Pray Like Jesus

Pastor Gary Oser

Last month I shared with you some principles for prayer found in Jesus’ teaching on prayer in His Sermon on the Mount found in Matthew 6:5-18. This month, I want to share a pattern that Jesus gave us. I don’t think what Jesus had in mind is that we would just repeat the prayer, but that we might use it as a pattern for our praying.

The prayer suggests that we begin by focusing on God and Kingdom concerns. So often when we pray, we focus on health concerns or things that relate to us. Jesus said in Matthew 6:9-10, “‘Then pray in this way: Our Father who is in heaven, hallowed by Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.’”

Our first priority as we pray should be to focus on God and things that are a concern to Him.

Pray that His name, which represents all that He is, will be respected and will be used in a manner of His holy character. Pray for His kingdom, for His rule in both our individual lives and the world. And pray more about what He wants than what we want.

In addition, you might pray for the spread of the Gospel, that people might hear about the one, true God and turn to Him for salvation. Once we have spent time focusing on God and His concerns, then we can turn to some things that concern us as human beings.

Jesus continues in Matthew 6:11-13, “‘Give us our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.’”

We should recognize that ultimately what we have to eat comes from God, and we should both pray and thank God for daily providing for us. Because we are not yet perfect, we need to seek God’s forgiveness when we sin. Because the devil tempts us to sin, we need to pray that God will make us aware of the devil’s schemes and give us victory over him.

A great way to close a time of prayer is by acknowledging that God is in control and that He is deserving of all praise, honor and glory, both now and forever! May God help us to be more effective in prayer by following the pattern Jesus gives us in Matthew 6:9-13.

“‘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 6:9-13 ESV).