How Do I Pray – Part 1

Additionally, when we talk to God, He doesn’t really talk back to us, so is he really listening?
So, prayer can be confusing and there’s a lot of ignorance associated with it.
Talking to the Eternal Creator, our maker Who’s in heaven and all around us is a difficult concept to get hold of. He’s invisible, a spirit and, into the bargain, we’re not even worthy of talking to Him.

Now, if you’re struggling with prayer and really don’t know what to pray for or how to pray, how to approach God, you’re normal!
You and I have to accept the fact that our struggle with prayer is the normal situation for Humanity.
Even us Christians who’re saved by God’s grace find it difficult to pray. It’s normal! We need to accept that and realise that the Bible actually says we need to be taught how to pray because we don’t know how.
That’s both comforting to know we’re normal and discouraging at the same time, especially when we realise there’s such a thing in the Bible as praying wrong.

We’re certainly told by Jesus Himself that we can pray wrongly.
In Matthew chapter 6 verse 5 for example, Jesus said this,
And when you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites. For they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward.
To pray like the hypocrites would be wrong according to Jesus.
A hypocrite here means a stage player, an actor, a pretender, a moral or religious counterfeit or fraud.

How do the hypocrites pray? Jesus tells us in this verse. They put on a public spectacle to draw attention to themselves, to their own importance. Jesus said that’s the sum total of their reward, they get that recognition, and their self-importance is satisfied.

There’re so many passages on prayer in the Bible, much more than we could study here, however there’s not a lot of instruction or specific detail on how to do it.
Despite that, prayer is something God wants us to do, so we’re left with a question mark.

We learn in the scripture that prayer is something very personal between an individual and God. It’s something that we pray out of our inner man.
But these hypocrites are making a performance out of it and so they’re making it about their flesh and that’s the hypocrisy.
In Matthew 6:6 Jesus goes on to say,
But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.
So basically, the Lord’s saying rather than pray like the hypocrites do it in secret.
There’s another way to pray that’s wrong.
Matthew 6:7,

And when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do. For they think that they will be heard for their many words.

Saying the same thing over and over and over again like a chant doesn’t affect God any more or less.
He says the Heathen, those who don’t have knowledge of God, pray that way.
They think if they repeat these incantations God’s going to hear them.

Jesus says no He doesn’t hear them.
There are religious dominations that do that, just chanting the same thing over and over again, and it’s nonsense. So’s the idea that we just pray whatever jibber jabber we want.
There’s a right way to pray and a wrong way to pray.
The difficulty surrounding prayer is partly to do with that because we’re trying to learn how to talk to our maker to the Holy God of the universe and none of us want to do it wrong.

Luke 11 verse 1 we see the disciple after ministering with Jesus and seeing all that He did and listening to Him pray. Here’s what happens,
Now it came to pass, as He was praying in a certain place, when He ceased, that one of His disciples said to Him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.”
Jesus follows up with the so-called Lord’s Prayer, which we’ll look at closer shortly, but the fascinating thing is that if prayer was something natural, something we were born knowing, then it was a silly question they asked Jesus.
Instead, Jesus said, “When you pray say this.”
He was teaching and they were listening. So, learning how to pray is something we to do. We need to learn how and what God says about how to pray to him.
There’s good news and bad news here.
Romans 8 verse 26 says this,

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.

Paul’s talking here about us, the body of Christ, in this current dispensation of grace.
Romans 8:26 describes us as not knowing what to pray for.
The good news is that God knows that, and this verse says the Holy Spirit helps our infirmities making intercession for us with groanings that cannot be uttered.
Contrary to the belief of many charismatic Christians that’s not tongue talking or us groaning. It’s the things that cannot be said and the Holy Spirit who dwells in you in this dispensation can intercede between us and God with things that we need when we don’t know what to say.

I mean, that’s a very comforting verse. When we come to prayer not knowing what to pray for, God knows the mind of the Holy Spirit, Who dwells in us, and that even though you don’t know what to even request, He knows what we need.
That he can give us what we need is helpful.
Of course, we need to deal with what we think we need, and we’ll get to that, but it’s helpful to know that God knows what we feel and think and what’s in our mind and heart.
That’s interesting way to pray just like that. “God, I don’t know how to pray. You know better than me what I need. Help!”
It might not seem real eloquent but the good news is that God knows that we don’t know, and He’s provided help for us.

Another part of the reason why people don’t know how to pray is that prayer concerns the spiritual. When we talk to each other we can have a sort of two-way conversation about things in the world, but is there anything God doesn’t know? No!
It’s a bit awkward sometimes in prayer when God knows everything. What’s left for me to say?
And, it’s not easy for us to engage with someone that’s seemingly not in the room, even if God’s omnipresent, everywhere, all the time.
When we talk to other people our conversation is geared around the mutual interest of the things you have in common or the things we’re discussing, but with God, we’re dealing with His mind. How much do we know about God? When we pray to God, how do we know Him? Who is He? What and how does He think?
Well, of course we learn this from scripture of course, but how much of that have we really studied? Not as much as we should have right?
So, it’s hard to enter prayer when we don’t know the mind of God and especially when we request things of God.
Paul tells us to make our requests known to God so He can help, and He can intervene.
But what we’re talking about here is what is God’s will.
Jesus prayed in Mark 14:36 just before going to the cross,

“Abba, Father, all things are possible for You. Take this cup away from Me; nevertheless, not what I will, but what You will.”

