Matthew 6:10

Title:  Your will be done

In prayer we cannot force God to give us what we want and when we want it.

Prayer is for the glory of God, whether it is an entreaty for a need or healing or simply a quiet communion with the Father.

God is sovereign in prayer.  Before his awesome presence, in petitions that cannot be uttered with words, we seek to know his will for our lives that he may be praised in the testimony of our deeds and words in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the power of the Holy Ghost.

Matthew 6:10

Title:  Your will be done

God is sovereign: we cannot order him around and tell him what to do and when to do it.

If prayer is anything, it is an acknowledgment that the will of God is everything, and we come to him with all humility and brokenness and dependence because the Lord alone knows what is good for us, to prepare us for his eternal rule and in view also of his righteousness which is the basis of his plan for our lives.

Romans 8:26

Title:  The Spirit

The Holy Spirit compels and helps us to pray, much in the same way atmospheric pressure forces us to breathe.

We have to admit that prayer is a weak spot in the Christian’s walk, and much is to be desired in this area where there is so much room to grow.  This must not be so.  In our weakness we have to ask God for strength to be sensitive to the call to prayer, so our petitions would produce results in accordance to his will.

Know that the Spirit of God in us is that prayer that awaits utterance in the soul, in groaning that cannot be spoken by the lips or expressed in human language.

Matthew 6:9

Title:  Our Father

When does prayer occur in our lives; or better still, when does prayer occur in our daily lives?

For a Christian to neglect the right to communicate with the Creator of the universe and all living beings, to include all principalities and powers in heavenly places, is to show contempt for the Savior who suffered in our stead so we might receive the adoption as children who may now call God their “Father”, and this because of God’s sovereign will before the foundation of the world.

1 Thessalonians 5:17

Title:  Pray at all times

Prayer is not an option, and only when we are destitute or hurting or perplexed.

We cannot afford not to commune and talk with our Father God when our being children of the Most High was not due to our own merit but was imparted to us as a gift; when every good thing comes from him, and we live and possess our being only because of his good pleasure; when our heavenly Father, awesome and unknowable in power and splendor, is concerned even with our daily sustenance of food and bread for the soul; when only he can lead us to green pastures and calm waters, and by his Spirit sustain and comfort us in life and in death, and at the end of the age welcome us into his eternal kingdom in Jesus’ name.

Matthew 26:40

Title: One hour

It is not the length of prayer but the proximity of prayer to the moment of sacrifice that calls for urgency and vigilance.

Prayer has to accompany a sacrifice as an offering in itself. Hand in hand these endure and prevail over the heaviness of the spirit and the weakness of the flesh.

Matthew 6:9

Title: Father

In no other instance is the relationship of a Christian to his heavenly Father more self-evident than in prayer.

Prayer is coming home to the place of comfort, acceptance, nourishment, forgiveness, renewal, and security that only the presence of God could provide.

Matthew 6:11

Title: Our daily bread

The ultimate enjoyment of the simple pleasures of life, while at the same time nourishing the body, is in receiving it from the hand of God.

Every day dawns on mankind the actuality that its continued existence is dependent on elements outside itself. There is nothing intrinsic in us that could sustain life; everything comes from the outside.

And with the comprehension of the source as God, in thankfulness and dependence in prayer, our daily bread becomes for the soul as well, a sustenance of great value.