PRAYER
“And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. Pray then like this:
“Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.”
Matthew 6:7-13 (ESV)
WHAT IS PRAYER?
The ultimate purpose of prayer is worship. When we pray to our Father, we recognize Him for Who He is, and what He has done, and ultimately surrender to His authority and sovereignty in our life. It is the alignment of our heart to His Will and the opening of our communication with Him. Jesus modeled this throughout His earthly Ministry where He went off on His own to pray and the disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray. Other examples throughout Scripture of those who spent time in prayer are David, Hezekiah, Paul, Elijah, and Moses just to name a few.
Way too often we use prayer as a laundry list of our needs and wants of what we think our Heavenly Father should do or what we want from Him. We first should worship Him (Matthew 6:9), which then moves us leading to ask for His will to be done in our life (Matthew 6:10). Third, we then ask Him to give us the strength to deal with the temptation of sin in our life by the work of the Holy Spirit coming to life in us (Matthew 6:13). Jesus modeled this prayer to the disciples and then this discipline is echoed in the early church as the church teaches “the prayers” as the early believers devoted themselves to the apostle’s teachings as the early believers wanted to know everything!
If our purpose in worship is the tuning of our heart to His Will, why would our purpose not be in prayer? We have to do that through intentional prayer. The best way to do that is through the means that Jesus, Himself taught us.
WHEN SHOULD WE PRAY?
Whenever we gather in worship, corporately as a congregation, we should pray as one for all of God’s people according to their needs. Scripture affirms over and over that prayer needs to be a part of our daily life in all situations at all times because it is our only means by which we can accomplish God’s Will on earth.
CAN WE PRAY FOR YOU?
Do you have a prayer request that you would like us to be praying for as a Family here at FBC? We have a Prayer Chain here at the church of people that would LOVE to pray for you! It is a group of people devoted to be lifting you up in prayer before God about your specific need and when you click the button below, that need will be communicated to them and we will be praying for you! All you need to do is type out the need and click send. We would love to pray for you!