Jesus Teaches Us To Pray

How do you pray?

Do you say “Come, Lord Jesus, Be Our Guest” at dinnertime? Is “Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep” your bedtime prayer? Or do you recite the Evening and Morning Prayers from Luther’s Small Catechism?

It doesn’t really matter how you answered the above questions. What does matter is who you pray to, and how you use prayer. What matters is faith.

While Jesus doesn’t give us how-to-survive-daily-life hacks in Scripture, he does provide The Lord’s Prayer and with that, a wonderful structure on how to pray and what to ask for.

We also have dozens of other passages telling us to pray – to call upon his name, to give thanks, and to ask forgiveness, among others.

But looking at today’s sermon text (listed below), Jesus outlines The Lord’s Prayer. It is a wonderful example of a prayer that covers all our needs plus more. Namely, “thy kingdom come”.

When we pray, it’s not to ask for frivolous, material items but to ask for wisdom if lacking, courage if weak, faith if doubting, and confidence if scared. He is our rock. He is our heavenly Father who fulfills our needs – even when we don’t realize what they are!

And how we pray is with boldness in our faith, knowing that He loves us, cares for us, and will never leave us!

Thanks be to Christ!

Here is today’s sermon text from Luke 11:

Now Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.” ² And he said to them, “When you pray, say:

“Father, hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come.
³ Give us each day our daily bread,
⁴ and forgive us our sins,
    for we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us.
And lead us not into temptation.”

⁵ And he said to them, “Which of you who has a friend will go to him at midnight and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves, ⁶ for a friend of mine has arrived on a journey, and I have nothing to set before him’; ⁷ and he will answer from within, ‘Do not bother me; the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed. I cannot get up and give you anything’? ⁸ I tell you, though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his impudence he will rise and give him whatever he needs. ⁹ And I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. ¹⁰ For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. ¹¹ What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; ¹² or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? ¹³ If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

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Announcements

Bible Study: Our midweek Bible study meets on Wednesdays at 7 pm via Zoom and covers the book of Revelation. Our Sunday morning class meets at 9:45 and will start a new topic on July 31.

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