Not my will! But what is the will of God? This is also a big question for Christians and it’s why a lot of people pray in ignorance and don’t know how to pray, because they simply don’t know what God wants, what His will is.

As the charismatic movement influences the church more and more, many churches turn to the idea that God will do anything that we ask and intervene in any way that He has throughout the Bible.
In so doing they destroy any dispensational changes in God’s operation. We’re talking about God’s divine intervention you see and who are we to know how God intervenes.
When we’re talking about God’s Will and God’s intervention that’s a big subject. A lot of the prayer ignorance today is because there’s generally ignorance about God and particularly in what He’s doing today as opposed to what He was doing in the past or future dispensations.
If you don’t know that we won’t know how to pray correctly, and the result is frustration and confusion. We want to communicate to God. We want to talk to Him, and we need His help. We want to depend on Him, but we simply don’t know what He’s promised and what He’s doing now, what His mind is now, and so we’re confused.
We might try to offer up a prayer thinking God may be doing this or we read a verse in the Bible thinking maybe He’s doing that, and you pray, and it doesn’t seem to work out, or it doesn’t work out the way you thought or hoped. So, confusion and frustration.
Each of us need to simply acknowledge when we’re ignorant about something. That’s the first step to learning. We can’t learn if we think we already know. If we think we know it, we’re not going to learn anything.
We need to change what we think.

So, if you’re coming to prayer and you think you already have this sorted, you already know how to pray, then good for you. But we’re dealing with people who don’t know how to pray as we ought.
Now we combine this idea that we don’t know what to pray for as we ought with the Bible’s instruction that we’re to pray, then we’ve got a real issue.
I don’t know how to pray but God says pray!

Even outside Christianity there are pagan religions where people pray to their gods based on what they believe. They come because of faith. When you pray, you pray because of Faith, believing that there’s a God who’ll hear you.

Many pray to Saints and even to different beings in the universe claiming that they can hear them.
People pray to God because of fear. It’s like the no atheists in a Foxhole idea. People pray because they’re desperate. There’s nowhere else they can turn.
“I’m afraid so God if you’re listening, I need help”.
People pray out of a desire for something. “God, I really, really, really, want this, so pretty please give it to me”.
People pray because they need help even when they don’t know anything about God or His Word or what He’s doing today.
It’s a good thing to pray, but we shouldn’t pray in ignorance and yet we’re all ignorant of how to pray in the beginning.

Prayer usually stops when people think they don’t need God anymore or that prayer doesn’t work. “I prayed about it, and it didn’t work”.
Sometimes prayer stops or slows down amongst those who learn the Bible and start to understand what God is and is not doing in the age in which we live.
Before that, we assumed that all the Bible is written to us and we could just open the Bible at any place, wherever it falls open, and there’ll a promise there for us.
So, God will do anything today that He’s done anywhere else in the Bible.
For example, I can pray Gideon’s prayer in Judges 6:36 and we read,

So Gideon said to God, “If You will save Israel by my hand as You have said look, I shall put a fleece of wool on the threshing floor; if there is dew on the fleece only, and it is dry on all the ground, then I shall know that You will save Israel by my hand, as You have said.”

Or Jabez’s prayer in 1st Chronicles 4:10,

And Jabez called on the God of Israel saying, “Oh, that You would bless me indeed, and enlarge my territory, that Your hand would be with me, and that You would keep me from evil, that I may not cause pain!” So God granted him what he requested.

Or Elisha’s prayers in 2nd Kings 6 verses 17 and 18,

And Elisha prayed, and said, “LORD, I pray, open his eyes that he may see.” Then the LORD opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw. And behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.
So when the Syrians came down to him, Elisha prayed to the LORD, and said, “Strike this people, I pray, with blindness.” And He struck them with blindness according to the word of Elisha.

Or Revelation 6:10,

And they cried with a loud voice, saying, “How long, O Lord, holy and true, until You judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?”

We could go on and on, but it’s pretty obvious that these types of prayers would not be answered by God today.
Through the understanding that God works through different people at different times in different ways we begin to rightly divide the Word and we start to learn that God’s doing that particular thing for Israel according to His covenant with them and that not everything God said is talking to you and me today.

So, when we begin to see that God works through different people at different times in different ways, we tend to stop praying at all.
Why? Because we’re left not knowing how to pray.

God tells us to pray so at the very least it’d be good to try and learn how.
In the prophecies relating to the New Covenant made to Israel and the House of Judah there’s a huge advantage in that the Holy Spirit comes, and He guides into all truth, but the benefit of the period that you and I are living in now, the dispensation of grace where we’re members of Christ’s body is that we’re given clear information that we can understand and put into practice.
We need to be aware that as many of God’s ways of dealing with humanity change from age to age, dispensation to dispensation, prayer changes as well!

