Jesus Teach Us To Pray

Dirk Willner, Living Grace Church

In Luke 11:1 we read about the disciples asking Jesus, “Lord, teach us to pray.” This is very odd since the disciples grew up in a Jewish religious tradition and culture where they would have been taught all that was required by their Rabbis from a young age. But when they saw Jesus pray, things changed, people changed, circumstances changed. So they asked him, teach us to pray effectively, transformationally, and powerfully … as we see you do it. Basically, teach us not just words, but teach us actions.

The Jesus’ kind-of-pray was to put our request to the heavenly Father and from there carry it out in the power of the Holy Spirit. Lesson is: we can only give to others what we have received. That was the needed part of the prayer (see verse 13). Miracles and healings followed. This way of doing things was confirmed in John 5:19 & 12:49 where we read that Jesus only said and did what he received from the heavenly Father. That’s the first thing to do whenever we are called upon to pray.