Grace-Full Prayer

Luke 11 is one of those passages that I sort of skip over.  Some Bible passages are meant to encourage, some are meant to instruct, and some are meant to rebuke.  Luke 11:1-13 does all three of those for me.

But mostly it rebukes.

Check out the first verse:  "One day, Jesus was praying in a certain place."  Right off the bat, I'm a little convicted.  As a disciple of Christ, I should be modeling my life after His; since Jesus was a man of prayer, I should be, too.  I'm not.  When I read this passage, I'm reminded that my prayer life - on a good  day, when the sun isn't in my eyes and the wind is in my favor - is feeble.  Jesus prays regularly; I seldom pray.

Have you ever thought about why Jesus prays?  He's God, after all, so it's not like He needs to pray.  This can only, logically, mean one thing:  Jesus wants us to be people of prayer.

It cuts me deep, right to the core.

But then here's what I do:  I reason that Jesus is God, and Jesus is my Savior.  Since I can't be God and I can't be my own Savior, then it's okay if my prayer life doesn't quite match up to His.

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

His disciples weren't God, and they weren't their own Saviors, but that didn't stop them from wanting to pray with the intensity and frequency with which Jesus prayed.  Here's the first point:  we should never let our humanity be an excuse not to grow.  His disciples were people - flawed ones, at that - yet they sought to be people of prayer.  My excuse is knocked out from under me.

So here's what I do next:  I figure that they walked with Him, physically, every day for three years.  They ate with Him, watched His miracles, and saw firsthand how intense His prayers were.  All I have is the Scriptures.  Of course they had more motivation than I do, so if I'm a bit lax, it's okay.

"'Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught. . . .'"

They're referring to John the Baptist.  John the Baptist did not walk, physically, with Jesus.  In fact, John lived off by himself.  All he had were the Scriptures and his prayers, and yet he was a man whose prayer life was meaningful enough that he could teach others how to pray.  Once more, my excuse is inexcusable.

But then I remember that John was specifically anointed by the Holy Spirit as a prophet of God, and his coming foretold half of a millennium before his birth.  I, on the other hand, am not a prophet.  My birth was not foretold.  So there ya go.

"'. . . just as John taught his disciples.'"

Who were John's disciples?  Men and women like us.  They were only people:  they were people who recognized the Truth, who had the Scriptures, and who had a preacher.  They weren't prophets, Messiahs, or even disciples of the Messiah, yet they sought to be men and women of prayer.  Do your know what this means?  It means that I have no excuse.  Neither do you.  If we are going to be disciples of Christ, we must be men and women of prayer.  We should never let our humanity be an excuse not to grow.

"But I've tried praying . . . it didn't work."

That's because prayer isn't a tool we use when things go wrong.  It isn't a wishlist that we give God so that He can check it and see if we've been good enough to get a few rewards.  It isn't a fortune-telling toy that gives us the answer we need, and it has nothing to do with special formulas or techniques.  Since these are the definitions most of us have in regards to prayer, once we remove those definitions, we're now left with . . . nothing, right?  Fortunately, we have God's thoughts on prayer right here in Luke 11.


"He said to them, 'When you pray, say:

'Father,
Hallowed is your name,
Your kingdom come.
Give us each day our daily bread,
And forgive us our sins,
For we also forgive everyone who sins against us.
And lead us not into temptation.'"

This is something with which most Christians are familiar:  Jesus is instituting what is commonly called "The Lord's Prayer."  Luke gives us an abridged version and then moves on to the rest of Jesus' teaching on prayer (the complete version is in Matthew 6).  I  believe it's because Luke wants us to understand that Jesus is not giving us a formula to pray; the prayer is not the point.  Many denominations and faith backgrounds assign a special reverence to "The Lord's Prayer," even though Jesus Himself did not appear to pray it regularly; we have numerous recorded instances of Jesus' prayers, and not one of them is anything like "The Lord's Prayer."  Jesus, instead, is giving us a model of what prayer is.  That is, rather than describing the attributes of prayer, He's defining the essence of prayer.  The essence of prayer is conversation.

Think about it for a moment, and really consider what the elements of a conversation are.  There are greetings, certainly.  We might say "hi," or "hey," or we might address the person by name if we need to get his or her attention.

