Prayer Is 4 Things ...

The 4 Parts of Prayer

Luke 11:1-4

Introduction

We have been studying for a while now about the book of Revelation, and this morning I thought it would be important to take a small break and focus on prayer.

As many Christians can testify too, prayer is extremely important. It is the vehicle we have to talk to God, and it is the vehicle God uses to talk to us. If you are not hearing from the Lord today, I would venture to say that it is because you are not spending time listening in your prayer time.

Far too often we get wrapped around the axle about talking about what we need or want, and God never has time to do any talking. Last week, I had asked for folks to pray for this church – to spend 7 days in prayer over our church along with their your other prayer needs.

Let me ask you honestly, did you do it? God knows the truth … so don’t lie to impress me.

Today, I want to examine the importance of prayer – and take a deeper look at this vehicle we have to talk to God. It is because God gave us this method of talking to Him that we ought to take the opportunity to do so.

Prayer is what will help this world, but we need to why it is important if we are ever going to make an impact on this world for Jesus.

Read Luke 11:1-4

Pray

As I read this passage, I immediately see that prayer is 4 different things. As disciples of Jesus, these men were required to understand how to pray, and to put into practice what they have been taught. The exact same thing applies to us as well -- if you are a believer of Jesus Christ, knowing how to pray is vital to our survival.

Jesus is showing His disciples exactly how to pray so that their prayers will be effective, and from this passage there are 4 specific points to discuss.

Prayer is: Focus, Fellowship, Forgiveness, and Freedom

I. Focus

Who do you focus on when you pray?

When we pray, we need to focus on God the Father -- not ourselves.

“Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name …”

When we pray, we are coming into the very throne room of grace - the very presence of the One who created the Universe - and our focus needs to be on God - not ourselves.

Far too often we come to pray just to “get it done” and move on with our activity. God requires that we come into a prayer time with reverence, with compassion, and with understanding that we are communicating with Him.

Praying to God ought to be something done often and done faithfully.

When you focus on the One who sits on the Throne, we take the focus off of us. (John 3:30) We must look to the Throne for leadership, for rebuke, and for training.

When you focus on God, he is able to communicate with you.

We were created to commune with God - we were the ones who decided to rebel - and we are the ones who needed a Savior to be able to communicate with God again.

His mercy, His understanding, His love is what we need more of -- and praying faithfully and intently is one of the primary ways we will get it.

We focus first on Him, and then He provides for us in Fellowship.

II. Fellowship

“Give us our daily bread …”

Our daily bread is not the food we put into our stomachs -- it is the Word of God!

Jesus when tempted said that man does not live on bread alone, but on the Word of God.

Hold up your Bibles and repeat after me:

This is my Bible

This is the Word of God

This IS my daily bread!

Do you believe it?

Each day we need to have time with the Lord, each day we need to be filled up on the Word and commune in fellowship through prayer. Jesus was teaching how to pray, but He not only taught it, he practiced it.

Mark 1:25 says “Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed.”

Jesus was not the type of teacher who gave folks the old “Do as I say and not as I do.” Very early in the morning, he arose to spend time in prayer and commune with God. Jesus wanted to be in complete fellowship with the Father - and the only way He could do that was to have a time of devotion with Him.