Prayer is a spiritual exercise that would be included in most
discipleship programs. At least it was in the ministry of John the Baptist.
Luke 11:1 tells us so. We all know that prayer, engaging the Father, is one of
the most difficult spiritual exercises for believers. Why? Because it calls for
discipline. It requires time, focus and efforts. Furthermore, God whom we
communicate with in prayer is not visible to the naked eye. It is faith in
practice.
Therefore, it's amazing to see in Luke 11:1, one of Jesus'
disciples requesting the Lord to teach him how to pray. We can only guess the
reason for his request. If we could only take a peep into Jesus' prayer that
day, as that disciple did, we'll understand why. It does not take a lot of
imagination to know that Jesus must have had such an intimate conversation with
God that day. His whole self was totally immersed and engaged with the Father.
It must have been such an inspiring Father-Son dialogue, the kind that would
create a desire in others to want to talk to the Father in the same way. And it
did. We can be quite sure that the disciple wasn't asking for the techniques.
He wanted to know how to engage God intimately, the way Jesus did.
So in Luke 11:2-4 Jesus taught all the disciples how to pray.
What He taught is widely known today as "The Lord's Prayer." A
more appropriate title would be "A Disciple's Prayer." Why so? A
closer look at this prayer will reveal that it contains requests that Jesus
would never need to ask. But the requests here are what we and every disciple
would essentially need. Jesus began with the vertical direction of prayer - the
Heavenly Father. Primarily, prayer should be God-centred. The focus is the
Father. So Luke 11:2 reads, "Father, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom
come.” Three key components: The Father, His Name, and His Kingdom.
In addressing God as “Father”, the Lord gives us a whole new
understanding of the Heavenly Father. He introduced a new way to engage with
God. The Fatherhood of God in the Old Testament is normally used in a general
way. But here, the term Father is used in a personal way. It's the
"pray-er" and the Father, intimately relating with each other. Matthew
6:9 included this phrase, "Who art in heaven" in the same prayer.
Here in Luke this phrase is omitted, very likely with the intention for
the disciples to see the "personal-ness" of the Father. He is not a transcendent
God, Who sits way up in heaven and very far from where we are. He is a Father,
Who is near to us and within the reach of our call. Besides, Father is not a
formal term. The word is Abba. It's an intimate way of addressing God. It's
calling Him Daddy. More precisely - Dearest Daddy. It's calling on our Dearest
Daddy, our Abba - the source and sustainer of our lives.
"Hallowed be Your name." This is to say that this
Father is the One who deserves the highest honour, and
the highest accolades must be given Him. He is to be highly prized, revered,
and respected. He should have our top priority.
"Your Kingdom come" is the expression of the desire
for men and women to be brought into alignment with the Father's will. This
Kingdom is about God, the Sovereign and Supreme Monarch. His Kingdom come is
about His will being adopted by everyone. It's a declaration of a desire for
God's reign to be established in every heart and life.
At the heart of prayer is not just about getting answers from
God. It's about building oneness with Him. Don't just engage in prayers; be
engaged with the Father. The key is setting our hearts on God and to prize Him
above everyone and everything. So
when was the last time we engaged the Father in such a way? Why don't we do it
again today, then tomorrow, then every day? For life!
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