Of all things that we must learn from our Teacher, how to pray is near the top of the list. The “Lord’s School of Prayer” (Luke 11:1-4) outlines 7 aspects of a strong prayer life. Continued teaching on the subject (Luke 11:5-13) and some object lessons (Luke 11:14-28) round out a 10-point lesson on how to pray.
Point #1 Address God as “Father” (Luke 11:2), recalling his love for you. Ordinarily, we pray TO the Father, THROUGH the Son, BY the Spirit.
Point #2 Begin your prayer with words of praise, like “hallowed be your name” (Luke 11:2).
Point #3 Align yourself with His Kingdom (Joshua 5:14), saying “Your kingdom come” (Luke 11:2), and examining yourself to remove anything that stands opposed to His rule.
Point #4 Request His provision for needful things, asking Him to “give us each day our daily bread” (Luke 11:3). Notice the plural “us” indicates praying with other believers.
Point #5 Confess your sins and ask Him to “forgive us our sins” (Luke 11:4).
Point #6 Deal with unforgiveness in your own heart, in order to honestly say, “for we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us” (Luke 11:4). Forgiveness in the heart often comes before trust is rebuilt. Rebuilding trust is a process that takes time. Rebuilding trust may require that boundaries be set in place for a time.
Point #7 Ask God to “lead us not into temptation” (Luke 11:4). God cannot tempt (James 1:13), but He can transform the desires of your sinful heart to holy desires (Romans 12:1-2). Genuine freedom is not being caught in the lurch, wavering between competing desires (1 Kings 18:21) and possessing libertarian freedom to be the deciding factor. Rather, genuine freedom is to be wholly captured by holy desires and free from desire to sin (Psalm 51:10).
Point #8 Persist in asking for things that appear to be consistent with God’s revealed will (Luke 11:5-13). It is counterintuitive, but persistence in asking is submissive to God.
Point #9 Be aware that spiritual warfare happens when we pray (Luke 11:14-26). For the sake of those who are possessed or oppressed by demons, grow mighty in prayer (Ephesians 6:10-20, especially 6:18). Consider the spiritual warfare about which Daniel was informed, relative to his three-week prayer marathon (Daniel 10:2, 10:12-14).
Point #10 Pray the Word of God back to God (Luke 11:27-28). Don’t pray to saints or rely on human traditions. What we hear from God must inform what we speak to God.
Application: Like anything else we learn to do, to pray well takes practice and constant refining. Keep the 10 prayer principles in mind. Right them down, and grow by applying them. Think of Sunday night prayer meeting as a training session. What keeps you from attending the prayer meeting this Sunday night at 6:00pm?
