You Were Created to PraySample

Created to Pray as Jesus Prayed

Prayer is meant to be answered—or else God would not ask us to pray. He isn’t interested in wasting your time and efforts. He is too practical for that. He is interested in results, not just “many words” (Matthew 6:7) spoken in prayer. Jesus’s approach to prayer was also very practical. He didn’t pray without expecting to be heard. At one point, He said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me” (John 11:41–42). We need to pray as Jesus prayed—and as He taught His disciples to pray.

As we have learned, prayer is approaching God in order to ask Him to accomplish His will in the earth. Christ taught His disciples how to fulfill this purpose. In doing so, He gave them a model prayer to follow. It is very important for us to realize that, regardless of the name it has been given, what Jesus explained to His disciples is not really the “Lord’s Prayer.” It is a model for prayer. In other words, you don’t need to repeat the words of this prayer exactly, but should instead use them as a pattern:

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us day by day our daily bread. And forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who is indebted to us. And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. (Luke 11:2–4 NKJV)

God is loving and gracious. He knows we have a limited understanding of Himself and His ways, and that we struggle with our fallen nature. That is why He will, at times, answer our prayers even when they are weak and full of doubt. However, as a loving Father, He wants us to grow and mature. He doesn’t want to leave us in our weakness and uncertainty. He wants us to enter into His purposes because that is where we can truly be children of our heavenly Father, work together with Him, and live the abundant life Christ came to give us. (See John 10:10.)

True prayer will do the following:

• Build intimacy with God
• Bring honor to His nature and character
• Produce respect for His integrity
• Enable belief in His Word
• Cause trust in His love
• Affirm His purposes and will
• Appropriate His promises

Let us pray:

Heavenly Father,

Jesus said in John 16:23 that if we ask for anything in His name, You will do it. We know that we cannot ask in Jesus’s name unless we ask what is according to Your will. However, we also know that when we ask in your Son’s name, He will present our requests to You properly. He will pray in accordance with Your will. He will pray for us when we don’t know what to say. He will appeal our case. So, Lord, we ask that Your will be done. There is no other name by which we make our requests but the name of Jesus. We call on the power of His name to meet all our needs. We pray in the name of Jesus, whose name is above all names. Amen!

Thought: Prayer is meant to be answered—or else God would not ask us to pray.