Jesus' Prayer Life

Psalm - One of my favourite images out of the Psalms comes from Psalm 116 - you can imagine the image of someone bending down to listen to a child who is whispering. God does that. God doesn’t say “speak up!” or “come closer!” He bends down to listen.

Reflection

Do you ever want to ask anyone – “can you show me how to do that?”

I’ll ask a piano player that, or another musician

How about you?

What about something we can’t do it at all, but we see someone is so good at it, so passionate about it, and it inspires us?   

Gods story

Let’s listen to this part of Gods story – I want you to use your imagination, as if you were there.

Maybe you are one of Jesus’s disciples

Luke 5:16 Jesus often withdrew to the wilderness for prayer

Luke 6:12  One day soon afterward Jesus went up on a mountain to pray

Luke 11:1 Once Jesus was in a certain place praying. As he finished, one of his disciples came to him and said, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.” 2 Jesus said, “This is how you should pray: “Father, may your name be kept holy. May your Kingdom come soon. 3 Give us each day our daily bread we need, 4 and forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us. 13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.

What is prayer? (on whiteboard)

Communication with God

Listening

Being aware of His presence

Intimacy

Being still

Lament

Honest dialogue

Once Jesus was in a certain place praying... There must have been something about his prayer life that attracted the disciples – they must have been watching him.  What was it about Jesus praying that made them say… show us!  What was it about Jesus’s prayer life that was so attractive to the disciples, for them to say “Hey, can you teach us how to do that?”

(on whiteboard). One of freedom & intimacy. Priority – he made it more important than anything else, it was personal, no big long words, not religious, wasn’t “showy,” and reflected an intimate relationship, and passionate.

I would like a prayer life like that – would anyone else? I invite you to ask Jesus to show you how.

Andrew Murray says, “Jesus never taught His disciples how to preach, only how to pray”

Prayer

My invitation to you is there may be one phrase you notice – just stay with it, – stay there and spend time with the Father.

Father, may your name be kept holy. It may be you need or want to know God more as a Father. Stay with that and dwell in the prayer

May your Kingdom come soon. It may be you need more of the Kingdom in your world this week

Give us each day our daily bread we need, It might be provision - Provision – physically, spiritually, emotionally –

and forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us. It may be you need to forgive someone, someone who has trampled on your garden. Or you need to confess something to God.

And lead us… - You may need guidance – the voice behind to say left or right.

…not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. You may need protection – the enemy of souls may be questioning God and putting other things in your way to tempt you to stray from God, or the Father of lies saying things that simply aren’t true.

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