Matthew Study 6: 5:43-6:18

Dear Student of the Word,

It's time for another dose of God's word. When I call it a dose, that make it sound like the Word is some kind of medicine. In a manner of speaking, it is! It will cure what ails you and prevent many ailments from ever starting.

In this week's study, we continue to look at Jesus' remarks in what is known as the Sermon on the Mount. This week we see that Jesus addressed the heart issues that should go with the spiritual disciplines of prayer, fasting and giving. Below are some of the remarks I made on the topic of prayer. I would love your feedback on what I wrote.

6:8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. 9 "This, then, is how you should pray: " 'Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, 10 your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. 11 Give us today our daily bread.

v. 8 – I may get in trouble with some for writing this, but I think we must be careful not to get into a “works mentality” where prayer is concerned. I have heard some say, “Nothing happens until we pray.” I’m not sure that’s true. What do you think? Does God limit what He does to what His people pray? Then I’ve heard some others declare that the problems in the nation or world are there because the church isn’t praying like it should. Yet, in my opinion, there is more prayer being offered up now than at any time I can remember in my lifetime. Is it that we aren’t praying or is it that God isn’t doing what we ask, because God wants to do something else other than what we are trying to impose on Him?

I try to make my prayers simple and economical. God does indeed know my needs and heart and I don’t have to repeat my petitions over and over to get His attention. I also don’t need to mention His name every third word: “Lord, I thank You, Lord, and I come before You, Lord, and I ask You, Lord, to do great things, Lord, in Your power, Lord.” When I talk to anyone else, I don’t say his or her name over and over in the conversation. I don’t need to do that with God either.

O Lord, you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O Lord (Psalm 139:1-4).

v. 9 – I’ll probably stir up controversy with this next statement as well, but I don’t think the Lord meant for us to memorize this prayer and recite it to Him verbatim on a regular basis. Jesus said we should pray like this, not pray this exactly. The Lord’s prayer, as we know it today, is a pattern, not a law. When I was young, I recited this prayer and it meant very little to me. I know people who pray this prayer no matter what they need from God. They don’t believe their own words will be good enough to touch or reach God, so they pray this prayer. I have heard of soldiers praying this prayer in battle. If I am in battle, I want to pray, “Lord, help me! Protect me!” Do you agree or disagree? What benefit is there in praying this prayer over and over again, word for word? Do you think that was what Jesus intended to happen?

v. 10 – I had better be careful in this discussion, for I don’t have particularly deep or relevant insight into prayer. When I was a pastor, I preached a series on prayer and the people were more confused when I was done than when I started! I had them thinking about something that should flow naturally. It was kind of like dissecting a frog in biology class. You can take and display all the frog parts but you can put them back together again. You no longer have a frog but only the parts that make up a frog. That was how it was with my teaching on prayer. People had all the parts, but they couldn’t put them back together to make a whole.

I would welcome your comments to this week's study. You can do this and find the studies to Corinthians, First Timothy and Mark's gospel on the site where this week's entry is posted. You can also go there to sign up to receive each week's study.

Download this week's study: Matthew Study 6.doc

Comments

[J/S]

I believe that we should wield the sword of the Spirit as the Apostle Paul
exhorted us in Ephesians 6:17,18 to pray always with all prayer and supplication
in the Spirit. We are to be led by the Holy Spirit to pray in known or unknown
tongues always. We are to acknowledge our weakness that we know not what
to pray but the Holy Spirit will help us pray according to the will of God so that all things will work together for the good of us who love God and are called according to His purpose (Romans 8:26-28). Even our Lord Jesus was led by the Holy Spirit to speak out against the devil in the temptation in wilderness for forth days(Luke 4:1-13). More so for us. This is something I am doing.

[Paul]

I love the way you stir the pot, no matter what is in it.

If you look at the prayer of Elija, I think it encompasses 52 words and fire came from heaven like never before.

