What are you looking for when you pray? What do you think God is looking for when you pray? I think prayer that matters changes me and changes my world.
To be disciples we must share the prayer of Jesus and make prayer a lifestyle.
First thought regarding prayer that matters: Prayer that matters has the right concept of God.
Second thought regarding prayer that matters: Prayer that matters remembers we are citizens of a Kingdom.
“When you pray, say… Your kingdom come” (Luke 11:2).
What does it mean to pray for the kingdom to come? Since the fall of Adam and Eve, we live in a world that disregards the King. His reign is ignored. His law is forgotten. We are like broken toys without an owner’s manuel to put us back together again.
To pray for the kingdom to come, is to pray for Eden. That everything that was lost might be found. That all the wounds of sin would be healed. That all of creation would be transformed into what it was first meant to be.
To pray for the kingdom to come is to remember Eden, and to remember that the world in its current state is not Eden. We are not the way we were meant to be. But God wants us back to that place.
Submission matters in pray. God our Father is also our King. We are not.
To be disciples we must share the prayer of Jesus and make prayer a lifestyle.
Third thought regarding prayer that matters: Prayer that matters is present tense.
“When you pray, say… Give us today our daily bread” (Luke 11:3).
Not yesterday. Not tomorrow. Right now. Prayer is living in the present moment. Not give us tomorrow our bread for the next year. Today. Daily. Present tense.
Prayer that matters isn’t stuck in the past. And it doesn’t pine for the future. It finds God in the present moment, whatever that moment looks like for you right now.
It’s one of the hardest lessons as we are molded and shaped into God’s people. We want security. We want to know that we’re taken care of. Our survival depends on it. But our security is not in how much we can hoard. Our security is in our Father who provides for us daily.
Question: Where in your life is the kingdom visible absent that you can pray for it to come?
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