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Jesus' Teaching on Prayer
Luke 11:1-13
Good News Translation (GNT)
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1 One day Jesus was praying in a certain place.
When he had finished, one of his disciples
said to him, "Lord, teach us to pray, just as
John taught his disciples."
2 Jesus said to them, "When you pray, say this:
'Father:
May your holy name be honored;
may your Kingdom come.
3 Give us day by day the food we need. [a]
4 Forgive us our sins,
for we forgive everyone who does us
wrong.
And do not bring us to hard testing.'"
5 And Jesus said to his disciples,
"Suppose one of you should go to a friend's
house at midnight and say, 'Friend, let me
borrow three loaves of bread.
6 A friend of mine who is on a trip has just come
to my house, and I don't have any food
for him!'
7 And suppose your friend should answer from
inside, 'Don't bother me! The door is already
locked, and my children and I are in bed.
I can't get up and give you anything.'
8 Well, what then?
I tell you that even if he will not get up and
give you the bread because you are his friend,
yet he will get up and give you everything you
need because you are not ashamed to keep
on asking.
9 And so I say to you: Ask, and you will receive;
seek, and you will find; knock, and the door
will be opened to you.
10 For those who ask will receive, and those who
seek will find, and the door will be opened to
anyone who knocks.
11 Would any of you who are fathers give your
son a snake when he asks for fish?
12 Or would you give him a scorpion when he
asks for an egg?
13 As bad as you are, you know how to give
good things to your children.
How much more, then, will the Father in
heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who
ask him!"
Footnotes
Luke 11:3 the food we need;
or
food for the next day.
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Commentary taken from
'The Applied New Testament Commentary'
(Kingsway)
Jesus' Teaching on Prayer
Luke 11:1-13
The disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray.
So He gave them the "Lord's prayer" as an example of a proper prayer.
Our Father in heaven.We must address our prayer to our Father, and
not to any idol, spirit, angel, or saint. We must come to such a God with
reverence and awe. We need to begin every prayer with praise for His
greatness and glory. This is what the phrase
"hallowed be your name" means: "May God be praised; to God be the glory."
Your kingdom come. When Jesus came,
God's kingdom came to earth.
This is why Jesus preached: "The kingdom of God is near".
But in another way, the kingdom of God has not yet fully come.
Satan is the prince of this world
(John 12:31; 16:11).
Most men still are prisoners in Satan's kingdom. Therefore, we need to
pray that God will come into the lives of more people, and that they will be
brought into the kingdom of God.
But not only that, we need to pray that God's kingdom will fully come, that is, that Jesus
will come again quickly and destroy Satan
... your will be done. Wherever the kingdom of God is, there His will is being fulfilled.
After praising God, then we may bring to Him our petitions.
Give us today our daily bread. This means: Give us day by day all the things we need
for our bodies - food, clothing, houses, health.
Every day we are completely dependent upon God. We could not live one day without
His sustaining power.
God cares for our needs. The great God who created the heavens and the earth cares
about our daily bread.
Forgive us our debts. "Forgive us our sins." The original word here was "debts."
In Jesus' thought, a sin was a debt owed to God. According to the original Greek text
Jesus said: "Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who is indebted to us."
We must understand that in the Lord's prayer, "debt" and "sin" have the same meaning.
Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. In the same way we forgive
our debtors, so God will forgive us.
Jesus is not talking here about the first time God forgave us when we believed and
received salvation. Here Jesus is talking about our daily lives as Christians. After we
become Christians, we still sin from time to time and need God's forgiveness.
He will forgive us as we also forgive others.
If we stop forgiving others, God will stop forgiving us
Persistent Prayer
Jesus here tells a parable about how men should pray with persistence.
Men grant us our requests because they are displeased with our persistence. However,
God gives us our requests because He is pleased with our persistence.
According to this parable, we must go to God as to a friend. We must go to Him with the
expectation that He will grant our request.
Notice that the first man is not making a request for himself, but for another man.
God is more ready to hear us when we request things for the sake of others or for the sake of Jesus.
Let us ask ourselves: Are we willing to get up at midnight for a friend in need?
If we are willing, God will also be willing to answer our request.
Ask, Seek, Knock
The Christian life is a journey. Jesus never told us that the journey would be easy.
Jesus did not say that if we ask, we will get what we want. Many times we ask and do not receive.
We are disappointed with God, but at the right time, God gives us something better.
God knows much better than we do what is needed for our journey. We are to ask
for help to be a Christian, to follow Jesus, and it will be given - if we ask in faith.
In the original Greek text, the words ask, seek, and knock really mean
"keep on asking," "keep on seeking," "keep on knocking."
We must keep on asking until we receive.
Jesus said, "apart from me you can do nothing". We do not travel on our journey alone.
God gives good gifts to all men: life, sun, rain, food. But besides that, He gives special
spiritual gifts to His own children, that is, believers in Jesus.
The Bible clearly teaches that not all men are God's children; only believers in Jesus are
God's children. For us, then, God is now a loving heavenly Father. And when we come to
Him and ask, we shall receive.
If earthly fathers give "good gifts" to their children, certainly our heavenly Father will give
much better gifts to His children. God's gifts will always be good for us
What is the greatest gift that God wants to give us? ...The Holy Spirit.
All spiritual gifts are included in the gift of the Holy Spirit. If we have received the Holy Spirit,
we have received everything we need for our Christian life.
Let us ask for the highest gift, the Holy Spirit.
Let us seek for the highest things - to know God,
to know Jesus. In everything, do to others what you would have them do to you.
Many Christians call this the "golden rule."
Think: if everyone would follow this rule, there would be no arguments, no wars, no strikes,
no divorce.
In that case, then, why don't men obey this golden rule?
Because of sin.
Because man loves himself more than his neighbour.
Without the love of God, which is poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit
we cannot follow this golden rule.
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