Season: 10 Episode: 150
Listen to episode 146 in Spanish:
Summary:
As you get ready to start a new year, if there is one spiritual goal worth making it’s to nurture your prayer life. But how do you pray? Some think the Lord’s prayer is meant to be memorized and recited, but Jesus gave it to us as a model for prayer. Shanda will teach you how to pray through each section of the Lord’s prayer and tell you what to do when you don’t feel like praying. Our prayer lives are too easy to neglect, but there is a way to be devoted to praying and talking to God.
Quotables:
Recommended Resources:
Cross Examined Article: Is Teaching Your Kids About God Child Abuse?
Website: shandafulbright.com
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Email: hello@shandafulbright.com
YouTube: Shanda Fulbright
I was going to do another Christmas theology episode since we’re hitting Christmas but instead I thought I’d talk about something that has been on my mind and something I’ve been praying about for a while now. That is the privelege, opportunity, and power of prayer. i know you’ll be encouraged after this episode and since we’re about to hit a new year, it’s perfect timing.
Before we get into today’s episode, I want to encourage you to choose a few classes focusing on discipleship for 2024. Baseline Apologetics is available as a LIVE class with me, beginning Janauary 18th and we’ll go through the workbook which will be mailed to you. Or you can get the workbook and do it independently. I do take you through the bible while building apologetics concepts.
Also, if you want an awesome course based on IDHEF for your middle schooler and to give them the WHY behind the WHAT of Christianity, sign them up for LGR where they get to learn from me. Go to onlinechristiancourses.com and sign up today. Use code LGR2024 for a 20% discount.
Finally, if you love the podcast, please leave a 5 star rating/review and help get this podcast into the earbuds of others.
Today we’re going to focus on the awesomeness of prayer. We’ll answer:
- What is prayer?
- What if you don’t feel like praying?
- How to create a dilgient prayer life for 2024.
Let’s start with a basic question that really gets to the heart of prayer: What is prayer?
Prayer is talking to God. Do you think of prayer as a conversation with the Lord? Because that’s really what it is.
When we pray, we do several things:
- We make petitions. What is a petition? It’s to make a formal request. We can ask God for things and I don’t know about you, but this is probably the easiest part of prayer and the thing that motivates most people to pray. In fact, are your wants and needs the main reason you pray? It’s not wrong to make your requests known to God, even Paul tells us to do this. But it shouldn’t stop there.
Phil 4:6-7 says, “6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”
Paul tells us to make requests by with thanksgiving.
So here we see we are not to just throw out requests without thanking God for who He is and what He’s done and what He will do in our lives because if we have the Bible, we know what His promises are and we can thank Him for those promises.
I try and follow the model of prayer laid out by Jesus in Matthew 6:9-13.
Jesus said, “9 “This, then, is how you should pray:
“‘Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
10
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
11
Give us today our daily bread.
12
And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
13
And lead us not into temptation,[a]
but deliver us from the evil one.[b]’
A lot of people will pray this verbatim, and while I’m not saying it is wrong to do that, I can tell you that I don’t believe Jesus meant for us to make this our prayer and leave it at that. It is a model to follow. We also see examples of Jesus praying to His father and He didn’t say this prayer over and over again.
He thanked the Father for hearing Him and said, “You always hear me.”
Take a look at John 17 where Jesus called the Father righteous andf told Him he would glorify His name. This follows the model of prayer Jesus told us to pray when He said, Our father, hallowed by your name.”
I said this at the beginning of December, but just calling God Father as the model for prayer blew the doors off the cultural approach to God back in the first century. Never before was God called Father and Jesus invited us to approach God in that way. That’s the attitude in which we should go to God in prayer. To know that He is a loving Father who wants to give good gifts to His children and we want to pray in obedience to His will because He has our best interest in mind. If we do not first begin with the relationship we have with God – as our Father – how will we move forward in prayer and pray as effectively if we cannot understand the intimacy I have with Him and that is the motivation of everything that comes after the greeting of Father?
So I think we have to get that relational part right and that is shown in how we address Him.
The next part is knowing who He is – hallowed by your name. He is the creator of all things. He is righteous and holy and I get to boldly approach His throne of grace because He is my father and I am His daughter. Knowing God’s name is knowing His character and this is why we should not start with petitions and requests in prayer. We should start with relationship and who He is.
In verse 10, Jesus said, “Your kingdom come, your will be done.” We have to remember that prayer is not about my will. It’s not about what I want. God is not invited into my plans for my life, I am invited into His plans and the purpose He wants to fulfill for His kingdom. God is very purposeful and I want my will to align to His not His will to align to mine. So when I pray, I present my requests and also say, “God, have your way. Your way is better and I want what you want.”
Verse 11, “Give us this day our daily bread.”
That means give us what we need for today. Remember, Jesus told us in Matthew not to worry about tomorrow. That doesn’t mean we can’t pray about the future, but God wants us to also focus on what needs to be done today. This is a humble dependence on God. Daily bread can also mean what you need spiritually. If you’re struggling to want to pray or read the Bible today, because it happens to all of us, ask God to give you what you need today to put Him first and push through.
Verse 12 says, “Forgive our debts as we forigve our debtors.” That means I am asking for forgiveneess in two ways – I want God to forigve me, but I also need to forgive those who have wronged me. And that can be rough sometimes. But I am a firm believer that we can be honest with God and tell Him when it’s hard. We can tell Him we need help pushing through to do His will because we’re struggling to forgive or struggling to want to do what He wants us to do. That’s okay. God can handle it. But forgiveness is not an option.
