Words of Jesus Podcast - Teach Us To Pray Effectively

Episode Date: February 2, 2024

In our day prayer is cheap. Can we click to forward a prayer request from the internet to the throne of God? Does a prayer wheel get the job done? Can we hire the righteous to make prayers vicariously? Does a recorded prayer work? Is there a number of repetitions required (like votes) to get the attention of God? We have been taught God is always listening, He will grant our every desire (no limits like with Aladdin), and "all we have to do is believe." Friends, this is not true. Nothing adds to the rolls of atheism like unanswered prayer requests. The disciples noticed something different about Jesus' prayers. First, they never heard Jesus say, "Father would you just . . ." Secondly, the prayers of Jesus were effective and obedient. A servant, a son, does not petition without obtaining instruction, i.e. the will of God. In many cases, however, it is our will; not God's that is sought. Which leads to exactly the result described in the Scriptures - you ask and receive not because you ask amiss, that you may consume it upon your lusts. There must be a better way. Jesus teach us to pray.***63: Jesus Discusses PrayerLuke 11:1-13Once, when Jesus had been praying, one of his disciples said to him:            “Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.”            Jesus replied:            “When ye pray, say:‘Our Father which art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name.Thy Kingdom come.Thy will be done, as in Heaven, so in earth.Give us this day our daily bread.And forgive us our sins;For we also forgive everyone that is indebted to us.And lead us not into temptation;But deliver us from evil.’”Then Jesus told this story to his disciples, saying:            “Which of you shall have a friend, and shall go unto him at midnight, and say unto him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves. For a friend of mine in his journey is come to me, and I have nothing to set before him’? And he from within shall answer and say, ‘Trouble me not; the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot rise and give thee.’ I say unto you, “Though he will not rise and give him because he is his friend, yet because of his importunity he will rise and give him as many as he needeth.’ And I say unto you, ‘Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock and it shall be opened unto you.’ For everyone that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? Or if he asks a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent? Or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?”

Think Red Ink Ministries presents the Words of Jesus series with Don C. Harris. Hello my friends and welcome once again to the Words of Jesus series. I'm Don Harris and we're going to be talking from chapter 63 of our little book. People ask, you know, where do I get this little book? This book is out of print, but there are many copies that you can find on on ebay and these kind of things people find them laying around and because it is a it is a nice little book with beautiful wood cuts and color pictures and uh you know someone took great care in publishing this book um sometimes people tend to think that they're worth a whole lot of money

and uh you can but you can find these things uh reasonable all different covers all different colors all kinds there's a bunch of them out there it must have been a very popular book at one time you think so you think there was a time when people really wanted to know the words of jesus well we're trying our best to bring that day back and if i my intention is for you to just fall in love with your savior not the little sheep toting guy you saw on the flannel graph or on the powerpoint presentation in sunday school but uh you know the son of god who walked on this earth and who said many things that we need to know and supernaturally empowered his disciples to remember those things and write them down. The scriptures are a gift to this late model man.

That's us. We're the late models um yeah the early models uh had a i don't know they they just they seem to have a relationship they seem to get it i don't know uh and you know back then of course men were men women were women and um you know life was better. Well, I say that, but it had its problems as well. We all do. Did you know the Bible actually says that the man who says the former days are better than these, a man who says the former days are better than these. A man who says the former days are better than these lacks understanding. And so when we do get nostalgic or I make some comment about early

Christians and things like this, I think about that and I wonder, but they were, weren't they? Weren't they better days? Well, they had different kinds of problems. But we have our problems. But I really think that the Lord has given us a wonderful gift in our day, which is the scriptures. It's something that early Christians, frankly, did not have. They were familiar by reading and by synagogue attendance. These kind of things, they were familiar with the older scriptures, and the letters of Paul went throughout the churches,

and they heard these things, but they were witnesses to what they knew in their spirits because these people were actually born again. And that's what I want for us. Not a relationship with a book, although I love the book, wouldn't want to be without it. There's just nothing in the world to compare

with hearing the voice of God within yourself. I always give the example, I think it's a perfect example of a man telling his best girl or telling his wife or telling anybody, really, that, you know, I want you to know that I love you. And you can see that those words have incredible power because they came from your lips. They came from your thoughts. They came from your thoughts. They went into their ear. They went into their thoughts. And it was a communication between you and that person. But if you simply just wrote it on a card, if you said, you know, I could tell you really liked it

