AN OUTLINE FOR A DISCIPLE TO PRAY

Matthew 6: 9 (CSB) - “Therefore, you should pray like this…”

We started with Jesus teaching about the Essentials in Prayer. We saw the prayers God Rejects. These are boastful and babbling. We discovered the prayers God Receives. These prayers are sincere and simple. Now, we are looking at the Elements of Prayer as Jesus describes them.

We has come to be called the Lord’s Prayer. In true honesty, the real Lord’s Prayer is given in John 17. This prayer is a model that Jesus gave to His disciples on how to pray. It might be called an outline we can follow.

We find this also given in Luke 11:1-4 (CSB). Let’s see what that passage says –

“He was praying in a certain place, and when he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John also taught his disciples.” He said to them, “Whenever you pray, say, Father, your name be honored as holy. Your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread. And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves also forgive everyone in debt to us.  And do not bring us into temptation.”

Notice it says that this takes place as He was praying. The disciples had witnessed the power of His time with God in prayer. That leads them to make the request, “Lord, teach us to pray…”

So, coming back to our verse today, we see in Matthew 6:9a – We can read in the NKJV “In this manner….” In the CSB at the top of this devotion, we read, “you should pray like this…” The Scriptures make it clear that this is NOT a liturgical prayer. It is NOT a rote prayer. It is NOT a prayer of any special powers. This is an outline, a model for us to use in coming to God.

The verse begins with Him saying “Therefore….” As I always say, when you have a “therefore” find out what the therefore is therefore. It is always a hinge that connects the previous statement(s) with what is to follow. He had already instructed them how NOT to pray (Boasting or Babbling) and how they should pray (Sincere and Simple). Then He follows by giving us an example from which to build our own times of prayer. We can take the “bare bones” and flesh it out to be a powerful time of communication with the Father.

So starting tomorrow, we will break this model, this outline down into bite-sized pieces to help us develop our time of prayer with the Father.