We don’t want to waste our time with things that don’t work today and unfortunately a lot that’s preached today doesn’t work and quite often it doesn’t work because we’ve not understood how things change from age to age. We try and do things today that simply aren’t for the current age.

So, can we talk to God? Sure, we can, but praying rightly requires information that we need to learn.
We might ask, “Isn’t God just happy that we’re talking to him?”
Well, He tells us to pray. And, the Holy Spirit’s in us if we’re saved in order to intercede for us, but God wants us to know and to do his will and we get that by learning.

We look at Job.
Job who existed and lived at a time long before there was a written Bible. He lived without the Revelation that we have today of all scripture.
Even the Book of Job wasn’t written to Job.
So, job didn’t have a book and he was a bit frustrated because he’s living his life, upright before the Lord and he was being blessed in prosperity and physical blessings until all this was removed because of the deal Satan had with God and God was silent towards Job.
If God had said, “Okay Job there’s going to be some trouble going on but don’t worry I’m still here and I know what’s going on,” Job could have understood but God didn’t say that.
Suddenly Job loses his children his wealth, everything, and he’s left frustrated. His friends are trying to defend God trying to tell him how he should speak to God and apologise to God and how to pray to God, and Job says this in
Job 31 verse 35,

Oh, that I had one to hear me! Here is my mark. Oh, that the Almighty would answer me, That my Prosecutor (God Himself) had written a book!

Oh, that God would hear me. He’s not talking to me. I don’t know what He’s doing. If only the almighty would answer me.
This sounds like many Christians today when it comes to prayer.
I want to pray and oh that God would just tell me something, even if he just verbally said no! But he doesn’t even do that.
We just assume it’s NO when he doesn’t respond. Or maybe it’s a YES but I’ve got to be patient. We don’t know.
But Job says oh I desire the almighty would answer me and that my prosecutor, meaning God in this situation, had written a book. We Christians pray as if God never wrote a book, but He did and it’s about what He’s done before, what He’s doing now and what He’ll do in the future, and it needs to be understood.
The trouble is when we have a book, what’s that require? Study, and who likes doing that?
We’re back to study again, because God has spoken through these words, they’re God’s words to us. It’s his revelation and if we don’t understand this revelation, we’re no better off than Job.
Things can happen to us for better or worse and we don’t know why and all we desire is that God answers us, and He doesn’t.
Job says in Job 31 verse 36 about this book he wishes he had,
Surely I would carry it on my shoulder, And bind it on me like a crown;
Job says just tell me what’s going on and why and I’ll gladly endure anything for you.
Most of us don’t have that heart to endure anything like Job did, but it doesn’t excuse us. Job had an excuse. He didn’t have a book. We do have one.

The disciples in Luke 11 verse 1 had Jesus, the Son of God, right there with them and it’s a fair question for them to ask, teach us to pray.
It’s recorded in scripture which shows us they didn’t know how to pray and here’s the Lord right here, so why wouldn’t you ask Him?

Did you know that in the law of Moses there’s no commandment to pray?
If you look up the word prayer it doesn’t show up as a commandment in Deuteronomy, Exodus, Numbers or Leviticus, yet Moses prays, and Israel prays.
When we need help in life we want to communicate with God.
But the big challenge for us is to know and understand what God’s doing today.
Is what we’re asking Him for according to His will?
And what is His will for the age we live in today?
What He’s doing today in this present age may be, and most certainly is, entirely different than what He was doing in Moses, or David’s day. Even what He did when Jesus walked the earth may be different than this church age we live in today.
We need to know how God is dealing with mankind today in order to know if what we’re asking is even His will, remembering that the most pointless prayer would be asking something that’s not His will.

The person who writes more about prayer than anyone else is King David.
Many of the Psalms are prayers from David. However, they’re written under the law and Israel’s covenants so, if we’re praying David’s prayers we’re praying Israel’s covenants. Clearly this is not the way for us to pray today.

The one whose writings are filled with more instruction on prayer for you and me today than anyone else in the scripture is the apostle, Paul.
Every epistle Paul writes it’s filled with instructions and examples of Prayer.
In the dispensation of Grace that we live in today, it’s Paul’s Epistles where we find the instructions stating the will of God for today, this present age, and how to pray.
In 1st Timothy 2 verses 1 and 2 Paul says this,

Therefore, I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence.

First, before anything else, prayers should made for all those that be in authority.
This is Paul’s instructions to Timothy on how to respond to those that’re in authority and why. That we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence.
The in the next two verses of 1st Timothy 2, verse 3 and 4 we read Paul further explaining why,

For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior,
who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.
We’re praying for all men to be saved and come knowledge of the truth.

