THE EXAMPLE OF JESUS
John 13:15
Jesus calls us to be his disciples. He calls us to be like him. The Scriptures enable us to go more deeply into Jesus' works and words. Some of Jesus' prayers are recorded in Scripture and we are able to study them out and learn from him. Let us learn more from Jesus' prayer life.
1. JESUS' PRAYER
John 17:1-5
Jesus taught that in prayer we should not babble but should say what we need to (Matthew 6:7), and here he lives it out. He is clear and focused in his prayer. At this point Jesus prays for people to know God, which is very important as very few people truly know Him.
17:6-19
One thing that stands out here is how specific Jesus is in praying, e.g. in v.9 he states who he is and who he is not praying for at that point. He is also specific about the purpose of his prayer, the unity of the disciples (v. 11).
Q. How specific are you in your prayers? Ex. You could pray, "God, help me to get married." It could happen 30 years from now, which is probably not what you had in mind. So be more specific, e.g. "God, help me to get married in the next two years."
There is joy in expressing how you feel, just like when you tell someone special, "I love you." What we say in prayer should express the joy that we have in serving God.
Jesus' prayer here is thought-through, not careless. We need to give more thought to our prayers and their content.
2. THE APOSTLES' PRAYER
Acts 4:23-31
There are three characteristics to this prayer:
i. They knew who they were calling on, v. 24
You must know who you are praying to when you pray. Picture who the God is on whom you are calling. We must understand the sovereignty of God.
ii. The apostles knew their Scriptures.
Here they quote from Psalm 2. This mastery of Scripture helped them to understand the persecution that they were experiencing.
iii. The apostles prayed for themselves to change and not for their circumstances to change.
If our circumstances change and become easier, we may never grow. Our character is molded by what we go through. Growth comes from learning to overcome and persevere, and not from having things easy.
3. THE BELIEVERS' PRAYER
Colossians 1:9-11
It is easy to think only of material things that we want when we pray. Here, the prayer is for spiritual qualities. We need to learn to pray for these things.
Ephesians 3:14-18
This needs to be our heart, our desire and thus our prayer.
Ephesians 1:16,17
The apostles and the believers imitated the example of Jesus' prayer, and God did great things as a result. Let us imitate Jesus' prayer, the apostles' prayer and the believers' prayer as we seek to walk with God.