Three Keys to a Better Prayer Life
Jesus teaches us the Lord's Prayer in Luke 11 as a model for our prayers. However, Jesus wasn't merely teaching us an outline; instead, He showed us the transformative power of prayer. Keep reading the three keys to an empowered prayer life.
Why Does Jesus Teach the Lord's Prayer?
Our passage is the follow-up to the Lord's Prayer. Jesus shared the prayer at the request of one of His disciples who asked, "Lord, teach us how to pray."
Remember, Jesus' disciples were Jewish men. They knew a thing or two about prayer. They grew up in the synagogue hearing and participating in prayer. However, they noticed something different about the prayer life of Jesus. He enjoyed prayer and repeatedly pulled away to be in prayer. The disciples began to notice the transformative power flowing from Jesus' time in prayer, and they wanted to learn what was different.
How can we apply this same inquisition to our daily prayer lives? What made prayer different for Christ, and how can we apply those same principles to how we pray?
Keys To An Empowered Prayer Life
1) The Offer of Friendship with God
JESUS: "Which of you who has a friend will go to him at midnight and say to him, 'Friend, lend me three loaves, for a friend of mine has arrived on a journey, and I have nothing to set before him'; and he will answer from within, 'Do not bother me; the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed. I cannot get up and give you anything? I tell you, though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his impudence, he will rise and give him whatever he needs." Luke 11:5-8 (ESV)
This passage is often misunderstood and misinterpreted. It's easy to read this and believe if we pester God, like the friend, through prayer enough, He will give us what we want. However, we see in these verses that if we're bold enough to be persistent with our friend when we have a need, they will deliver due to an "imprudence of persistency."
However, how much more does friendship with God leverage and cultivate the heart environment for powerful answers to prayer?
If a friend will get up in the middle of the night to give you bread when you need it because you're bothering him, then wouldn't God freely give us our daily bread? This question adds even more weight, mainly when the passage's context is the Lord's Prayer because we were told, and even commanded, to ask God for our daily bread.
Our approach to asking God for prayer shouldn't understate either. We're talking about the entity with absolute authority but is approachable to the believer. But what Jesus is saying tells us that God delights in those bold enough to pour their heart out to God. Likewise, He delights in believers who come before Him to be and serve in a way to be as invasive as you desire in making requests.
A healthy friendship with God characterizes a healthy prayer life with God. When Jesus uses this illustration of friendship with a neighbor, that individual only relented because they were bothered. Friendship with God means something different. Instead, it is rooted in a heart that says, "God, I'm willing to move with you."
JESUS: "You are my friends if you do what I command you." John 15:4 (ESV)
I want to validate that passage. Please, don't get caught up in a works-righteousness mindset. As a reminder, we are all saved by faith in the person of Christ alone, not by our works. There are conditions all over Scripture to knowing the riches of God's blessing as we grow in sanctification.
As a friend of God, what's happening in a surrendered life is that we're not asking God to move with us. Instead, we're asking Him, "How can I move with you?" That mindset is the tone Jesus sets up when He covers the Lord's Prayer. We're be inviting to move with God. Pray for the manifestation of not "my will," but "God's will be done, His Kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven."
The Lord's Prayer is an affirmation that we walk in a posture of relying on the mercy of God, recognizing our need for forgiveness of sins, and being quick to forgive others. It's a reminder that moving with God will not always be easy. Sometimes it can be challenging, especially to forgive others who have dealt us substantial hurt and disappointment.
The heart behind prayer is friendship, fellowship, and falling in love with God.
2) The Availability of God
JESUS: "And I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you." Luke 11:9 (ESV)
Jesus is inviting us to be constant in prayer and to do so with passion and persistence. This is displayed in two ways within this verse.
The use of the present imperative in each instance – keep on asking…keep on seeking…keep on knocking.
The progression of intensity in describing the actions of first asking, then seeking, and then knocking.
For all of us, we will experience periods where God is quiet in response to our prayers, and many times our prayers may not even be answered in this lifetime. However, remember that God hears whatever we pray according to His will. We're to be mindful that we ask, seek, and knock for things that align with the heart of God, but God is moving in God's time, not ours. This is particularly important for what we see in verse 10.
JESUS: "For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened." Luke 11:10 (ESV)
Don Miller said, "A day without prayer is a wasted day." The opportunities that we have shift as God's people pray.
3) The Nature of God for the Believer
When I refer to the nature of God regarding prayer, I'm going to lift one word out for us to look at: Father.
Only a Christian can authentically call God "Father."
In the Old Testament, we see about 15 references to God as Father, but when we get to the New Testament, the term "father" for God explodes exponentially to 165 references. Of those references, only one time did Jesus use the term "Father," and it was when He wasn't with the disciples.
In John 1, it says that "But to all who did receive Him…became children of God." We often hear, even from pulpits, that we are all children of God, the entirety of humanity. This is not biblical. The only children that God declares are those who have been adopted into His family through the shed blood of Jesus Christ and faith in Him.
Reviewing Scripture, we see many names for God: Yahweh, Jehovah Jireh, Lord of Heaven's Armies, Elohim, Mighty God, and many more. Yet, we get to the New Testament, and Jesus declares something special for the Christian; His Father.
John Wesley was a man of great virtue. He served the poor, diligently studied the Bible, met with the Holy Club at Oxford University, committed to a lifestyle of prayer and fasting, gave generously to the church, and served orphans and prisons. Wesley lived a moral life, yet when John Wesley returned to England, Wesley wrote in his journal: "I who went to America to convert others was I myself never converted to God. I had even the faith of a servant, though not that of a son."
May we all know God as Father.
Twice in this passage, while Jesus is teaching about prayer, does He teach the understanding of the Fatherhood of God. It's where the Lord's Prayer begins, "Our Father…" But as we see in verse 11, He contrasts this with:
JESUS: "What Father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!" Luke 11:11-13 (ESV)
When Jesus makes a statement like that, He's not only reflecting the goodness of the Heart of the Father but also speaking to the depth of our needs. We can't follow Jesus in our power. We need the power of the Holy Spirit to guide and lead us. Jesus knows our need for the freshness of the presence of the Holy Spirit regularly.
TL;DR
What made prayer different for Christ, and how can we apply those same principles to how we pray?
Keys To An Empowered Prayer Life
The Offer of Friendship with God
He delights in believers who come before Him to be and serve in a way to be as invasive as you desire in making requests.
The Availability of God
We're to be mindful that we ask, seek, and knock for things that align with the heart of God, but God is moving in God's time, not ours.
The Nature of God for the Believer
Only a Christian can authentically call God "Father."