How To Pray

When the disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray, He gave them a pattern for prayer that we call The Lord’s Prayer. It is really the Disciple’s prayer – the prayer pattern that the Lord gave His disciples as an example of how to pray. Here are some suggestions regarding how to follow the pattern that Jesus gave us.

Our Father
As we say these words we acknowledge that every Christian, whatever their nationality, culture, ethnic background or social standing is part of our ‘family’. In Christ, we are one family and come to God as our Father.
Thank God that we are part of His family.

Who art in heaven
This reminds us that we are coming to a God who is not bound by the limitation of time and sense, but that He is eternal, all-knowing, all-powerful and all-wise.
Praise God that He is perfect and that He loves us.

Hallowed be Thy Name
Our God is a Holy God and desires that we become like Him and live a holy life. As we reverence Him and honour Him, we will draw closer to Him and want to be holy as He is. Being holy is not being religious but becoming like our Lord so that people see His character being expressed in and through us.
Praise Him that He is holy, eternal, wise and loving and that we can come into His presence because Jesus shed His blood.

Thy Kingdom Come
When thinking of God’s kingdom, do we think only of an eternal future kingdom where sin and evil will be no more? Where, joy of joys, we will be with the Lord forever and leave behind this world and all its pressures? Rather, Jesus is telling us we can have His Kingdom now in our hearts and daily expressed in our lives.
Pray that His Kingdom rule will become part of our lives, our family’s lives, in our communities and in our nation.

Thy Will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Is it possible to have a place without sin and evil on this earth? That would be heavenly. Heaven will be in our hearts no matter what our circumstances as we learn to love and be obedient to our Lord and Saviour. ‘To love the Lord our God with all our heart and our neighbour as ourselves’; is the heart of God’s Word.
Let us pray that our lives, our families, our communities and our nations will become obedient to the Will of God.

Give us this day our daily bread.
We all have needs and Jesus reminded us that as He provided for the birds of the air, so He will provide for our daily needs. It is a challenge to our fearful hearts to trust Him without anxiety.
Thank Him for the blessings of each day. His blessings are new every morning.

And forgive us our sins.
How often we ask God to forgive us for our sins, our faults and our failings. Being sorry is not enough. Judas was sorry he had betrayed the Lord but he did not repent. When we ask God for forgiveness, let there be repentence that leads to a change of thinking in the way we live.
Pray that the Lord will help us to renew our minds, the way we think, so that we become more like Him.

As we forgive those who sin against us.
Yes, people will hurt and wound us. Some will do so deliberately and some people without realising what they have done. It is more important to have a forgiving heart than to hold on to the hurt. A forgiving heart keeps the door of God’s forgiveness open to their lives.
Pray to have a forgiving heart and bless those who have hurt or wounded you.

And lead us not into temptation
How often we struggle with temptation when we should be keeping away from the source of any temptation.
Let us ask the Lord to keep us in all our ways.

But deliver us from evil
Evil comes and we cannot divert it but God can and there are many testimonies of God’s deliverance from evil and from danger.
Remember to ask the Lord for His protection every day.

For Thine is the Kingdom
We must not allow ourselves to be overwhelmed by what we see happening in the world around us ‘for the Lord rules over the nations;’ - Psalm 22:28
Praise God that beyond what we can see, the Lord’s eternal sovereign purposes are being fulfilled

The power and the glory
We see reflections of power and glory in this world, but they are only small examples of the eternal power and glory of our God and Saviour.
Praise God that He is all glorious and full of majesty.

For ever and ever
Our God is eternal. What He has given us through Jesus Christ is eternal and will never fade away. The treasures we lay up in heaven are ours for eternity.
Praise God that He is the same yesterday, today and forever.

Amen
Amen means ‘so be it’. Our prayers do not drift around in endless space until ‘something’ happens.
Rev 5:12 - The twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each having a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints’.
God hears your prayers and values them.