The Christian’s Way to Pray - by Jim Tharp

Pray like this: 

Our Father in heaven, may your name be kept holy. 

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 (NLT) 

Prayer was in the life of Jesus when He came to earth to die on the cross to suffer and pay for the sins of anyone who would repent of his or her sin and trust in Him as Savior. Jesus was the model for His disciples, and He is still the model for all of us today. So, I wish to call attention to “The Lord’s Prayer” as quoted above. 

We have many prayers in our Bible in both the Old and the New Testaments. But, certainly, no prayer measures up to what Jesus taught His disciples (and us today) to pray. Regardless of our language or our location, no prayer can surpass “The Lord’s Prayer!” May we seek the Holy Spirit’s help in our praying! 

“Our Father in heaven, may your name be kept holy.” We are addressing our Father in heaven with worship and love, being reminded of the price He paid in sacrificing His only Son Jesus Christ, the star of heaven, who shared His Father’s omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence. Yet Jesus was willing to obey His Heavenly Father; the Son of God would be willing to become the Son of Man, be born of a woman, and suffer rejection, persecution, and crucifixion. But then came His resurrection, followed by 40 days on earth giving instructions to His disciples and other followers on how to prepare in prayer for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Yes, those 120 believers fasted and prayed for ten days, and the Holy Spirit came falling on them, and we read that “they were all filled with the Holy Spirit.” (Acts 2:4, NKJV) This was the beginning of the Church age! 

Our Bible teaches us to honor, respect. and obey our fathers and mothers on earth, but we are not called to worship them. But a Christian believer should feel the need of a lifetime of praise and thanksgiving to the entire Godhead—God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. It was God the Father who planned for our salvation; it was God the Son who suffered and died, paying the price for our salvation; and it was God the Holy Spirit who convicted us of our sins and enabled us to repent. The Spirit cleanses and indwell us and gives us the power to pray, worship, find our place in the will of God, and live out our salvation throughout our lifetime on earth.

 

“May your Kingdom come soon. May your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.” Jesus is telling His believers here that our greatest interest in life should be the Kingdom of God rather than our own personal interests. He is assuring us that God is interested in our personal needs. But we are called upon to trust God to have priority and rule, manifesting His kingly power over the righteous and the unrighteous and over the church and the world. But I believe we should sense that in this verse of scripture we as believers are to understand that our prayers should include the spread of the Gospel of Jesus Christ for reaching lost souls to be brought into His redeemed family. Throughout all the history of the church, believers have been called to pray for the renewing of the church. Revivals have been God’s answer to strengthening His church. Never in its history has the church been so weak in holy living and its influence on the world. Millions of believers are hearing the call of the Holy Spirit to begin fasting and praying for the greatest outpouring of revival the church has ever known. 

“Give us today the food we need.” We should be thankful that God is interested in our personal needs. Jesus reminds us that we are free to ask God to help us have the provisions we need for the kind of life He would be pleased with. We are assured that if we put His Kingdom first, He will supply our needs. 

“Forgive us our sins, as we have forgiven those who sin against us.” In our praying, we believers must call on the Lord to help us love one another. Our enemy, the devil, specializes in spreading division among professing Christians. But Jesus commanded His followers “as I have loved you, that you also love one another.” (John 13:34, NKJV) Then in the next verse He says that if they will love one another, they will have an influence on unbelievers. As a pastor for many years, I have seen the results of Christians praying for one another; several of them recognized in their heart that they needed to go to persons they had hurt by their actions or remarks, apologize, and beg forgiveness. How good it was to welcome the dropouts back to our fellowship! 

“And don’t let us yield to temptation, but rescue us from the evil one.” While on this subject of loving one another, I want to remind our readers that when we repent of our sins and believe Jesus Christ for our salvation, the Holy Spirit helps us pray and worship and live the Christian life. But, as we begin trying to live the Christian life, we discover our weaknesses and shortcomings. The apostle Paul was inspired by the Holy Spirit to tell us about this in Romans, chapter 8:26-27, NKJV: “Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. Now He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God.” For a powerful life of prayer, we must not forget the role of the Holy Spirit in our praying. The greatest hindrance in praying today is because many professing Christians are not full of the Holy Spirit. Any true believer in Jesus Christ has received the Holy Spirit. But only as we reach a place of surrendering our hearts and lives to Christ, hungering for God’s presence and power, can we have the faith and passion to “ask, seek, and knock” and receive the fullness of the Holy Spirit. 

I close this message urging all of us to devote ourselves to a powerful life of prayer. I hope we will take Jesus at His Word of promise in Luke 11:9-10, NKJV: “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.”