How Should I Pray?Sýnishorn

Our Pattern for Prayer

The first line of the Lord’s Prayer that Jesus taught his disciples during the Sermon on the Mount says “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name.” Does the phrase “Father in heaven” refer to the whole Trinity? As orthodox Christians, we would say no, it does not refer to the whole Trinity. Rather, it refers to just the Father. Jesus is not our father. The Holy Spirit is not our father. So, who should we pray to, when we pray?

The pattern that we find most often in the New Testament is that believers address the Father, in and through the Son, or in the name of the Son, and in the power of the Spirit. That is the normal, regular way that we pray. We pray to our Father, in the name of the Son and in the power of the Spirit. 

But you find, in the doxologies, in the praises to God in Scripture, and all through the New Testament that God is a Trinity. One doxology that mentions all three Persons of the Trinity is found in 2 Corinthians 13:14: “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.” 

Each Person of the Trinity is worthy of praise and worship. There are times in the New Testament where Jesus is addressed directly in prayer. One example is in Acts 7:59, when Stephen cries out for the Lord Jesus to receive him. In Acts 1:24, when the apostles are seeking a replacement for Judas, they call to the Lord Jesus. I can’t think of a place where the Spirit of God is addressed directly in prayer in the New Testament, but He certainly is a person and communicates with God’s people. For example, in the book of Acts, you find statements like the “the Spirit of God said to Peter.” The Holy Spirit is worthy of praise and worship. 

The normal pattern is to pray to the Father, through the Son, in the power of the Spirit—each Person of the Godhead. But we have a personal relationship with a triune God.