There is praise, if necessary.  "Hey, good job on that presentation!  I liked it!"  or, "Man, you really deserved that promotion; I'm glad you got it!"

There are offers to help:  "You need a hand moving next month?"

There are requests:  "Hey, you busy on Saturday?  I need some help putting in a new door."

There are apologies and confessions, sometimes.  "I'm sorry I snapped at you."

Now check out "The Lord's Prayer."  There is a greeting ("Father"), praise ("hallowed is your name"), an offer ("Your kingdom come" - implying our part in that), a request ("give us each day our daily bread"), and an apology ("forgive us our sins").  In other words, prayer isn't a formula, but a conversation.  But here's the most important part to remember about prayer:  it is always Grace/Jesus/Gospel-centered.  Always.  We'll take a look at that in a moment.


Maybe you remember the A.C.T.S. way of praying.  I was taught it as a child, as were most Sunday-School-Attending children.  A.C.T.S. was an acronym for:

Adoration
Confession
Thanksgiving
Supplication

The idea was that, if you wanted to have a "complete" prayer, the majority of your prayers had to follow this pattern, and the reasoning went something like this:

You had to start with adoration because that reminded you that you were praying to God (as opposed to Santa Claus, I suppose), and it sort of let God know you were serious. Here's the problem:  simply saying nice words to get God's attention is a pagan idea.  If the God we're praying to requires praise in order to hear us, then we're worshiping the wrong God.  Not only that, but if we're living grace-centered lives, adoration is just simply what we'll do; we will never feel obligated.

Confession comes next because, as I was taught, sin blocks our access to God, and He can't hear our prayers if we have unconfessed sin.  This is so many shades of ridiculous, I hardly know where to begin.  Genesis 3, after Adam and Eve sin, tells us that God was "walking in the garden in the cool of the day," and that He called out to man, "Where are you?"  God sought Adam and Eve, even in their sin.

Jonah, in his racism, ran from God.  God pursued, and used a giant sea creature to get his attention.  God sought Jonah, even in his sin.

The world hated God.  God came to earth, clothed in humanity, and died for us.  God sought us, even in our sin.

The Scriptures, over and over, give us a picture of a God Who pursues us and Whose will is never thwarted, no matter what we may do.  God does not suddenly become deaf every time we sin, and to claim that our sins keep God from interacting with us is a mockery of the Cross that tramples upon His sacrifice.  Christ died for the fulfillment of the Law, and for our complete and total adoption as heirs to His throne.  Nothing can take that away.

Next comes Thanksgiving, because if you tell God how thankful you are, He won't mind giving you what you ask for in the "Supplication" phase.  You know, you don't want Him to think you're greedy, or anything.  The problem here is similar to the problem with "Adoration":  God can't be buttered-up.  Take a second and think about what we would honestly think of a God Who could be easily swayed by sycophants.

Not worth worshiping.

And that, ultimately, is why our "Supplication" phases often fail.  We ask God to make us happy, we ask God to conform to our will, and we ask God to do for us more than we ask to do for Him.  Our prayers, then, go unanswered, because we are, in essence, worshiping a false God.  "Your will be done," Jesus said.
Prayer is not about us.

Prayer is a conversation with God in which He is the center.

"Our Father . . ."  He is the center.
"Hallowed be your name. . ." He is the center
"Your kingdom come . . ." His kingdom is the center
"Give us each day our daily bread . . ." Our needs are met by Him.
"Forgive us our sins . . ." Grace comes from Him.
". . . for we also forgive everyone who sins against us."  His grace is a model and motivation for our interaction with others.
"Lead us not into temptation."  Take it from a recovering sinner:  nothing detracts from our witness of Him faster than sin.

If your prayers are a list of wants, they're wrong.  If your prayers are a phony attempt to impress God, they're wrong.  If you expect prayers to further your life for your selfish ambitions, your prayers are wrong. My prayers are wrong.

Let's break this down:

1) Prayer is a conversation with God, not a formula.
2) Prayer is, above all else, grace-centered.

This is what prayer is.  If we're being honest, though, neither of these points are particularly helpful to the man whose wife is dying of cancer. Maybe they should be, but they aren't.  The man whose wife is dying of cancer is probably not concerned with having a deep conversation, or even, necessarily, keeping his life Christ-focused.  He should be, but he isn't.  He just wants his wife to be healed.  So he asks God to heal her.

And he asks again.