Then in 1st Thessalonians verses 16 to 18 Paul writes this to the Thessalonians,

Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

This is perhaps the most popular prayer instruction in the scripture and it’s very clear.
Rejoice always!
Christians, those who have believed in Christ and His completed work on the cross, can rejoice always because their joy isn’t based on circumstances, but in God. Circumstances change constantly, but God doesn’t.
In the midst of the worst that this world can dish up to us we know our Saviour and we know we’re saved by His grace, and permanently secure in Him by the Holy Spirit. We know our ultimate destiny!
This is why we can rejoice always.
Pray without ceasing.
We don’t find anything like that in the law of Moses, but we find it here in Paul’s Epistles, under the age of grace.
What does it mean to pray without ceasing?
Surely Paul here doesn’t mean prayer without stopping.

To stop eating, sleeping, and working in the place of praying all the time would be silly. Paul himself says he does not ‘cease to pray’ for the Colossians in Colossians 1:9, yet in 2nd Thessalonians 3:8 he says that he quote, “worked with labour and toil night and day.”
The idea is that we shouldn’t give up on prayer and chuck the process of praying into the bin.
However, we shouldn’t spiritualise this verse either by saying that our whole life is a perpetual prayer to God. We simply ought to walk in continuous attitudes of prayer by being aware of God’s existence in our everyday lives and knowing our destiny through the blood of Christ.
The passage refers to regular prayer communication with God faithfully and without failing.
Paul says pray without ceasing and in everything give thanks for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.
So, what’s the will of God?
In everything give thanks and pray without ceasing!
This is the will of God Paul’s talking about here.
We say we want to know God’s will for our life? Well, it’s in black and white in the scripture.
We might say, “But that’s not specific to my situation”. But, yes, it is!
Pray without ceasing in everything give thanks in Christ Jesus.

Why is prayer so important in this dispensation of grace today?
One reason may be because under grace, unlike any other dispensation, we don’t see God intervening in the way He did back then.
So, we need to know how God intervenes today, and to learn how God operates today and then act according to that.

Even though we don’t know how to pray there is a way we ought to pray, and the Holy Spirit can help us.
But then we’re stuck because we don’t know how to do that.
This is why people are discouraged about praying but the instruction’s clear.

In Philippians chapter 1 Paul tells the Philippians how he thanks God for them and how they’re in every prayer of his as he makes requests for them with joy. Joy because of their fellowship in the gospel and for how God has begun a good work in them and will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ.

Paul gives us more instruction on prayer and the results if we do it, by what he says to these Philippians in Philippians 4 verses 6 and 7,

Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

The word “anxious” in the King James is “careful” meaning don’t take the care of the world and the circumstances of everyday life on board.
Paul gives an example of this in his own life a bit later in verses 12 and 13 of the same chapter, Philippians 4,

I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound. Everywhere and in all things I have learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need.
I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

What are the “all things” he’s talking about? Being able to live and rejoice in whatever circumstances he finds himself in because of his knowledge of God.

He says stop being careful for everything. Pray to God make your request be made known to him and the peace of God which passes all understanding shall keep your hearts and Minds through Christ Jesus.
See the instruction here? In everything, by prayer, let your requests be made known.
But hold on! We still don’t know what to pray for because it doesn’t tell us what to request does it?
So, we’re going to have to learn.
In Colossians 4:2 Paul says,

Continue earnestly in prayer, being vigilant in it with thanksgiving;

Notice he says “continue” in prayer, so they must have started already. Being vigilant in it. The King James has the word “watch” instead of vigilant.
Watch in the same with Thanksgiving.
There’s thanksgiving again.
Then in the next two verses Colossians 4:3 – 4 Paul tells them what to pray for,

…meanwhile praying also for us, that God would open to us a door for the word, to speak the mystery of Christ, for which I am also in chains, that I may make it manifest (to make it known or apparent), as I ought to speak.

What should the Colossians pray for?
That God would open to us a door of utterance, for the word, to speak the mystery of Christ.
To speak what? The mystery of Christ!
Have you heard of the mystery of Christ? Well, we sure need to because this is what Paul says we should pray for. Our prayer won’t help Paul now. He’s been with the Lord for 2000 years but there’re ministries now popping up everywhere that have had a revelation of this mystery period, this age that we now live in called the dispensation of grace and they’re boldly preaching it and, just like Paul did, they’re challenging traditions that the Body of Christ has accepted without sound bible foundations. We need to pray this same prayer that Paul told the Colossians to pray for him, for these ministries.

In Colossians 1 verse 9 Paul describes his prayer for the Colossian Christians,

For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, (heard of their love in the Spirit) do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding;

 

You see the people he tells to pray need wisdom and understanding.
When we don’t have wisdom and understanding what are we? Ignorant!
The Colossians were ignorant just as we all are. So, the very people Pauls telling to pray are the people he says need to grow in understanding.
When we start to learn to rightly divide the Bible it starts becoming clearer, much clearer. We start seeing things we didn’t see before even though they were always there in black and white.
Our understanding goes up really quick but sometimes we miss the connection of how that understanding helps our prayers.
We can even think that don’t need to pray anymore, but the opposite’s true. We need to be taught how to pray. First comes the teaching then comes the praying.
Paul explains this in the next verses Colossians 1 verses 10 to 12,

That you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, for all patience and longsuffering with joy; giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light.

