Teach Us To Pray

We know that prayer is essential to our spiritual life. But for many of us, prayer can often be a struggle. We don’t always know how we should pray.

This struggle isn’t new. Even the disciples who were with Jesus every day asked Jesus to teach them to pray. Thankfully, Jesus took the time to do that so we could know how we should pray.

The example Jesus gives in Matthew chapter 6 is traditionally referred to as The Lord’s Prayer. In the prayer, we see six main focus areas that Jesus taught His disciples to pray about.

The six areas are the Father’s character, kingdom, provision, forgiveness, guidance, and protection. This model can be visualized as a “hexagon” with six distinct sides. This framework Jesus gives is simple, profound, multi-dimensional, and rich. It helps us move beyond rote prayers or a long list of requests and into a deeper level of dependence on God.

We’ll dive deeper into each of these areas in the coming days. But first, let’s focus on how Jesus begins this prayer. He starts by addressing God Himself, and He calls God “Our Father.”

As Christians, we can address God the same way. We’ve been adopted into His family as sons and daughters through Jesus. This relationship we have with God is intimate and personal. As you pray through the Lord’s Prayer in the coming days, remember that God is your good Father who loves to give good things to His children who ask.

Over the next six days, we'll explore each of these six focus areas in more depth, learning how to pray according to Jesus' model.

Pray
Ask God to teach you to pray. Practice following the example that Jesus laid out for us in the Lord’s Prayer.