And again.

And again.  He asks over and over because, as he's been taught, persistence guarantees a response:

Then He said to them, "Suppose one of you has a friend, and he goes to him at midnight, and says, 'Friend, lend me three loaves of bread, because a friend of mine on a journey has come to me and I have nothing to set before him.'  Then the one inside answers, 'Don't bother me!  The door is locked and my children are with me in bed!  I can't get up to give you anything!'  I tell you, not because the man is his friend, yet because of the man's boldness, he will get up and give him as much as he needs.

"So I say to you:  ask and it will be given, seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened.  For everyone who asks, receives; he who seeks, finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened."

In other words, be persistent in your prayers.  But here's the catch:  Christ is not saying, "Be persistent, and God will give you what you want."  We tend, I think, to stop reading here, thinking that what Christ is telling us is to bug God until He gives us whatever we're asking for, just to shut us up.  We ask, yes, we knock, yes, but we also seek.  Notice that if it were about our desires, we wouldn't have to "seek," because we know our desires, right?  I want certain things out of life, and I know what they are - I don't have to find them.  But Jesus places the two verbs ("ask" and "knock") within the context of persistently seeking.

So what are we seeking?  Remember, our prayers are Gospel-centered, revolving around God.  This is what is meant by "Your kingdom come."  Our seeking is directly related to God's plan, a plan that He has already made known:  "Go into all the world and preach the Gospel to all creation" (Mark 16:15).  In Acts 1:8, just before His ascension, Jesus tells them to be His "witnesses in Jerusalem, in Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."  Our prayers are to seek God's will as it pertains to our lives - in other words, our prayers are to seek opportunities to share the Gospel.

"Yes, but Jesus talks about good gifts, doesn't he?"

He sure does.

"Doesn't that mean we should ask God for the things we want?"

Check out the next few verses in Luke 11:

"Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a serpent instead?  Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion?  If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven. . . ."

I'm stopping (briefly) there, because that's where I often stopped paying attention.  Once more, I was making the Gospel about me, so what I read was, "If you know what's good to give, God does, too."  What I interpreted, though, was:  "Be persistent, ask, knock, and God, because He is good, will give you what you want."  Of course, my wants change from season to season, but that's not the issue, because it's not what Jesus is saying.

Notice the examples:  fish and an egg.  Jesus is giving examples of basic food stuffs related to the Jewish diet.  The kids in this story are asking to have their needs met, rather than their wants.  While I have a hard time picturing my daughter ever asking me for a fish, she constantly asks me for snacks.  Now, I can be pretty evil, but I still feed my daughter.  If I, therefore, can meet my daughter's needs, God can certainly meet my needs.  There are two problems, though, in my own life.  The first, is that I often confuse "needs" with "wants."  We must be ever so careful not to do that.

The second, though, is confusing what our most important needs are.  Because, while I do believe God wants us to ask Him for our needs ("Give us each day our daily bread"), the primary focus - the greatest need any of us may ever have - is the Holy Spirit:

"If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him."

 It is the Holy Spirit Who gives us a re-birth.  It is the Holy Spirit Who brings us from death to life, from darkness to light, Who takes our sin and places it on Christ, and Who takes Christ's righteousness and gives it to us.  It is the Holy Spirit Who makes it possible for us to approach God and call Him Abba.  The greatest request we could ever make of God is to request the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit, though, does more than just save us - it empowers us to witness.  Just before giving His disciples "The Great Commission" in Acts 1, He says, "You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes."  In Acts 4, the disciples met together, prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken, and then they were filled with the Holy Spirit.   A lot of times we read that as "the shaken was caused by the Spirit," but that isn't what happened.  The place shook, they were filled with the Spirit, and then they "spoke the word of God boldly."  The coming of the Holy Spirit, in other words, caused them to witness.

The greatest need anyone will ever have is the Holy Spirit, and this is the focus of Jesus' teaching on prayer.  God is a Gospel-centered God, not Santa Claus.  God defines Himself, He is not defined by us.  God follows His will, not ours.  God is building His kingdom, not man's, and our prayers should reflect all of this.

"If," Jesus said before His crucifixion, "there is anyway to avoid this, please.  But . . . it is not about Me, but rather Your Gospel-centered plan" (I paraphrased).  And if Jesus prayed like that, shouldn't we?