Jesus gave us a framework for prayer in the Lord’s Prayer (Matt 6:9-15, Luke 11:1-4), whichhighlights common factors in prayer:
Prayer is addressed to God, not to people. It is a lifting up of our soul to God (Ps 25:1), a pouring out of our hearts to God. (Ps 62:8) We come near to God and He comes near to us. (James 4:8) Jesus taught us that we have a heavenly Father and our prayers depend on this loving relationship (see Luke 11:11-13)
Prayer involves hallowing God’s name, recognising God as holy, longing to have God at the centre of our lives and our universe. As we pray for God’s kingdom to come and His will to be done on earth as it is in heaven, we recognise that there is more to life than what our eyes are seeing; there is a visible and invisible kingdom. We see that God wants to be involved in every part of our lives on earth, but we recognise also that there is more to life than what we can see and hear and taste and smell and touch with our five senses. Prayer opens our eyes to spiritual realms.
Prayer involves God in our daily living. We ask for God to ‘give us this day, today, our daily bread’ (Matt 6:11), recognising that God is ‘Jehovah Jireh’, the Lord our provider. We want God to be involved in every aspect of our everyday living.
Prayer understands the importance of relationships, which is why we pray for God to forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. (Matt 6:12) Relationships matter, and forgiveness is the oil which keeps relationships functioning well. There is a direct correlation between receiving God’s forgiveness and passing forgiveness onto others. (Matt 6:14-15) Prayer keeps us anchored to the importance and centrality of relationships.
Prayer understands the spiritual battle of life. We are taught to pray: ‘lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.’ (Matt 6:13) Paul says, ‘our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.’ (Eph 6:12) Prayer is one of the spiritual weapons which have divine power to demolish strongholds (2 Cor 10:5).
Without prayer, we have limited vision and limited understanding; with prayer, we begin to see, however imperfectly, life as God sees it: how the kingdom and the power and the glory belong to God forever.