Luke 11:1--Teach Us To Pray

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.” (Luke 11:1 NKJV)

Lord,

Truly, You are our Master, as the title "Lord" implies. You have created us from nothing, and You have purchased us at incalculable cost. You are worthy of our worship and our obedience. We are Your servants. As such, we would do well to live in mute submission to Your sovereign will, were it not for the fact that You have bestowed on us the title "Friend", have bidden us to request what we desire, and have promised to generously supply our needs and more--as long as we ask according to Your will, and not to satisfy our own lusts. In light of Your willingness to answer our requests, it is unthinkable that we would not pray. Yet, we do not. Teach us to pray.

Teach us, not in the sense of instructing our intellect--You have done that. Numerous times in Your Word You have commanded us to pray, demonstrated how to pray, illustrated how often to pray, and defined what to pray. Rather, we desire that You would teach our hearts to feel the needs of individuals as You feel them--to weep with those who weep, to mourn for those who have refused You, to truly bear one another's burdens--and to bring them to You. Teach us to abhor our sin, and to confess it to You out of a desire to restore our relationship with You instead of out of a sense of obligation or desire to appease our guilt. Teach us what true thankfulness is so that our thanksgiving will be genuine. Teach us to diligently pray for those things that are meaningful to You, and to expect that You will answer. Reveal to us our utter helplessness and need for reliance on You. In short, take away from us the artificial and forced activity that we call "prayer" and teach us what You meant when You invited us to pray.

Prayer Quotes--The first of many.

"If I say, 'I ought to pray,' I will soon run out of motivation and quit; the flesh is too strong. I have to be driven to pray." (Jim Cymbala. Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire. p.49)

"Pastors and churches have to get uncomfortable enough to say, 'We are not New Testament Christians if we don't have a prayer life.'" (cf. Acts 2:42) (Jim Cymbala. Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire. p.50)

[Disclaimer: Up until I started reading Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire a few days ago I knew nothing of Jim Cymbala or Brooklyn Tabernacle--the church he pastors. In that light, I am hesitant to endorse either the book or the man. The further I get into the book, the less comfortable I become with Jim's style of ministry. Yet one thing spurs me to keep reading--Jim consistently identifies prayer as the impetus for what has taken place in Brooklyn. Until God brought Jim and his wife to the point of desperation where they had to pray and they had to see God work, their ministry was completely ineffectual. Afterwards their effect on the community seemed (to me, as the reader) effortless, but they never lost sight of the fact that the quality of the church is determined by the quality of its prayer--a lesson I need to learn.]