when I told you that I loved you. Now, I don't plan on ever saying that again. So here's what, here's what I want to do. You give them a three by five card that you have printed on there, I love you. And you hand it to them and say, anytime you want to hear that, just take this little card and read it. That'll do. How far are you going to get with your girlfriend, guys? Not very far. You can write it on a card if it's stuck in flowers, but she does expect to hear it again. We have a relationship with God where writing it down, that's enough for me. That's enough for me. Listen, if you ever have an encounter with God where he makes it clear to you

within your own self that He loves you, that He cares for you, and He's going to see to it that you are never in need of anything? There is absolutely no Scripture in the world that can replace that. There is nothing, there is no study, there is no memorization, there is nothing that will replace that. Because one is his mouth to your ear. Figuratively, his mouth to your ear.

And one is simply a record. It's a good record. Love to hear it. But you know, Jesus loves me. This I know. Period. Period. I don't, I don't, you know, for the Bible tells me so? I don't know.

Really? Do you know that because the Bible tells you so? Or do you know it because he actually told you? I encourage everybody to seek this portion of your Christian existence that essentially doesn't even exist right now. As close as you come to what I'm talking about, have you ever been reading the scriptures and you hear more than what's written there? It touches you in a certain way to the point that sometimes you can go back to that scripture and read it and it just doesn't quite do it for you. Do you know what happened right then? That was the word of God to your soul,

not the scriptures, the word of God. He speaks to us. The word of God comes to us many times as we read the scriptures, but not all the time. It's like we're going to be talking about prayer here. There is a common understanding in prayer. Well, okay. I was, you know, when I was a little boy, I was in the Pentecostal churches and we had all kinds of terms that I don't know if they use them universally or not, but I can remember the old timers talking about, oh, so-and-so, you know, at church last week, they prayed through. You ever heard that? They prayed through.

And what that means is that this prayer was different than any other prayer. It was like God was actually listening. And I guess what it does is it kind of leaves us with kind of a lonely and kind of a sad feeling like, I'd really like to pray through every time, but sometimes I can't. You ever heard somebody talk about that the heavens were brass, or a door was closed in their face? C.S. Lewis talks about a door being slammed in its face,

and we've all had that experience. Well, I think we all know what that is. We all understand unanswered prayer, and Jesus is trying to, he tries in our next chapter. He talks about how prayer has certain purposes and you have to be of the right mindset to understand what it is. Let's get into it. Or time will be gone again. Jesus discusses prayer. Now once when Jesus had been praying, one of his disciples said to him,

Lord, teach us to pray. John taught his disciples. Jesus replied, When you pray, say, Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth just like it's done in heaven give us this day only our daily bread okay i added the word but you need to understand

it's not give us our weekly bread. Give us our monthly allowance. Give us our yearly supply. Give us our daily bread. And we're going to talk about that as well. And forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who is indebted to us. Now, we'll finish the thing and then i'll back up and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil now it was wickliffe i think no it was tyndale that added um thine be the power and the glory forever and ever, amen, or whatever.

Because it was distasteful in the minds of many people, and especially the Jews, to end a prayer with a word like evil. To end a prayer on a negative note. So this little portion was added, but it was not part of the prayer that Jesus was teaching his disciples to pray. Here's what you need from God. When they said, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples,

I don't think he was saying, teach us to pray like John taught his disciples or teach us to pray in the manner that John taught his disciples to pray. I think he was saying teach us to pray. John taught his disciples how to pray. You should teach us how to pray. Now, I've got to ask you, what do you think the chances of these people at this particular point in their life

having never prayed? Well, almost none, isn't it? They understood prayer. We almost pray unwittingly or unknowingly or involuntarily. We find ourselves in a situation of prayer. And so the chances of them having never prayed up to that point because they didn't know how to pray is very unlikely. So when he says, teach us to pray,

what was he actually telling them? Or what were they asking Jesus to do? They were saying what we all say, if we're honest. Can you teach us to pray effectively? How about you teaching us to pray in a way that actually does something? And Jesus is saying this is the way to do it. One is you have to realize who you are.

And the best way for you to realize who you are is to realize who my Father is. First of all, you need to understand that he's your Father. And that he is above you. And he is in heaven. I know there's people that say he's everywhere, but he's not. He's there. That's where he is. Our father, which art in heaven.

And then he says, hallowed be thy name. Again, I think this is one of those times when it's not the name of God that is hallowed, but his nature. You remember us talking about this? It's not his name, Yahweh, Jehovah, Yehovah, you know, YHVH, I am. Everybody has given him all kinds of names.

But when he says, hallowed be your name, he's saying, we want to sanctify within ourselves your nature so that your nature is our nature. If your nature is our nature, then what are we going to be doing? Praying in your name, praying in his nature. First, you have to get into the nature of god you want an effective prayer this is the way to do it if you just want to pray to make yourself

feel better i just can't go to sleep unless i pray oh well you know take simonex or something but don't discount and don't don't abuse something as beautiful as communication with God with a sleeping pill. If I don't pray over my food, why? I just get indigestion. Well, he might want to look into Tums. Why don't we quit talking like this to people? Why don't we quit saying these kind of things? Are you just bragging about

the fact that you pray? Is that what you're doing? Jesus says you're going to have to do this in his nature. His nature really doesn't, it doesn't encompass all these, all this foolishness that we have attached to prayer. Just because you say in Jesus name, and there are millions of people that cannot even imagine praying without ending it in Jesus name. We pray. Amen. There's people that can't leave amen off of a prayer. They don't even know what it means, but it's gotta be that's, that means everybody can look up now, or you can drop the hand of the person that you're holding holding hands with when we pray never really understood that it's not a seance it's prayer why are we all holding hands we have many misconceptions about prayer hey you know if you would like to um uh order from me. We have a

CD set or an MP3 CD that is a teaching on prayer. I always warn people about this because look if you don't want to have a lot of your rituals and stuff totally destroyed I would say just leave this one for another day. But our prayers are an abomination to God. I mean, and if that bothers you, if you're concerned about your prayers

being just absolutely despised, or what's even worse is ignored by God, then this CD is for you but if you're not if you if you're not looking for if you're looking for this to you know kind of bolster or back up or in some way condone the way you've prayed all your life this is not this is not the CD for you. But I'll tell you one thing it did for me. Man, I talked earlier about praying through. How would you like to pray through every time you pray?

You can. You can do that. No, you're not going to be able to do it any time you want. But you can make sure that when you pray, God hears what you say. And you know, I think that if we knew that he heard us, then we would know that we have the petitions that we desire of him. Or we have his perfect will. Sometimes, you know, some people say,

you know, well, you know, God always answers prayer, but sometimes the answer is no. No, actually, most of the time, he's not even listening. Not even listening. You think that's a blasphemy? Do you know he said that to his people? You want to keep worshiping other gods? You want to keep mixing my holidays with your, my holy days with your holidays? You want to keep on doing whatever it is you want to do? You want to keep messing with these, with these idols and messing with these gods?

I'll tell you what, buddy boy, next time you get in trouble, pray to them. Because I'm not listening. You think God ignores prayers? You better believe he does. We don't want that to happen. Truth is, is because we don't have a realistic and true, tangible prayer life.

We don't know when he's listening or when we don't. We just wait until whatever we ask for happens. And then we, oh, God god answered my prayer i don't know did he did he or did or were you just so mentally focused on it that you brought it to pass yourself you know you ought to be able to answer these questions this is a real thing christianity is a real thing it's not pretense it's not a fairy tale. It's not fable. It's not witchcraft or voodoo. This is a real thing. And it can stand any investigation that you throw at it. If your prayer life, your theology, your doctrine, your denomination, whatever it is that is so important to you,

if it can't stand the slightest investigation, if it can't stand the slightest application of logic, then you've got nothing. And this is not to discourage you. I'm trying to encourage you. There is something better. And I'm afraid that our doctrines and our ideas, our preconceived ideas,

and the way we've always done things, it's keeping these things from happening. So these guys are coming to Jesus and saying, can you teach us to pray effectively? Well, certainly I can. Here's some things you need to know. One is, your father that cares about you, he's in heaven. And you need to pray in his nature.

His first and foremost will in the earth is for his kingdom to be back on this earth the way it was when he created his man adam that's his primary goal so that's why our our prayers and to pull ourselves into his nature need to include the words thy kingdom come then thy will be done on earth. Now when I was a young kid and I was forced, coerced, shamed or whatever it took to get me to memorize this. And many people quote it this way. I hear it a lot.

Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done. On earth as it is in heaven and i don't think they understand that he says what he's saying is thy kingdom come they will be done in earth earth. Well, by who? Him? Do you think he's down the street writing that widow woman a check to fill her LP tank this winter? No. He expects you to do that. That's your job. That's what you're supposed to do. So, thy will be done. This is part and parcel with the very problem

we were talking about in the earlier show. Oh, if it's the will of God, it'll be done. Okay, so it must be the will of God for her and her three kids to freeze to death because he didn't give her any propane. Really? Or was it just you that didn't care enough to see to it that she has what she needs? She's a widow. Those are orphans. You're going to stand before God one day

for kids that you never even met, for a woman that you never even met because you didn't care to. That was the will of God for you. Thy will be done in earth. And then he doesn't just leave it there. He says thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven. How is it done in heaven? By willing and obedient and capable angelic beings that do exactly what they're told. Do you think that the angels just run around and just believe in God? But don't obey him? You know, like we do.

Do you think that's the case? Absolutely not. Absolutely not. Sure, you you know there's a difference in an angel and a man but when it comes to obedience there ought not be we ought to do his will we know what his will is he loves he cares he wants things to happen and he's got a whole task force of people out there to do that work that aren't doing it. You know, it would really be, look at a, I guess perhaps we do, you look at a general and blame him for losing a war,

if all of his soldiers don't do what they say, then, you know, Leavenworth would just be full of soldiers, disobedient soldiers, would it not? But I guarantee you the general's not going to take blame for that. He's got a system in place to make this work. So we're all mad at God because he doesn't do this or doesn't do that. But in reality, you ought to be mad at yourself because you're the one that's not doing what you know to do. And by the way, you can flip through your Bible and read through your Bible,

and you might come across a scripture or two that might convict you about these kind of things. But if you want to know the reason why people prefer a Bible over a relationship, over a communicative relationship with God, over His voice in your ear, because He's probably going to mention the widow down the road. He's probably going to tell you, you know, you have more than you need. Go and sell all you have. Come and follow me. We don't want to hear those things.

So we leave the throne of God sorrowful because we have many possessions. All right, so he gives them this outline, makes it very clear that our Father is in heaven and his nature is to be sanctified within ourselves, hallowed be thy name. And our purpose is the same as his, thy kingdom come. And thy will be done on the earth, just like it's done in heaven. Forgive us of our sins, because,

and any time you find in the scriptures the word for, in many cases it can be replaced with the word because, without doing damage to the message at all this is the case here how are you going to be forgiven of god how are you going to do that ask him he says forgive us our sins that's all we need to do just say forgive us of our sins and all your sins are forgiven just ask that's all you need to do. Wow, that sounds familiar. Have I been told that? Yes, hundreds of thousands of times. All you have to do is ask. That's not true at all. You know how you get forgiveness? You forgive other people. That's how it happens. That's how forgiveness happens you're not going to find those those

two things are inextricably tied in the words of christ if you don't forgive every man their trespasses neither will my father in heaven forgive your trespasses i don't know that i could write that any plainer i don't know that i could write that any plainer. I don't know that I could say it any plainer than that. It's very, very clear. Forgive us of our sins, semicolon. I know that's probably not in the scriptures, but this is not the end of the sentence. Forgive us of our sins because we always forgive every man their trespasses against us. Also, when he says forgive us of our sins, Don, I thought you said we're not forgiven until we stand before God.

All right, you need to understand that this is a shortcoming. This is what we don't do. This is falling short of the mark. Forgive us for falling short of the mark. Forgive us for falling short of the mark. Because our friends that minister to us, they fall short of the mark too. But we forgive them. It's okay. We understand.

Why do you forgive people so profusely? I've been asked that question. How can you just walk away from that situation and not want to do something? Didn't say I didn't want to. But you see, friend, here's the fact of the matter. I need forgiveness so badly that I can't imagine something as silly as me wanting my own way

and not forgiving my brother not forgiving the people that have done me wrong I can't imagine something as stupid as that getting in the way of me receiving forgiveness from God you know we make really bad mistakes that's one of the worst. I may be forgiven, but I ain't forgetting. Well, are you ready for the Lord God to say that to you? Because with what measure you meet, it'll be measured to you again. This is an irrefutable, undeniable principle

throughout New Testament Christianity till next time bye bye my friend you've been listening to don c harris of Think Red Ink Ministries. Email don at thinkredink.com. That's thinkredink.com. Join us again for the next episode in the Words of Jesus series. you