Genuine Prayer And Fasting Series

In the Jewish culture they were required to recite two formalized prayers known as the Shema and Shemoneh ‘esreh (the Eighteen-because it consisted of 18 prayers). The Shema, which consisted of three sections of scripture, was recited twice a day; the Shemoneh ‘esreh-three times a day. For many, I’m sure these prayers became just meaningless repetition. There are other religions that practice chanting or repetitious prayers like Hinduism, Islam. Catholicism has a form of this with praying the rosary. How many times have you said these prayers in mindless repetition? Just saying it because that’s what you were supposed to do and so you would receive the promises of Mary for saying them.

Vs. 8-we don’t pray to inform God of anything. If God already knows what we need then why do we have to pray? Because he wants us to. He wants to have communion with us. His desire is to have a personal relationship with us. He knows that prayer is a vital part of that. It’s all for us; he doesn’t benefit from our prayer life-we do. Through having that communication link we’re the ones who draw closer to him; we’re the ones who become stronger in the faith.

Prayer is also a method by which God chooses to bless us. It’s not that God only blesses us when we ask but he does want us to go to him with our requests. Matt. 7:7-8. Ask, seek and knock. He wants us to put in some effort. He could just give us everything that’s on our hearts but that would be too easy. How important is it to us? What are we willing to do; how far are we willing to go? Not that God enjoys dangling the carrot in front of our nose; it’s not about that. It’s about relying on him. It’s about trusting in his timing. It’s about trusting in his wisdom in giving us only what is best for us (not giving us everything we ask for). So, let our prayers be genuine-not filled with mindless repetition and ongoing babble or a bunch of intellectualism and fancy spiritual words but rather let them be filled with love, reverence, humility and awe.

3) This is how you should pray (9-15). Jesus didn’t say this is what you should pray, but how you should pray. Not that it’s wrong to pray this prayer but it’s meant to be a model for our prayers. Let’s go through and break it down.

Heavenly Father/hallowed be your name. Our prayers should first be in recognition of who God is. We need to understand that we are not presenting our wish list to a spiritual Santa Claus; we are addressing a holy God whom we need to respect.

Your kingdom come. We should pray that more and more people would come to know Jesus as their Lord and Savior so his kingdom would grow. We should be focused on how we can be a witness for Jesus.

Next we see we need to pray for God’s will to be done. Even though we are presenting our requests to God, we need to pray for his will in the matter.

Then we need to not be greedy in our prayers. We ask God to provide for our daily necessities. Not that it’s wrong to pray for more than that but we can get carried away and have the spirit of materialism behind our requests. When we ask God for something outside of our daily needs let it be done in contentment.