When we get this understanding of the Bible it’s time to start walking worthy of the Lord, pleasing Him.
Well, how do I do that exactly?
How about in everything give thanks or pray without ceasing, learning to implement what God’s taught us.
Then, we can increase more in the knowledge of God. Some things we can only learn after we put into effect what God’s already taught us.

Prayer’s not something that saves us, and it’s not something we know how to do naturally.
When we learn the Bible it helps inform our prayers but often we kind of forget why we’re praying in the first place.
For example, maybe we prayed that we didn’t understand God’s will, but we wanted to know His will.
Then we learn God’s will as we study and then it’s, “great, prayer answered, no need to pray ever again because I now know what God’s will is.
Well now it’s time to try doing His will.
Prayer’s not the magic tool that gets you God’s answer. The Bible is God’s revelation it’s not something that gets you saved. Christ did that on the cross and when you put your trust in that it’s something that you use in your walk every day.
To not be interested in that walk, often results in the knowledge we’ve gained making us puffed up with pride, knowing things without actually doing them.
God wants us to do!
The instruction to pray is very clear in scripture but at this point we know that we don’t know how to pray. We know we need understanding but we don’t have it and yet we have to pray because the Bible tells us to. So, the conclusion we come to is that prayer must be taught to us.

It’s very interesting that in Jesus’s earthly ministry, His disciples came to Him and asked Him to teach them to pray. Although they were Jews, bought up on the law and the Jewish scriptures, they didn’t know how to pray!
When they asked, Jesus didn’t treat them as idiots who should have known. On the contrary, Jesus responded with the most famous Prayer in the Bible, popularly called The Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6 from verse 5 to 13.
It’s a weird title and Jesus certainly didn’t call it that. Jesus himself would never have prayed that prayer for Himself because the prayer asked to forgive your sins. Jesus didn’t have any sins. He was the sinless Son of God.
To see a prayer that Jesus did pray for Himself we look at the entire chapter of John 17.
We’re not going to study that prayer right now, but it’s Jesus praying to the Father. What’s not in Jesus’s prayer in John 17, is anything in the so-called Lord’s Prayer.

So, the disciples ask Jesus to teach them how to pray and Jesus gives them just three verses. But then he Himself prays 26 verses to the father!

Our reaction might be, well teach me how to pray those long prayers the glorious ones.
Jesus says pray this. Compared to His prayers it’s like He’s talking to Children. Look at Luke 6 verse 12,
Now it came to pass in those days that He went out to the mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God.
This records Jesus praying.
There are many, many books written about prayer, and they often talk about how much Jesus prayed. The motive is often to exhort us to pray as much.
I mean we’re talking hours here! How many hours did you spend in prayer last week? See, guilt starts rising.
Many books use this verse to tell us we’ve got to get somewhere where we can see the glory of God, like in the mountains. That’s how this verse is often preached. He continued all night in prayer.
So, you have the International House of Prayer where they pray all night and all day. 24/7 in praise and prayer.
What did Jesus pray all night? Maybe that’s the secret to accessing God’s power?
When Jesus’s disciples asked Him how to pray Jesus was patterning something a little different, at least in the length of time that he prayed.
Turn to Luke 11 verse 1, and we’re trying to get an understanding of the basic truth that we don’t know how to pray, and we have to acknowledge that before we can learn anything about it. So, Luke 11 verse 1,
Now it came to pass, as He was praying in a certain place, when He ceased, that one of His disciples said to Him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.”

Now, we already know that here in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, is not instructions for the Body of Christ in today’s dispensation of grace, so when Jesus is instructing his disciples here He’s instructing men that would reign over the tribes of Israel in the coming Earthly Kingdom.
He’s teaching Israel how to pray through that tribulation to come before their earthly kingdom. We know that because down in verse 10 to 13 Jesus says,

For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.
If a son asks for bread from any father among you, will he give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent instead of a fish?
Or if he asks for an egg, will he offer him a scorpion?
If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!”

You see He’s talking here about the Holy Spirit. These are going to be Holy Spirit filled Israel, who will know what to pray by the unction of the Holy Spirit telling them the words.
In fact, later in Luke Jesus’ll say the Holy Spirit will give you the words to say. People then go and teach prayer like that saying, “Well to pray you just sit down wait for the Holy Spirit to give you the words. You wait and you wait and sometimes you just force it out.
Sometimes you need to help the Holy Spirit, maybe open your mouth move your tongue a little bit, you know make a noise or groan and then the prayer’ll come.
But that’s not the instruction to pray here. The Holy Spirit giving these people words to speak is not what God’s doing today!
We’re members of the Body of Christ today.
Romans 8:26,

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.