I have never prayed long prayers when praying for people. I pray according to the word and the will of God (If you know the first, you also know the second) and to the best of my ability, I pray the prayer of faith.

It confuses me and makes me uncomfortable being in a room full of people praying for just about everything in the world with no instruction to pray for anything in particular (there, I'll take some of the heat off you)

When I don't know how to pray for something, I will pray in the spirit about it and most times, God will stir up one of the 9 gifts, in me, to address whatever I am praying for.

At the end of the day, God knows what I pray and why I pray it.

To answer you question, does anything happen without prayer toward it? Probably, but slower I suspect.

Thanks for your help on "How do you honor God?"

Paul

[Lena]

Thank you for your studies and memos which continue to inspire us and help us grow in our Christian lives and encourage us to think through the things we learn.

My thoughts on prayer have been formed over time, from church sermons, persona study as well as the attitude of Jesus towards the Jewish laws. I tend to believe that Jesus encourages us to think and discern issues, not just blindly obey laws, but to think for ourselves: What would God wish us to do in this circumstance? And to be fair to others as well as ourselves.

As a result, this is what I think:

I approach prayer as a conversation with God. In this regard, I speak naturally as I would to my father, because he knows my heart more than I, and understands my needs and intentions, both the ones I may be aware of and the ones I may not even know. In expressing God’s love for us, Jesus gave the example of what a parent, with limited love, would give a child ‘…..asked for loaf, would give a stone…? and invites us to imagine how much more God is willing to give us. As parents we also know when our children are being selfish, and oft deny them things out of love, yet we do not understand when God does the same to us.

We must believe in the power of prayer. And in our own God given powers. Because when we ‘speak’ our need, it is more likely to be achieved, both because we actually define and conceptualise it more clearly, and because we subconsciously take steps to facilitate its realisation.

Our needs define the manner in which we pray. We may pray for something out of daily routine, like when we go to sleep or before a meal or journey. Or we may be in anguish over an illness or loss. Our cry to God is much more during difficult circumstances, when we may prostrate ourselves before him and beseech him to hear us and ease our pain. And I believe God has a special ear for those who are weeping.

The structure of prayer. In our daily lives – with parents, colleagues, pastors, we often think through what we are going to ask or discuss. I believe we should think through our prayers, so as to be brief and focused. In an earlier sermon on prayer, we were asked to follow the following order: Jesus – then others – and yourself last .Praise God and thank him for your blessings. Pray for others next. Those you know who need prayers. Your pastors, your other leaders, that they may have wisdom in their actions. Your country, especially in times of difficulty. The sick. The mourning.

And lastly pray about your/your family needs. And the Lord’s Prayer follows this general structure.
Lastly, we should let ‘His will be done’. We have our needs, but God has His will. We may not know why we are in a particular situation – good or bad, but God has a plan for us, and his plan is for good and not for evil, to bring us a future and a hope (Jer 29.11). We must be thankful in all circumstances for us to experience the freedom that comes with our faith. When we pray I believe we need to submit to His will for our lives, because the solutions we have for our situation are limited to our knowledge, yet God may have planned a far greater result for He has a future for us which we as yet cannot discern.

These are my thought on prayer.

[Steve]

"In His plan of salvation for humankind God has ordained that believers be co-workers with Him in the redemptive process. In some respect God has limited Himself to the holy, believing persevering prayers of His people. There are many things that will not be accomplished in God's kingdom without the intercessory prayers of believers. For example, God desires to send out workers into the Gospel harvest; Christ teaches that this will only be accomplished to God's full purpose through His people's prayers: "Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into His harvest field" (Mat 9:38). In other words, God's power to accomplish many of His purposes is released only through His people's earnest prayers on behalf of the progress of His kingdom. If we fail to pray, we may actually be hindering the accomplishment of God's redemptive purpose, both for ourselves as individuals and for the church as a body." Donald C Stamps; article "Effective Praying", The Full Life Study Bible, p 496.