Good morning!
Welcome to your morning coffee! May our Heavenly Father put His word in our hearts and minds. Father, fill us with your Word until it comes pouring out in our prayers, our words, and our actions. Help us to look again, afresh and anew at your Word, so that the love and the curiosity and the fascination that many of us have lost would be fanned back into a roaring flame. Heavenly Father, in the name of your Son Jesus, and by the guiding power of the Spirit, bring us back to your Word, and fill our lives with it! Amen!
Your Morning Song: "Is He Worthy" by Andrew Peterson
Your Morning Scripture: Matthew 6:9a
"This, then, is how you should pray,"
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We've all had that feeling, with a variety of different things, that we're missing something. Did I leave the oven on at home? Is my wallet in my coat pocket? Did I put enough salt in this? What's this person's name? How did that song go again?
Ever felt that way about prayer? I certainly have. I ask God for things and thank Him for things, and I have begin more and more to ask that His will be done. These are all good things, for sure. If what I'm asking for is good, what might be my problem then? Perhaps it is how I am asking, how I am praying?
We've talked about when Jesus teaches His disciples how to prayer (the Lord's Prayer), He makes this interesting statement, "This, then, is how you should pray." Is He saying that we should pray "like" this? Or that we should repeat the exact words? We should both say the exact words He is asking us to say, and to also form our other prayers to the familiar pattern of this prayer (in the verses that follow).
Have you ever tried praying other parts of the Bible as well? I think a lot of us have been partially missing out in our prayer lives by not intentionally praying scripture. I say it that way because any child of God of any sort of sincerity and maturity will certainly be mindful of the Bible as they pray, even if their not intentionally thinking, "I should use the Bible in my prayers." It is, by the grace of God, a thing many of us are already doing.
But how sweet it is to fold our prayers around God's Word intentionally! Here are a few brief, accessible examples, and I'm sure you could easily add your own. With an eye towards blending both praying the exact scripture and praying "like" (after the pattern of) the text, here are a few good examples. And my joy in suggesting these is knowing that as I do, many of you are likely thinking of other verses that jump into your own minds. The Bible is the living Word of God!
Psalm 23:1-3
The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing. He makes me lie down in green pastures, He leads me beside quiet waters, He refreshes my soul. He guides me along the right paths for His name's sake.
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Praying Psalm 23:1-3
Heavenly Father, thank you for sending your Son Jesus to be my shepherd. He loves and cares for me so well that I have all that I truly need in life, and more. Father, because of your Son Jesus my soul can rest, can be still and quiet, and is refreshed. Please help me Father, guided by your Son, to follow the right path in all things, in my thoughts, in my words, and in my actions. And help me to live this way to show how great you are, and how desperately I need you. May Jesus's name be made great in my life Father!
(As I type this out, there is likely some value, for some of us, in writing these kinds of prayers out, to look at again later, after you pray them.)
Romans 12:1-2
Therefore I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, this is your true and proper worship. Do not comform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is, His good, pleasing, and perfect will. ...
Praying Romans 12:1-2
Heavenly Father, because of your mercy am I able to worship you at all. Help me to worship you with my body, what I eat, how I sleep, how I take care of this body you've given me. Help me to worship you with my body, on your terms, not mine. And help me Father not to be conformed to the ways of this world by the spirit of this world. But please help me to be transformed by your Spirit, into the likeness of your Son, through the reading and praying of your Word, for your glory Father.
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Perhaps there are other verses you can think of. Tomorrow we will pray through and discuss another. Let's pray with the Bible on our hearts and minds, folding our words around God's Word! And then let's see what happens.
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