Month: June 2019

Last week we discussed the idea that God’s primary desire is to be in relationship with us and that He wants us to pray to Him.  We also talked about several roadblocks that keep us from praying more often.  Today we’ll we’ll go a little deeper into prayer and we’ll start with a passage from Matthew 6:9-10:

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.  Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

These verses are the first two of the Lord’s prayer and, as you can see, they are  focused on God, not us.  Some of us have prayed the Lord’s prayer hundreds or even thousands of times but how often do we stop to think about what these two verses mean and why Jesus wants us to start with them?

I believe Jesus placed these verses first to tell us that God wants us to lift Him up above everything else and, that in order to in harmony with God, we need to recognize Him as our Father who created us & the world we live in and that His will is supreme.

But how do we typically view prayer?  It seems like most of the time we think about praying FOR something – career success, relief from pain & sickness, or maybe to do well on a test.  This view of prayer is consistent with two of the roadblocks to prayer we discussed last week:

1. We don’t want to “bother” God with petty requests, and
2. We don’t want to seem selfish by asking for things for ourselves

So if these things keep us from praying, maybe we should flip our thinking 180 degrees and look at prayer mostly as our chance to glorify God and tell Him how great we think He is?  Obviously, God already knows how great He is and doesn’t need us to tell Him.  So maybe He wants us to do this so we don’t forget.  When we look at it that way, prayer can viewed as something we need to do instead of something that’s optional.  Here are some questions for discussion:

1. Do you agree with the idea that we mostly think of prayer as an opportunity to ask God for things?
2. If we prioritize glorifying God in our prayers and pray more consistently, what are some of the good things that might come from doing that?
3. When you think about prayer as primarily focused on glorifying God, does that make you want to pray more often?
4. If you were teaching someone about prayer who had never heard of it, how would you describe its purpose?

 

For a topic that seems so simple on the surface, prayer is one of the most confusing concepts for many Christians.  Today, we’ll dig in to the topic of prayer to try to address this confusion. Our verse is from Jeremiah 29:12 which says:

Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you.

This will be a multi-week topic and will include ideas on how to pray exactly as Jesus taught us but first we need to start with some foundational concepts.

We know that God is always pursuing us and that He wants to be in relationship with us.  In fact, if we were asked to summarize the entire Bible (including the new and old testament), we could say that the central and overarching theme is that God is always pursuing us.  That’s it. God wants to be in relationship with us.

If you are reading this on your own, stop for a minute and let this idea sink in.  The Bible is not about making us feel bad for sinning or expecting us to understand deep theological concepts before we can be a “good” Christian.  It is about God pursuing us in order to be in relationship.

Just like a parent wants to be in relationship with their child, God wants the same with us.  So what does it mean to be in relationship? Certainly, it requires spending time together and talking with each other.  Would a parent be happy if their children ignored them completely? Of course not and, in the same way, God wants to hear from us and spend time with us.  

As mentioned above, prayer is a simple concept but it is often avoided by Christians.  I believe this is primarily for one or more of the following reasons:

• It is a discipline and we have a hard time maintaining discipline in many areas of our lives
• We get distracted easily and our minds wander
• There are more enjoyable things to do
• We don’t want to do it the “wrong” way
• We don’t want to bother God with our petty requests
• We are independent and feel like we can live life on our own
• We think we’re being selfish if we make requests of God
• We may be mad at God and just really don’t want to talk with Him

Whether or not any of these resonate with you, our goal today is primarily to be aware that prayer is not as simple it seems on the surface and that it takes a lot of effort.  That foundation will help continue the discussion more effectively.  To prepare for next week, check out Matthew 6:5-15.

Questions:

1. What do you think about the idea that God’s primary desire is to be in relationship with us?
2. Do you agree with the idea that prayer is a much more complicated topic than it seems on the surface?
3. If we want to do our part to be in relationship with God, why is prayer so important?
4. What are some of the practical benefits of maintaining a consistent prayer life?
5. Do any of the roadblocks to prayer listed above resonate with you?