Teach us to Pray – Part 1

“Prayer seems to be instinctive, a part of human nature. Primitive peoples and enlightened Westerners, rural homesteaders and urban-dwelling professionals, stay-at-home moms and touring musicians, insecure artists and ruthless investors, doubting atheists and devout creationists – they’re all praying…We pray. We can’t help it.” Tyler Staton, Praying Like Monks, Living Like Fools

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Luke 11:1

One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray…”

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Lord, teach us to pray.

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“No doubt many things called prayer are quite useless in every respect…” Dallas Willard

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Prayer is not a performance

Matthew 6:5

5 “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full.

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Hypocrite (Hupocrites) – Stage actor, pretender, person who wears a mask.

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Prayer is the place where we go to be alone with God.

Matthew 6:6

6 But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. 

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Following Jesus has three goals:

1.   Be with Jesus.

2.   Become Like Jesus.

3.   Do as Jesus did.

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Mark 1:35

35 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.

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Matthew 14:23

23 After he had dismissed them, he went up on a mountainside by himself to pray…

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Luke 5:16

16 But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.

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Luke 6:12

12 One of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God.

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We follow Jesus’ footsteps right to the heart of the Father in prayer.

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Matthew 6:4

…Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

Matthew 6:6

…Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. 

Matthew 6:18

…and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

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“The more we pray, the more we think to pray, and as we see the results of prayer – the responsiveness of our Father to our requests – our confidence in God’s power spills over into other areas of our life.” Dallas Willard

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Ps. 42:1-2

As the deer pants for streams of water,
so my soul pants for you, my God.
2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.

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Ps 16:2

2 I say to the Lord, “You are my Lord;
apart from you I have no good thing.”

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Matthew 6:9

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Matthew 6:10

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Matthew 6:11

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Matthew 6:12

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Matthew 6:13

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Phil 4:6-7

1 Pet 5:7

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“Here we are. Just ordinary people, anxiously making our way through life, sinning and suffering, wandering and returning, regretting and despairing, persistently drifting from a heart sense of what we will enjoy forever if we are in Christ.” Dane Ortlund, Gentle and Lowly

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Mark 6:31

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1.   Prayer is not a performance

“Prayer is conversing, communicating with God. When we pray, we talk to God, aloud or within our thoughts…That conversation, when it is truly a conversation, makes an indelible impression on our minds, and our consciousness of Him remains vivid as we go our way.” Dallas Willard, The Spirit of the Disciplines

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2.   Prayer is a place where we can go to be alone with God.

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3.   Pray the prayers we have.

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The Serenity Prayer:

“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

the courage to change the things I can,

and the wisdom to know the difference”. 

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The Lords Prayer:

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.

Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven .

Give us this day our daily bread.

And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.

And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.

For thine is the Kingdom, and the Glory, and the Power forever. Amen

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Ps. 23:1-3

1 The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing.
2     He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,
3     he refreshes my soul.

 Personal Notes: