Becoming a “Prayer Master”
Tonight I want to talk to you about the idea of becoming a prayer master. Do you feel awkward when praying? Is that because you either don’t know what to say, or that you haven’t been taught how? Do you just run out of things to say or get stuck?
Jesus is our Sensei
Let’s look to Jesus as being our example, or teacher in prayer.
*Mt 6:9–13
9 Pray then like this: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your
name. 10Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it
is in heaven. 11Give us this day our daily bread, 12 and forgive us our debts, as we also
have forgiven our debtors. 13And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
Jesus told us to pray like Him in this prayer, so how can we break this prayer down? “Our Father in Heaven”, first of all this prayer has an address. God wants us to pray to Him specifically. It may seem silly that I need to add this in, but some people don’t realize the importance of addressing your prayers. Many catholic beliefs say to pray to the saints, pray to Mary, but they have no power to help us. We pray to the Lord and we address our prayers specifically to Him.
On this subject, it is also important to know how we approach God. Jesus not only paid for our sins on the cross, but He allowed for the gap between us and God to be bridged. When we come to God we do so in Jesus name.
*Jn 16:23–24 23 In that day you will no longer ask me anything. I tell you the truth, my Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. 24 Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete.
*Jn 14:12–14 12 I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. 13 And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. 14 You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.
Praying in Jesus name is important! He tells us that whatever we ask for in Jesus name will be done for us.
This brings us to the next part of the prayer, “Your will be done”. Of course, when you are praying in Jesus name, you must also be praying in accordance to God’s will. We talked about this a little bit last Wednesday. If you are praying selfishly and for your gain, you are praying for your will, not God’s. Those prayers will most likely be disregarded.
“Forgive us”, We have already talked about going to God for forgiveness. We need to be constantly fighting with sin and asking God to cleanse us.
“Lead us not into temptation”. Our battle is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities of the spiritual realm. We need to pray for God’s protection and guidance so that we can avoid unnecessary temptations in our lives.
Practice, practice, and practice some more!
So we have broken down Jesus prayer, but how do I put it into practice. Well, by doing exactly that! Prayer is something that is natural for those who do it often.
A martial artist does not simply become a master overnight. He has to put in hours and hours of practice and rigorous training. There is a need for us to be going to God in prayer to the point of it being a natural process throughout the day, or our natural reaction to hardship or difficult situations.
After you have been praying for a while, you will be more comfortable praying with others, in front of others, and for others.
Don’t forget that you are talking to a person! Don’t feel awkward, but allow time for pausing and just listening to God’s voice. Talk to God as if you were talking to your best friend. When you have a great experience about something, share it with God. When you see an amazing sunset, thank God for His artistry and allowing you to see His creation. When you narrowly escape a car crash or a sticky situation, thank God for being there with you. If you are in a car wreck, as God to calm your nerves. Lean on Him for everything and share everything with Him. That is part of praying without ceasing.
As you continue to seek God through prayer you will begin to notice His voice in different ways.
Our Spiritual Kata
As a martial artist you have to train through a series of moves called a “Kata”. You may have seen this before. The martial artist goes through a flurry of kicks, punches, and blocks as if he were fighting off a crowd of enemies. It can be a pretty impressive display of force!
There are very specific motions you have to use to accomplish the Kata correctly. If you miss a block or kick, then you must restart. Kata’s are practiced for the purpose of passing belt tests, but also to ingrain the fighting moves into your mind. If a situation arises you pretty much have a playbook of memorized defenses and attacks that you can use. The impressive thing is how they just instinctively go into action through muscle memory!
So you may be thinking. Ok, prayer is just a memorized list of things to say. Jesus gave us a specific prayer to pray and that is what I should do. No. Just as if a martial artist encounters a dangerous situation, the things he has memorized will come in handy, but if he follows a Kata to the tee he will be punching the air and waste a lot of energy! Most likely he will fail in his attempts to subdue whatever enemy he faces.
There isn’t a script when it comes to prayer and there isn’t a specific position that you have to assume when you pray. Just like Jesus told His disciples, there are guidelines to help you get started! It is kind of our own prayer “Kata” that you can use to get the principles down.
Have you ever heard the acronym “A.C.T.S.” before? ACTS: Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Supplication.
This is a great way to order your prayers to God. Do you always have to come to God with this method? Nope. But it is a good way to get started. Begin with adoration; “Lord, you are incredible! You deserve all glory and honor.” Move to confession; “Forgive me for not ….” A lot of my prayer times can get consumed with praise. Those times are some of the sweetest I have ever had in prayer. You just start to thank God for everything. That list can keep going and going and the more you praise Him the more you fall in love with Him. Then you can end with supplication; asking God for your needs or intercession for others.
The Student Becomes the Master
It is incredibly important that we become a praying youth group. We need to be in prayer for each other so that we can continue to stand strong for Christ. So we can school the opposition! We need to be in prayer so that we can determine what God’s will is for our youth group. If you feel like God has spoken to you about something we need to do as a youth group, talk to me! We need to be about His will and not ours.
You need to have a specific time that you set aside for prayer. I spend time with God in the mornings, but I also spend a lot of time in prayer while I am driving. I can shut the radio off and spend a 30 minute drive talking to God.
Position is not all that important to God as long as we are going to Him. You can pray while walking, pray while checking out at the grocery line, or while on the couch. Personally, praying while kneeling helps me to stay even more focused on what I am doing. Try it out this week. Go off by yourself and pray while kneeling. See if you are more focused. Plus assuming that position before God allows us to take on a humble attitude while coming to Him.
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