s hard to find time in a world where our schedules are so jammed pack, put we must make it happen somehow. Smith Wigglesworth said that he never prayed more than 15 min, but he never went 15 min without praying.

Where can you go to be quiet every day? Find that place.

True Worshippers

Worship is giving worth to God. Prayer starts with honoring God. Jesus showed the woman of Samaria that prayer or worship is not relegated to a place. You don’t have to be in a church service to worship. Nor do you need to be in a Confession booth to talk to God.

Another insight about this scripture is that Jesus makes the first introduction to the Jews of God as a “Father.” Jesus introduces a relationship. Jesus reveals that worship is by relationship not rules. When worship is not done in deed but in love then that is “in Spirit and Truth.”

Our convo’s (that’s cool for conversations) with God shouldn’t happen because that’s our religious duty. These convo’s with God should come from our desire to know Him.

My wife’s mother and father were divorced when she was young. When her mom remarried she was adopted by her Dad. In her teenage years, she began spending more time with her real Father and their relationship began to grow. A couple of years ago her birth father passed away leaving Cassie with few memories of her Father, and of those memories she had, she now holds close. She would love to have known him better. She would welcome the opportunity to ask him questions, just to get to know him better.

There are many people who have been removed from their father for years and when reunited, they want to develop their lost relationship. They do this by spending time with them and talking with them. We too should have that desire to be reunited with our Heavenly Father. We should have that desire to know Him as a Father.

True worship or honor comes from a relationship. That’s what Jesus was trying to say here. Worship doesn’t happen in a position, but in person.

I don’t think that you can take this next comment to the extreme that could be implied, but I think there is something here: True worship is not when you see God as a positional Rank, like a boss or any other hierarchal position. But true worship happens when you worship out of relationship.

Are you worshipping God because of His position or because of His person and your relationship with Him?

There are 31 chapters and my goal is to read a chapter each day and post my reflections on it here.

Day 1: “Lord, Teach Us to Pray.”

I don’t know how to pray! That’s it. My revelation! I am starting from the beginning with ignorance. Erasing all of my preconceived ideals on what prayer is and how it is to be done. I am modeling the curiosity of the disciples:

Luke 11:1
“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.” (Emphasis added)

Andrew Murray says of prayer (p14):
“Prayer is so simple that the feeblest child can pray, yet it is at the same time the highest and holiest work to which man can rise.”

So simple a child can do it. It’s an amazing thought, that we, the created, can talk with the Creator. It’s a paradox that Jesus has removed. But we have made it so complicated.

Andrew Murray hints that the starting line of prayer is recognizing that we’re not good at it. With this in mind, we must take the position of the student and allow Holy Spirit and God’s Word to be our Teacher. Just as a child makes time for school, we must take the time to learn.

The student learns that:

1. Prayer is conversation, and in a conversation we need take the time and listen.
2. We apply ourselves daily. – To learn something we must take what we learn and apply it as often as we can.
3. We understand that we will never arrive.

So today, I don’t know. But I want to know.

Lord, teach me to pray.

Do you need to ask God the same question?