We’ll cover this shortly.
In Luke 11 and Matthew 6 Jesus is talking to people who receive the New Covenant Holy Spirit before this prophesied tribulation period after which they’ll enter their Kingdom. They can ask and they’ll receive because they’ll know what to speak because the Holy Spirit, given to them under the New Covenant, will be the One saying it.
Every word Peter said at Pentecost was Holy Spirit inspired.
He didn’t prepare that sermon!
Let’s go back to the lesson Jesus taught to the disciples in response to their request to teach them to pray.
Luke 11:2,

So He said to them, “When you pray, say: Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done On earth as it is in heaven.

As we said this prayer is given to New Covenant Israel going to their Kingdom and so in the context of Luke 11, when Jesus tells his disciples, who are Jews, “Our Father” God is the father of Israel.
A gentile wouldn’t pray that. He’s not talking here about the fact that He’s our Creator and so He’s everyone’s Daddy and we’re all children of God. No!
You get to be children of God through Israel’s covenants. That’s how that is in Luke 11.
There’s another way you and I are the children of God which is explained in Paul’s epistles written specifically to you and me, the Body of Christ today but that’s not the audience here in Luke 11. Paul hadn’t even been saved at this time and the mystery of the dispensation of grace certainly had not been revealed. It was still kept secret by God since the foundation of the world at this time.
So the Father here’s the Father of Israel. Jesus starts with the acknowledging who He is, Our Father, and where He is, in heaven.
Hallowed, holy, be thy name. So there’s an acknowledgement of who God is and how holy He is.
Now, even though this prayer’s not even given to us to pray, we need to learn who God is! If we’re not praying to God or the right God, we’re doing it wrong. We can all agree I think that if we’re praying to a stone figure we’re doing it wrong.
If we’re praying to the birds we’re doing it wrong. If we’re praying to Poseidon the god of the sea, who never existed, we’re doing it wrong. If we’re praying to a god that we think is God but is not what the Bible describes as God, that’s idolatry and we’re doing it wrong.
How do I know I’m praying to the right God? I can’t see Him! Well, have to be informed from the scripture who the true God is.
We must know who God is and when we don’t we just vainly throw up a prayer with the question, “If there’s a God there, hear me.”
When you teach our children we have to teach them who God is before they know who they’re talking to.
So, there’s step one of the things you have to be taught.
Jesus goes on and says our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. On Earth as in Heaven!
Jesus is saying thy kingdom come now. Where did he get that idea, the kingdom come? Is this just a desire he has? “God I really want a kingdom.”
No! This is something that’s been promised and prophesied since the world began to the nation of Israel, that He would bring his kingdom to the earth. Something we must learn, along with who God is, is what He’s doing. What’s His will? Right after Jesus says, “thy Kingdom come”, He follows it up with, “Your will be done.”
You see God’s already promised Israel this earthly Kingdom and said that it would come, and Jesus is telling the Disciples of Israel here as he’s preaching of the nearness of the Kingdom, to pray for God’s kingdom come to Earth for the fulfillment of those prophecies about the earthly Kingdom. Thy kingdom come. God bring your kingdom down.
We have to know what God’s will is behind “thy kingdom come” and understand what God has promised already and what He’s doing now.
That inform our prayers so we can pray for what God’s will is.
For example, “God I pray that I’d be more thankful. You tell me to be thankful and I’m not feeling it but I want to be more thankful according to Your will.” That’s a good place to start!
We can pray for that right now. “I pray your will be done, Lord.” If we know his will and we certainly can through His Word, we can pray it.
Jesus goes on to say, “Give us day by day our daily bread.” Matthew 6 says give us this day our daily bread.
The famous Daily Bread verse that took a swift change from thy glorious Kingdom from the heaven down to earth to I’m hungry and give me bread. Israel needed daily bread when they were wandering through the Wilderness. Until they get to their promised land they had no land to bear food to eat and they were in a desert that God led them to, and they had nothing to eat. God gave them bread every day.
Behind this part of the prayer is knowing what God provides, what He has provided, and what He will provide.
We need to know that in the context of the time.
Jesus says to the disciples, you’ll go to the kingdom. The kingdom will come. But before you get there you’ll need provision and God will provide your daily bread.
So, in Luke 11 and Matthew 6, give us day by day our daily bread is speaking of what God is providing for them.
We need to know what God is providing for us today also. How do we know that? How do we know what God’s giving us?
It helps to learn what the scripture says God has done before and what He’s doing now.
To learn what God’s provided for you informs your prayers.
Jesus goes on to say, “and forgive us our sins for we also forgive everyone that is indebted to us.”
We need to learn what God requires of us. The forgiving of sins is something that a sinner, before God, would recognise, that He’s holy and they’re not. How are our sins forgiven today? Is it because you forgave other people their debts? Many people don’t see it, but Jesus is teaching very clearly here, as he does in Matthew 6, that if you do not forgive others their sins God in heaven will not forgive your sins. Your forgiveness of sin, according to Jesus’s teachings in this instruction to pray, is dependent upon your forgiving others. God requires them to forgive other people before He will grant them the request of forgiveness.
This is opposite to Colossians 2:13 and 14,

And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.

