Pray Like Jesus

I've been reading a great book by Bill Hybel's called Too Busy Not to Pray and here's some thoughts I wanted to pass along on prayer.

Says the doctor to his overweight patient: "What fits your busy schedule better, exercising one hour a day or being dead 24 hours a day?" Prayer, like being healthy, requires a price to pay. Our spirit, like our boy, has requirements for health and growth. Some people don't want to pay the price of developing good physical habits so they end up paying the much higher price of disease or death. The same is true spiritually. When we don't pay the price of taking time to pray, we end up paying the much higher price of spiritual disease or spiritual death.

So it's important that we learn to pray. As air is to our physical body, so prayer is to our spirit. So how then do we pray? Jesus disciples asked the same question about 2,000 years ago. Jesus' disciples asked him "Would you teach us to pray?" (Luke 11:1). And in response Jesus said:

When you pray, don't be like the hypocrites who love to pray publicy on street corners and in the synagogues where everyone can see them. I tell you the truth, that is all the reward they will ever get. 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. When you pray, don't babble on and on as the people of other religions do. They think their prayers are answered merely by repeating their words again and again. Don't be like them, for your Father knows exactly what you need even before you ask him! (Matthew 6:5-8)

[Instead] Pray like this: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. May your kingdom come soon. May your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven. Give us today the food we need, and forgive us our sins, as we have forgiven those who sin against us. And don't let us yield to temptation, but rescue us from the evil one. (Matthew 6:9-13)

In these passages we learn from Jesus how to pray.

1. We're to pray regularly. Jesus said, "When you pray...," not "If you pray..." (Matthew 6:5). Many Christians claim they don't have time to pray but it's amazing to see what things they DO make time for (i.e. watching TV for hours a day). If it's important to you, you'll make time for it. People who are serious about something always make room for it in their schedules.

2. We're to pray privately. God isn't impressed with public displays of piety and he doesn't want us to be distracted. That's why Jesus instructs us "When you pray, go away by yourself, shut the door behind you, and pray to your Father in private" (Matthew 6:5).

3. We're to pray sincerely. God isn't interested in formulas. He wants to hear what's on our hearts. Matthew 6:7, "...don't babble on and on as people of other religions do. They think their prayers are answered merely by repeating their words again and again." The danger is citing formula prayers is that we remove our mind from the prayer. God wants our minds engaged. If our minds aren't engaged, it's not sincere.

4. We're to pray specifically. Jesus gave us what we call The Lord's Prayer (Matthew 6:9-13) to use as a model.

As we pray we want to make sure our prayers are balanced. A body building is careful to work out all 13 major muscle groups. And in the same way, we need to be careful to balance our prayers. Here's an acronymn you can use to help you balance your prayers. If you aren't intentional about balancing your prayers, then about 99% will be shopping list requests. And as we're about to learn "requests" are only 1 of 4 parts to balanced prayer.

A.C.T.S. Acronymn

"A" stands for ADORATION. Matthew 6:9, Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. We ought to start our prayers with adoration. Why? Because when we praise God we shift our focus from the mountain of a problem in front of us to the Mountain Mover.

"C" stands for CONFESSION. Matthew 6:12, Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us. We ought to spend a part of our prayer time confessing our sins. Get specific with God. Tell him exactly what you've done. This will sting a little (but it's supposed to). This "sting" of confession will help us to avoid sin in the future.

"T" stands for THANKSGIVING. I Thessalonians 5:18, Give thanks always for this is God's will for you. Just as a parent enjoys hearing one of his children say "thanks", so our heavenly Father enjoys hearing us say "thanks." God expects an attitude of gratitude from us. He has blessed us with salvation, as well as many other blessings. And we should thank Him regularly for his blessings, as well as for answered prayer.

"S" stands for SUPPLICATION (a fancy word for "requests"). Matthew 6:11, Give us today our daily bread. While this traditionally makes us 99% of most peoples prayers, it should only be ONE PART of your prayer time. This is where we ask God for the things we need and the things we're concerned about. You may even want to create categories to pray about (i.e. family, church family, lost people, yourself).