Prayer Devotions Week 1

Small Group Material – 1/15 to 1/22 [Study by Terry Candler]

(Prayers of the New Testament) –  Week 1 (The Model Prayer)
 
Ice Breaker:

• What was the first prayer you learned as a child?
   
  *What are pleased or encouraged about regarding your prayer life? What area do you struggle with?
   
   
  *Read Matthew 6:5-15
   
  Read Matt. 26:44. How do pagan prayers (v. 7) differ from the persistent prayers Jesus himself offered?
   
  In what ways might we be guilty of mindless, meaningless prayers?
   
  What are some ways we can communicate to God that his name is “hallow.”
   
  In our self-centered culture we are often preoccupied with our own little name, empire and will rather than God’s. How can we combat this tendency?
   
  Does Jesus contradict Himself when He says in verse 8 that God already knows what we need, but in verse 11, He says would should ask God for daily provision? Why or why not?
   
  If God cannot tempt us and trials are beneficial (James 1:2,13), then what is the meaning of verse 13?
   
  Application:
   
  In what ways do your prayers need to more closely remember this model prayer?
   
  What area of your life do you need to pray and depend on God for daily provision?

Matthew 6:9-13 (The Model Prayer) – [Devotional by Terry Candler]
 
Day 1:

“Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name…” (Matt. 6:9)
What is your perception of God? A tyrannical ruler? A cosmic kill-joy? A capricious dictator? Many times we can even project our views of our earthly father on God. If our father was judgmental, unpleaseable, abusive, or critical then we may be apt to view our Heavenly Father in the same way.
 
When the disciples asked Jesus to teach them how to pray, Jesus began by showing that we are to begin our prayers by acknowledging our Heavenly Father. Without a proper perspective of God, prayer will become more of a chore that we feel obligated to do, rather than an opportunity to converse with the God of the universe. If we have trusted in Christ as your Savior, we have the privilege to spend time knowing the holy, living, loving, all-powerful, all-knowing, all-present God who also longs and desires to relate to us. Paul expresses the closeness of this relationship in Romans 8:15-16: “…you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, ‘Abba, Father.’ The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children.”
 
William Barclay tells an old Roman story of how a Roman Emperor was enjoying a triumph. The Roman Emperor had the privilege of marching his troops through the streets of Rome, with all his captured trophies and his prisoners in his train. The streets were lined with cheering people. The tall legionaries lined the streets’ edges to keep the people in their places. At one point on the triumphal route there was a platform where the Empress and her family sitting to the watch the Emperor pass by. On the platform with his mother was the Emperor’s youngest son, a little boy. As the Emperor came near the little boy jumped off the platform, burrowed through the crowd, tried to dodge between the legs of the legionary, and to run out on to the road to meet his father’s chariot. The legionary stooped down and stopped him. He swung him up in his arms and said, “You can’t do that, boy. Don’t you know who that is in the chariot? That’s the Emperor. You can’t run out to his chariot.” The little lad laughed and said, “He may be your Emperor, but he’s my father.”
 
As you pray this week, will you begin by taking some time to meditate on Who you are conversing with? Be reminded that, if you are a follower of Christ, He is your Heavenly Father who desires that you run to Him as a precious, loved child would run to his earthly father.

Day 2: – [Devotional by Terry Candler]

“…your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” (Matt. 6:10)
Praying for God’s Kingdom to come is closely attached to asking for “your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” “God reigns in heaven absolutely, which means that all of heaven experiences His perfect will” (Michael Wilkins). So, Jesus asks us to pray that just as God’s will is perfectly done in heaven, it will be done on this earth. And if that perfect will is to happen, it will begin with each of us praying for it to happen in our own lives. There’s an implication in this passage that we will not just ask, but we will desire God’s will to be done.
 
Personally, I have to admit it’s easier to pray for God’s will to be done than desiring God’s will to be done. Almost nine years ago, Denise and I felt God telling us it was time to move from the church we started in South Carolina. Although we recognized God’s desire, we ignored His “nudging” for several months. We had started the church three years early, it was growing, we had just moved to a new building that tripled our space and I thought: “God must know that this church will not survive without me.” But He was not impressed by my pride  or disobedience.
 
After spending several months of “running” from God and being miserable (I started to understand a little of what Jonah must have felt like), we finally prayed, “Okay, God, whatever you want us to do or wherever you want us to go, we’ll obey. We want YOUR will to be done.” Once Denise and I voiced that prayer, it was like a weight lifted from our lives.
 
God did move us…all the way to Pullman, Washington. After we moved, I still didn’t understand why God would move us away from our church family and our family and friends who lived close by. But after serving as the Associate Pastor at Emmanuel for several months, I began to understand how much stress our family had been under starting a church and how desperately our spirits needed refreshing. Although we don’t know all the answers to our questions and we can’t see the outcome, we’ve come to realize that God’s will is the best place to live.
 
As you pray this week, will you ask for God’s will to be done in your life and in the life of your family as perfectly as it is in heaven? As you do, pray that God will give you a desire to do His will and believe that even though you can’t understand it, you can trust that His will truly is perfect and best.  