So, if we’re going to make a request to God if we’re going to pray to God we need to know what He requires and what His will is for today, not what His will was in past dispensations or what it will be in the future.
We can pray till we’re blue in the face but if we’re not meeting what God requires today, in the time in which we live, nothing’s going to happen.
What does God require today? What kind of work does God require for our salvation? Nothing, only believe His Word, The Gospel. What works does God require before you engage with him in prayer? Nothing!
What does God require before you get forgiven? Faith in Jesus Christ and nothing more! This informs our prayers, you see. We can say, “Thank you Lord for forgiving me on my faith in the gospel, even if I haven’t forgiven my neighbours. That teaches me what forgiveness looks like so that I can forgive my neighbours.”
That’s a very good prayer. We’re not talking about how you can speak, with the wisdom of men.
We must learn what God provides and what He requires of us.

The Lord’s teaching the disciples here that they’re to forgive other people to get their sins forgiven. So, you see, no one. no disciple could actually pray forgive me my sins as I forgive my neighbour unless they actually did that.

Jesus goes on to say, “and lead us not into temptation but Deliver Us from Evil” Again, we need to learn Who God is, what His will is, what He provides for us and what’s required of us.
We’ve also got to learn how God leads us.
The request here is lead us not into Temptation. But what if God wants to lead you there? How do you know? We need to know what God’s leading is, which has to do with His will.
What’s the path, what’s the ladder look like for me?
Is it just it I’m saved and now I’m stuck here the rest of my life, grateful I’m saved? Or, is there a means of growth and a purpose and a mission God’s given that he’s leading me somewhere and to do something? And what is that?
Jesus is talking about His audience going to the tribulation, and being tempted not to face that suffering but instead, take the mark of the beast and everything else.
“Deliver Us from Evil.” We live in a present evil world. How do we get delivered from evil? Well, we die, and we go to heaven! That’s how we’re delivered from this present evil world.
But, we don’t want to go through the evil, do we? Or maybe we need help to get through the evil.
But, we need to know how God leads us now, in our present day.
We’re going through what Jesus taught his disciples to pray, which they didn’t know.
Jesus gave these men an example, so should we pray that way also?
No. Because Jesus’s example has a different context. When we study the bible through a dispensational lens we recognise who is speaking and to whom. Jesus is speaking obviously, and to whom is He speaking? Israel. To the 12 disciples of the 12 tribes of Israel.
We recognise what God is doing and how what He’s doing changes from age to age, or dispensation to dispensation.
When we study the Bible recognising the changing instructions of God throughout the scripture, so we also see man’s responsibility changing accordingly.
When God instructs Noah to build an ark, no one before him or after him had to build an ark, but Noah did.
When God told Moses and Israel to keep these Commandments they had to. When he tells us that we’re not under the law but under grace, guess what, our responsibility is to walk with the knowledge that we’re under grace not under the law.
So as God’s instructions change, as he progressively, over time reveals new information, it’s our responsibility to learn that information and put it to use. So, we’re talking about how we don’t know how to pray so isn’t that a different thing from realising God’s changing instructions to mankind through the different ages? No! They’re connected.
If we think that prayer is simply the same throughout the Bible we’re wrong! What we do in response to those changing ages and changing instructions has everything to do with the way we pray.
Because prayer is our responsibility, and we’re instructed to pray, how do I pray? Well, that’s going to change according to God’s instructions. Does that mean we’ve got to learn how to pray? Yes, because we don’t know until we learn what God’s revealed.
If we don’t know what God’s doing today, we don’t know what we need to do. We talk to God knowing what He’s said for us today, His progressive revelation.
We could say, “Lord I know you created the world with Your Word and that you spoke to Moses and You parted the waters and You spoke to David and gave him promises, and I know what you’re doing now.
That’s an important prayer! Prayer changes with God’s progressive revelation. None of us know how to do it in the beginning. We need to learn.
We have to learn how to use the scripture as a tool, as a weapon, as a sword. We have to learn to use it and it’s the same with prayer.
We learn it through personal Bible study.
We should never leave it to the so-called experts to tells us what God has said to mankind so we can just close the book and don’t even consider it any further, just listen to the high and mighty priest or minister who knows it better than us anyway.
That’s not what God intended. He wants us to learn and part of that learning is opening up the book so the book can teach us what God said and what we should do.
God wrote the Bible for you and me to understand. It just requires us to engage with it so we can teach one another, and we can show each other how the scripture tells us to study it and rightly divide the Bible.

People get concerned about their lifetime struggle with prayer. They think it’s impossible to ever learn how to pray but we can if we can learn what God’s doing. We have the Bible to inform us and that’s more than Job did.
Even without a book, Job would not blaspheme God, knowing that God knew what he was doing.
God still knows what he’s doing, but unlike Job, you and I can now know too if you read the scripture and rightly divide it.