Finally, vers 13, “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” Here’s the thing, God doesn’t tempt us. James 1:13 says God cannot be tempted to sin nor does He tempt anyone. So what does that mean? It just means that we can ask God to keep us from giving into temptation. The enemy prowls around like a roaring lion. We can ask God to keep us. I always pray and ask God to keep me, Dean and the boys from the snares and traps of the enemy. To keep us from giving into temptations.
Okay, so that is what prayer is. It’s more than requests. It starts with how we approach God – our relatonshp with Him as our Father. And it is not about my will but His.
So what do you do if you don’t feel like praying?
Ok, so let’s just be real – this is definitiely going to happen because it happens to me all the teim. Jesus asked His disciples to pray when He was about to be arrested and they fell asleep on the job several times. He warned them, “Watch and pray that you do not enter into temptaion; the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.” We will always war against the flesh that will find something more important to do than pray even though we want to pray. Isn’t that the struggle? So just be real with yourself and come to terms with the idea that sometimes you’ll want to pray and sometimes you won’t and that’s the struggle and war between the spirit and the flesh.
One of my favorite verses, and when someone asks me what my favorite verse is, this is the one I tell them, is 1 Corinthians 9:27. It says, “But I discipline my body and ykeep it under control,2 lest after preaching to others zI myself should be adisqualified.” (ESV)
The NIV says, “7 No, I strike a blow to my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.”
The NLT says, “7 I discipline my body like an athlete, training it to do what it should. Otherwise, I fear that after preaching to others I myself might be disqualified.”
I think I love it so much because I understand what it takes to discipline my body and I learned this through crossfit.
And I know what it feels like to be under the clock of a really intense workout but I stick with it anyway. I know what it’s like to eat things in moderation and when it’s enough, to not go back for more because it will be excessive. I understand what it means to discipline my body and train for the physical results I want. That’s what Paul is saying here – there are spiritual discipilines that will challenge you, make you want to quit, you know it’s going to be rough, but you also know that you will make your flesh fall in line when it doesn’t want to because what’s on the other side of that is the prize and just like I learned to give my best in the physical disciplines, I better give my best in the spiritual disciplines because that is a prize that will last for eternity.
But here’s the thing – prayer shouldn’t always be hard. It shouldn’t be dreadful. We should want to talk to God because we love Him and know He is the only one who can make the impossible possible.
God commands us to pray. It is not an option.
If we are always avoiding prayer or dreading prayer, what does that say about our relationship with God? We want to spend time with those we love and appreciate. When my husband and I plan a date night or a date day, I look forward to it. I can’t wait and if the plans get changed, I’m disappointed.
God told us through James that prayers we do not pray are prayers that will not be answered. James 4:2 says, “2 You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask.” Notice here that James tell us that there are desires and things we want but insteaad of praying, we murder and fight. Instead, we should pray because the reason we are in this state of fighting and quarreling is because we won’t take the need to God.
Create the spiritual discipline of prayer in your life so that you will do it regardless of how you feel. And I look forward to working out a lot of the time. I know it’s going to be uncomfortable but that means I am going to see the results I want to see. So there is a joy that accompanies the discipline. That is the same way with prayer. We might have to make ourselves sit down and focus on prayer but we can do it with joy knowing that we are entrusting these desires and things into the hands of a big God who wants to hear from us.
Finally, how do you create a diligent prayer life for 2024?
I’m going to talk about goal setting and how to be successful with it next week, but for now, let’s talk about how to create a diligent prayer life. It’s simple and I believe in simplicity.
First, you have to plan for it. What time of day can you give to your time in prayer? For me, it’s the morning. But that means I have to get up earlier. I always make breakfast for my family in the morning, so I take about 30 minutes doing that. I like to pray before then. So I figure out how much time I need to pray and I devote that time to the Lord.
Second, I do not check my phone or emails.
Don’t do it. I’ve done it before and the next thing you know, I am in a downward spiral of doing tasks and my prayer time is eaten away. So put God first and don’t check anything. This also takes discipline if you’re one to check your phone but it will get easier over time.
Third, if you have a hard time focusing, use a prayer journal and find a place to pray. I sit on my couch in the morning with my prayer journal and have my spot. No one is awake yet, so it works.
And then just show up. God is waiting to hear from you. He wants to hear from you. He cares about the things you care about because He is a loving father. I alwasy think about how Jesus said we are more valuable than many sparrows. Jesus said God takes the time to number the hairs on your head. He cares about the insignificant things that no one will ever take the time to find out about you. Who cares how many hairs are on my head? The number changes every day when I look at my hair brush? But that’s the point. The God you pray to cares about every detail of your life and the ones no one will ever know – not even you.
Close:
I want to close this up by reminding you that prayer is not an option. You can pray about anything, anywhere, at any time. No one can keep you from praying because God hears the whisper of your heart. He knows your thoughts, even if you don’t verbalize them. Prayer is something anyone can do from the oldest person who thinks they have nothing to offer God because they can’t do what they used to do, to the younges person who thinks they don’t have what it takes to do what others do for the kingdom. Prayer is a privelege because it is the way we communicate to a holy God from the place we stand and it makes an eternal impact.
I hope you will consider how to nurture this spiritual discipine in your life and plan for a successful prayer life as we look to 2024. *Event* if you have any questions for me, email me at hello@shandafulbright.com and I’ll catch you on the next one.
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