Teach Us To Pray

Teach Us To Pray

I am often asked about the purpose of the Lord’s Prayer. Aren’t we supposed to recite it? Before I answer, let me just say that there is ALWAYS value in memorizing and reciting scripture. Prayer, however, is not quite the same thing. The answer to this is found in a question that prompted Jesus to teach a similar prayer in the Gospel of Luke.

Luke 11:1

“It happened that while Jesus was praying in a certain place, after He had finished, one of His disciples said to Him, ‘Lord, teach us to pray just as John also taught his disciples.’”

What was Jesus asked to do? He wasn't asked to teach them A PRAYER, He was asked to teach them HOW TO PRAY. So, that’s what He did. It wasn't a "Repeat after Me" event. It was a "Pray this way" moment.

In Matthew 6:7, just before Jesus taught the Lord’s Prayer, He took the opportunity to teach His disciples about the meaning of prayer. He pointed out that many people felt like prayer was just about the words. He warned them against repetition. In fact, He used a word which means “to say the same thing over and over.”

Why would Jesus warn us to avoid repetitive prayer and then, in the next breath, teach us a prayer that He expected us to repeat over and over? He wouldn’t. That’s not what He did. The Lord’s Prayer takes place right in the middle of the Sermon on the Mount. That sermon teaches us how to access the very heart of God. In it, all of Jesus’s teachings about giving, fasting, praying, judging, and forgiving are designed to show us how to find God.

And how is that done? By looking beyond our rituals and traditions and embracing the person of Christ. Rituals and traditions can be avenues to God or they can become substitutes for Him. They can become ends in themselves.

Fasting is just a meaningless act if it doesn’t change the heart. Tithing is simply an empty gesture if it doesn’t come from love. Prayers are nothing more than hollow words if they are simply repetitions of someone else’s thoughts. This is the main point of the Sermon On The Mount. It tells us how to come face to face with a spiritual God in a physical, material world.

I am very passionate about this because so much of Jesus' work was aimed at breaking down the walls that had been built up by the elaborate ritual and formality of organized religion. Jesus taught relationships. To Him, prayer was not memorized and recited; it was a conversation from a heart reaching out to God.

Prayer comes from the heart as an outpouring of our soul to God. Should the Lord’s Prayer be recited? Absolutely! Can it become routine and meaningless? Absolutely! That’s why we must make sure it is coming from our heart, not just our lips.

Psalms 19:14

“Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer.”