So how do we pray under grace, under this present dispensation of the Body of Christ?
First, we realise, and accept, that as we learn under grace, and learn to study and rightly divide the Bible, we will fail. We’re all going to do it wrong and that’s okay. But pray anyway.
There’s examples in the Bible of people praying wrong.
Peter’s a great example. Poor old Peter’s the guy who fails over and over again. He’s got so much zeal, and he longs to do it right. He jumps out of the boat, and he actually walks on the water but drops into the water. He gets blamed for not having faith but those other guys in the boat never stepped out. Would we?
Peter took his sword out and cut Malchus’s ear off, and Jesus says no Peter, put it up. Failed again. The guy was going to fight for his Messiah.
It’s a good thing to have zeal and to fail. At least you can learn some things from it.
Paul himself, though different than Peter, also failed when he prayed specifically in 2nd Corinthians 12:8 to 9.
Paul didn’t know but this is the thing, even when we fail it’s only because we don’t know.
If we have the heart to pray and we’re not trying to lie to God and we want to pray rightly and talk to him, Hebrews 4:12 says that the Word of God knows the thoughts and intents of our heart and the spirit who’s in us knows. God knows the mind of the spirit.
Paul got it wrong in 2nd Corinthians 12 verse 8,

For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me.
And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

Jesus actually responded to Paul’s prayer and this’s not a common thing. Jesus is speaking to teach Paul so that you and I can learn something from Paul’s failure.
Jesus doesn’t say no to Paul, He says my grace is sufficient. I’ve given you what you need. He tells Paul to acknowledge what I’ve given you what I provided for you, Grace.
And then Jesus gives the reason why His grace is sufficient. “For my strength, Christ’s strength, is made perfect in weakness.
Paul’s learning something and he changes from thinking, “I need to remove this thorn In the flesh,” to “Now therefore will I rather glory in the thorn in my flesh.”
He went from remove this thorn in the flesh, to I’m going to glory in this thorn in my flesh.
What changed? Paul learned something and this is how it’s going to work for us too.
When we pray with sincerity and with a heart to do right with God, to communicate with Him for His will to be done, and we do it selfishly and wrong, We can learn.

Romans 5:8 says God committed his love toward us that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.
Christ died for Sinners who didn’t pray and could not pray.
Oh, maybe they were praying Pagan prayers or maybe they were praying to another god or maybe they were praying to what they knew was the true God but not according to His will, either way they didn’t have to pray. How could they? They’re unsaved! If you don’t know God’s grace and don’t know what he’s doing then that’s us folks.
Christ died for our sins when we didn’t know how to pray. He died for our sins when we didn’t know how to walk rightly.
Do you think our inability to pray is going to somehow hinder our relationship to God or our salvation? No!
We’ve seen already in Romans 8:26 that the Holy Spirit dwells in us. He seals us in Christ. He dwells in us and intercedes for us when we don’t know what prayers and help that we need.
That’s a relief but it’s still left to us to learn what the fruit of the spirit is and how to walk after the spirit and what God has done. Under grace the spirit’s not given to you to judge our prayers and whether we’re doing it right and if we’re not He’s going to leave us. He dwells in us.

A very wise man once said about prayer, “Don’t frame a saviour out of your prayers. Don’t think that praying is going to save you or that praying rightly is somehow going to make you a better Christian. You are who you are because Christ made you that way.”
Paul didn’t say pray and be saved. He didn’t even say pray so that we’ll be mature Christians. Prayer, he says, is the utterance of a living soul, the breathing of a child’s desire to our heavenly Father. We are the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus, not by faith and prayer.
We mustn’t think prayer is going to do something that it doesn’t actually do. Many Christians give too much power to prayer, but the power is in Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit that dwells in us. Prayer is how you talk to God to engage Him in His will. We need to learn how to do that.
Galatians 3:26 says,

For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.

We’re children of God by faith alone. No one that tells us that we must pray to make God merciful can tell us how long we must pray to be make God merciful because we can’t make God merciful or make Him save us by our lengthy prayers.
We’re saved by grace through faith. It’s a gift of God not of works (or prayer) lest any man should boast.
That means ignorant selfish prayers do not save us and rather righteous holy prayers don’t save us. Neither do they change our standing with God.

In this dispensation of Grace, we’re made a child of God by virtue of God’s grace, justified by faith. We’re put into his son, into the body of Christ and so praying wrongly or ignorantly or selfishly doesn’t change our standing with God.
It wasn’t always like that! In 1 John 1:9 there’s forgiveness of sins and confessions of sins to get back a right standing with God, but that’s not the case for us who’re in the Body of Christ.
That’s written for Israel under their Covenant program. We’ve been crucified with Christ, and we’re resurrected in Him.
That access to God through Christ cannot change by what we do which includes our prayers.
So how do we pray under grace? With that understanding! We’ve got to learn and know some things so that when we pray we’re not praying, fearful that we’ve somehow lost fellowship with God because we forgot to pray for three months. We haven’t lost anything with Christ if we’re saved by God’s grace.
So, we’re learning here that we don’t know how to pray be we should pray according to Paul’s instructions.
The disciples themselves asked Jesus to teach them and we also have to be taught how to pray in this dispensation we live in and when we pray it has to be with the knowledge of what we have in this dispensation.
If we struggle praying a good prayer might be, “Lord teach me to pray.”