Jesus did not urge his disciples to pray like the apostle Paul urged the different churches to whom he wrote letters. Jesus assumed that they prayed. Rather Jesus focused on how his disciples should pray.
What are the ways that Jesus taught his disciples to pray? What were the principles of prayer to which he gave emphasis?
“The new life is not an outward show” is how J. B. Phillips describes Jesus’ attitude toward prayer. The Pharisees wanted the praise and adulation of other people for their piety, so they put on a show of their piety for other people—a show of their ritual purity, of their giving, of their fasting, and of their prayer. They would be deliberately late for the prayers at the local synagogue so that they would have to pray in the street where everyone could see them. As a corrective Jesus taught his disciples to go into the storage room of their houses and pray there where only God could hear and see them. Jesus was not prohibiting them from praying in public. Rather he was teaching them to avoid making a show of praying like the Pharisees.
Jesus himself prayed in public on occasion, but he did not make a show of praying. His prayers were short and pithy. The High Priestly Prayer in the Gospel of John is the longest prayer that the New Testament records him praying.
Jesus also taught his disciples not to imitate the prayers of the Gentiles. Their prayers were long and wordy with frequent and pointless repetitions. They were intended to impress those who might overhear them as well as the gods and goddesses to whom they were addressed. God, however, is not impressed by such prayers. He knows our needs before we ask.
Jesus gave us what we call the Lord’s Prayer. It was originally an outline of what we should include in our prayers, but we have come to use it as a prayer itself.
Jesus taught his disciples to call God their Heavenly Father. The Jews did not address God by his name which he revealed to Moses. It was far too sacred. Rather than address God by name, they addressed God by the Hebrew word, “Adonai,” which means “Lord.” Jesus’ choice of the Aramaic word, “Abba,” “Father,” shocked them as did his instruction to his disciples to address God as “Father.” They regarded it as blasphemous. They believed that it showed a lack of reverence for God.
Jesus taught his disciples to pray that God’ name be honored. By God’s name, Jesus mean God’s character, not the name that God had revealed to Moses.
Jesus taught his disciples to pray for the coming of God’s kingdom, his righteous rule in the hearts of all humankind, in the very core of our physical and spiritual being, in our inner most selves. In other words, God would hold sway over every aspect of ourselves and our lives—every thought, every desire, every wish, every word, every deed.
Jesus taught his disciples to pray that God’s will would be done on the earth as it is in heaven. When we pray this prayer, we are asking God to align our own will as well as the wills of other people with God’s will. Jesus’ prayer in Gethsemane illustrates that kind of prayer. Jesus prayed three times that God would spare him suffering and death but each time he concluded his prayer with the acknowledgment that it was not what he wanted but what God wanted that mattered the most. “Your Will must be done.”
Jesus taught his disciples to pray for their daily needs, “Give us today the bread we need.” This includes not only praying for food to nourish the bodies of our neighbors, our brothers and sisters in Christ, and our enemies and our own bodies but also for whatever is necessary for our their and our own spiritual growth, health, and wellbeing. It includes praying for grace—God’s merciful kindness and his holy influence in their lives and our own lives, enabling them and us to will what is pleasing to God, and having such a will, with the help of his grace to do his will.
Jesus taught his disciples to ask God to forgive them as they had forgiven other people. “For if you forgive other people their failures, your Heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you refuse to forgive other people, your Heavenly Father will not forgive you your failures.” This is one of the reasons why praying for grace is so import for grace enables us to forgive and in turn be forgiven. When we pray for grace for other people, we ask God to enable them to forgive and also in turn be forgiven. It is one of the many ways that we express our love for them.
Jesus also taught his disciples to pray, “Keep us clear of temptation and save us from evil.” When we ask the same things for our neighbors, our brothers and sisters in Christ, and our enemies, we are also expressing our love for them. If we truly love someone, if we treasure them as dear to us, if we keep them in our hearts, we will not want any harm to come to them. We will not want them to fall into temptation and we will not want evil to overcome them but will want them to overcome evil. This includes the evil which they may have stored up in their hearts and from which, Jesus taught, evil deeds come.
Jesus taught his disciples that God answered prayer. If we who are evil give good things to our children, he taught, how much more likely it is that our Heavenly Father would give good things to those who ask him. God’s generosity could be expected to exceed our own.
When Jesus describes us as evil, he is talking about our natural inclination to be self-willed, to act in ways that do not do good, to act in ways that do harm to ourselves and to other people, to act in ways that negatively affect our relationship with God. While God is steadfast in his love for us, we can grieve God with our words and actions. We can cause distress to God.
Jesus often went to a deserted place to pray, to be alone with God. With this practice he set an example for his disciples, for us.
While we can pray in the midst of our daily activities, in the hustle and bustle of daily life, a place that is quiet, where there are few if any distractions is the most conducive to prayer. When you want to talk earnestly with a friend, the two of you go to some place where you can speak freely with each other and where you are not likely to disturbed. Prayer is, after a conversation between God and us, not a monologue but a two-way conversation, one in which we listen as well as speak.
It is noteworthy that Jesus often prayed outdoors, in the open air and not in a building. On the night of his betrayal, he prayed in a garden.
Jesus taught us to pray not just for our loved ones but also for those who have treated us badly.
Jesus taught his disciples to persevere in prayer, to be persistent in petitioning God and not to give up. He told the story of a man who knocked on the door of his neighbor’s house late at night, begging for three loaves of bread to feed an unexpected visitor to his house. The man had no bread of his own to feed his guest. The man kept knocking and the neighbor eventually got up and gave him the bread. Jesus also told the story of a widow who kept pleading with an unjust judge until he relented and ruled in her favor.
While God knows our needs before we ask them, God wants to have fellowship with us. There is a passage in the Book of Genesis, the first book in the Bible, which describes God walking in the Garden of Eden in the cool of the evening. He desired to have fellowship with his children, the man Adam and the woman Eve.
God continues to desire fellowship with us. He wants to hear our anxieties, our cares, our dreams, our fears, our hopes, our joys, our troubles, and our sorrows. God is like a caring friend who takes the time to be with us and to listen to us. He gives his full attention to us. When we seek him in prayer, we will find him waiting. It is true that we cannot see him. And we sometimes may feel that he is not there. But he is. We would not have sought him if he had not sought us first. We can draw near to God because he draws near to us.
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