Day 3: – [Devotional by Terry Candler]

“Give us today our daily bread.” (Matt. 6:11)
As you are putting a fork-full of food in your mouth, have you ever contemplated the question, “What is the source of this food?” You may say, “I made it.” You are partially correct. You mixed some ingredients together to create a recipe, but what is the source of those ingredients? You may respond, “I worked, earned money and bought them at the grocery store.” True, but the grocery store didn’t make the food, so what is the source? You say, “The farmer grew it or the dairy milked the cows or the butcher processed the meat.” All those are true answers, but none answer the question: what is the source of each bite of food you put into your mouth?
 
When Jesus said we are to ask our Heavenly Father to meet our daily need for food, it was a time when many would have understood the concept of daily provision. The Israelites would definitely have been reminded of God’s daily provision of manna in the wilderness (Exodus 16:1-21). In Pullman, WA, because of our lack of poverty, along with many other Americans, we may be tempted to forget the source of each bite of food we consume. William Barclay reminded me of this fact as he wrote: “No man has ever created a seed which will grow. The scientist can analyze a seed into its essential elements, but no synthetic seed would ever grow. All living things come from God. Our food therefore is a direct gift of God.” As you take your next bite of food today, will you give God thanks?! Will you praise Him for being THE source of everything you eat? Will you thank Him for the very food that nourishes your body and gives you energy to work and make a living so that you can buy the food you need? Will you thank Him for being so blessed that you don’t have to worry about whether or not you will have food on your table today?
 
Jesus said we are also to pray, “Give US today our daily bread.” This is not just a prayer for ME to receive what I need, but it’s a prayer that I may share my excess with others. As we are thanking God for meeting our daily needs, may we also ask Him how we can be an answer to someone’s prayer who actually needs provision for today?!
 
During the next bite of food you consume tell God “Thank you for the being the source of my nourishment and life!”

Day 4: – [Devotional by Terry Candler]

“Forgive us our debts, AS we also have forgiven our debtors.” (Matt. 6:12)
Up to this point I like the model prayer. I can praise God and His holiness, for His will to be done, and easily pray for Him to meet my needs. I can even ask Him to forgive me of my sins (He knows I have plenty to forgive). But this whole idea of my forgiveness being linked to how I forgive others can bring my prayer life to a halt. Elizabeth O’Connor writes, “Despite a hundred sermons on forgiveness, we do not forgive easily, nor find ourselves easily forgiven. Forgiveness, we discover is always harder than the sermons make it out to be.” Charles Williams said of the Lord’s Prayer: “No word in English carries a greater possibility of terror than the little word “as” in that clause.”
 
This prayer is not telling us that our forgiveness of others earns us the right to be forgiven. Our forgiveness is based on God’s grace showered on us through the death and resurrection of Christ. Rather God forgives when we approach Him humbly, with true sorrow in our heart for how we have wronged Him. And one of the key ways we show humility in the way we deal with our sin is in the way we forgive others.
 
Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a pastor and theologian in Germany during the Nazi occupation. He concluded that the command to “love your enemies” is the quality that sets Christians apart from others. Even while he sought to undermine the Nazi regime, he followed Jesus’ command to “Pray for those who persecute you.” He wrote:
 
Through the medium of prayer we go to our enemy, stand by his side, and plead for him to God. Jesus does not promise that when we bless our enemies or do good to them they will not despitefully use and persecute us. They certainly will. But not even that can hurt or overcome us, so long as we pray for them…We are doing vicariously for them what they cannot do for themselves.
 
Why did Bonhoeffer seek to love his enemies: “God loves His enemies – that is the glory of love, as every follower of Jesus knows.” As we are willing to forgive others the way we’ve been forgiven, we begin to understand the great cost Christ paid for us! We begin to understand that just as the forgiveness we offer to others is undeserved, so is His forgiveness to us undeserved.
 
As you pray this week, who do you need to forgive?

Day 5: – [Devotional by Terry Candler]

“And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.” (Matt. 6:13)
There are two presuppositions that we must understand in this part of the model prayer. First, Jesus is not referring to temptation in the sense of sin or enticing us to do evil. God will not tempt us to sin (James 1:13), so we don’t have to pray that God will not tempt us to sin. The word is better translated “test.” So this is a challenge to pray that God will not test us to the degree where we will fall. William Barclay says it well: “Temptation is designed to make us stronger and better men and women. Temptation is not designed to make us sinners. It is designed to make us good. We may fail in the test, but we are not meant to. We are meant to emerge stronger.”
 
The second presupposition when uttering this prayer is that Satan and evil are very real and present in our daily lives. Satan’s purpose is to frustrate the plans of God and ruin mankind. It is from this attack that Jesus teaches us to pray to be delivered.
 
We may forget the battle we face each day, but Jesus, Paul and the other Apostles understood the reality of Satan, evil and his purpose to thwart their walk with God. That’s why the Apostle Paul wrote, “Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms…And pray in the Spirit on all occasions…and always keep on praying for all the saints.” (Ephesians 5:10-12, 18)
 
Sitting at my desk, as I was writing this devotional, I received a phone call from a lady in our church. Before we hung up, she prayed for me and the church. Not just a “Lord, bless the pastor and the church!” type of prayer. It was a “I pray that he would have real faith and Satan will not hinder him and the church” type prayer. The more she prayed, the more I realized how much I desperately needed her prayer. It reminded me of the reality of evil and it reminded me that if I’m going to accomplish God’s will that I need to consistently pray for God’s strength, courage, and protection from the evil one.
 
As God tests you, pray that He will give you strength to emerge stronger. Also, pray that He will protect you from the unseen evil of the day.