09/27/2025
A Crash Course In Prayer:
When I first began planning this lesson it was only to teach someone near and dear to my heart how to pray. She got self-concious when leading a prayer. I wanted to show her that she should be humble but be confident when speaking to our Father. I know I could tell her to be confident, because prayer is for God not people who may be listening. But it would have course meant more coming from God himself. So I set out to build a lesson in prayer based solely on what Jesus said, and here it is.
My recent studies in the book of Matthew show me that this question of how to pray was answered thousands of years ago when we were given a blueprint of prayer by Jesus himself. I was always told that there is not a wrong way to pray, but in Matthew 6 we will see the right way to pray spelled out for us. So let's break this down step by step and hopefully we can help more people understand prayer and enrich their prayer life and fellowship with their Father.
I will be reading and teaching from Matthew 6:5-15 for those who want to mark things in their Bibles. Which I do encourage!
Jesus begins the lesson on prayer which is a part of a large and famous sermon called "The Sermon On the Mount". He begins speaking about hypocritical and praying to be seen by humans, and not be seen and heard by God. In Matthew 6:5-6 we are told to go somewhere private and intimate to connect with the Father. In Matthew 6:7-8 He tells us not to babble like pagans who were know to do some very outlandish things in their prayer like chanting, screaming, cussing, and even human sacrifices. Jesus tells us that your Father already knows what you need before you ask Him. So there is no need to fill your prayers with needless babble.
Then we get into what we call the blueprint of prayer. The prayer Jesus uses for this prayer is the prayer that is prayed a lot by believers called "The Our Father" or "The Lord's Prayer". There is nothing wrong with praying this prayer as is, but Jesus said this is how you should pray. Not this is what you should pray. Jesus gave us this prayer to show us what prayer should include in its body. Just as a good teacher would show you how to write an acceptable essay. So let's break this down into sections so that we can learn what and understand what a good and acceptable prayer should include according to Jesus himself.
"The Lord's Prayer" from the NIV translation is as follows:
"Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one."
Just to be clear it has been added to some branches of Christianity the following words "For thine is the kingdom, The power, and the glory, For ever and ever. Amen." This added part to the prayer I will ommit from this lesson, because Jesus did not say this as being apart of His own lesson on prayer.
As far as it goes toward breaking this prayer down into instructions of how to pray; which is really why Jesus said these words. I see five sections to this as a whole. These sections show us what to include into an acceptable prayer in addition to the instructions Jesus gave us in Matthew 6:5-8. Here is the breakdown in simple terms so there will be no more of this"I don't know how to pray" nonsense.
In what I will call section one Jesus begins by saying "Our Father in Heaven. Hallowed be your name." In this simple but meaningful beginning, Jesus instructs us to recognize the Father's authority and praise His holiness. Pretty simple right? Remember that you are talking to the Father! It is not supposed to be hard.
On to setrion two! Here Jesus says "Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." Here Jesus is instructing us to recognize the importance of God's will over ours.
That leads us to section three where Jesus says " Give us today our daily bread." This is where you recognize your need for God, and ask for the things you would like to request of your Father. Remember these two things; in the previous section you vowed to his will so your requests need to align with His will. Also He already knows what you need.
Section four Jesus says "And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors." In those words we are recognizing that we are guilty of sin, and in need of forgiveness in our committing ourselves to forgiving others. Just read Matthew 6:14-15 and you will see Jesus's reason for giving us that gem.
Now last but not least we have section five where Jesus says "And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one." Right here we are obviously being instructed to recognize God the Father's power over evil and telling Him that we need His help to conquer the evil one and temptation in our lives.
In this short but insightful prayer Jesus himself instructs us on how to pray. Later on in the gospels He tells us to ask and pray for things in His name and it will be done. So for this reason I always ask "In Jesus name I pray. Amen." Or some variation of that.
So just a quick recap, because lists always help me to remember things better. Maybe this will help someone else remember that we have five sections in this blueprint to prayer.
1.) Recognition of God's authority and holiness.
2.) Recognition of the importance of His will.
3.) Recognition of our need for him and out requests.
4.) Recognition of our sins and need of forgiveness.
5.) Recognition of His power over the evil and our need of His help to conquer it.
Hopefully I have helped at least one person understand that like any good Father, God wants to hear the voices of His children no matter what they have done. He wants us to come to Him humble in our sinful state, but confident that He is still listening. That is why Jesus gave us these instructions so that no one can say "I don't know how to talk to my Father."
May God Bless You,
Barry Melton Jr EMF Ministries
