12 Oct 25 pm ~ Lord teach us to pray

So what holds us back from praying? Well, often it's busyness and distractions. Demands of kids, spouse, parents, work, friends. It's easier to talk to them than it is to talk to God. It's easier to scroll social media, watch videos and films than it is to come to God in prayer. We have an enemy that doesn't want us to pray, of course. Yet amazingly, God is ever waiting, calling, even for us. Remember what he said. Adam, where are you? Often I think he's saying, alan, where are you? Not because I'm lost or that he doesn't know where I am, but because I've tuned out from him and we need to be tuned into him. [00:20:41] (50 seconds)  #OvercomingDistractions

Prayer is our response to God's awakening by His Spirit. It's therefore a transforming experience. To pray is to seek change in oneself or another or in the world. To engage with God in prayer results in an inward movement. We are drawn into God's presence. His holiness highlights our unholiness. The more close we are to him, the more we are aware of our own sin. But in gaining knowledge of God, we are also aware of his greatness. Hallelujah. We become aware of how great he is. And not only that, we appreciate the sense, as we do, of God's embrace by Him. [00:22:10] (47 seconds)  #TransformingThroughPrayer

Why would we not come to a God like that? A God who wants to embrace us, a God who wants to engage with us. You see, the problem is that sometimes when we're looking through our own life before we come to God, it's like looking out through dirt caked on the inside of a window. We see movement and beauty outside, but it's only slivers of light. But then we come to repentance, and that's where we ask God to clean our window. And in so doing, we begin to see the world differently. God can transform our ability to see the world around us. [00:23:31] (41 seconds)  #CleanseToSeeClearly

``The truth of the matter is God loves us as we are. God receives us just as we are and accepts us, our prayers as they are. So just as in the same way a small child can't draw a bad picture for a parent, so God's people and God's child can't offer a bad prayer to their heavenly father. [00:26:20] (24 seconds)  #AcceptedAsWeAre

David in the Psalms treats God as a friend. He blurts out his fears, his anger, his feelings of betrayal and loss. He lets it rip. When we read these prayers. Sometimes it's embarrassing. When you're reading these prayers, how did that get into the Bible? Because it's real. God wants us to be real, not to Be religious but real to want relationships. [00:27:21] (27 seconds)  #RealPrayerRealRelationship

Yes, we're going to make mistakes in prayer. Lots of them will sin, we'll fall down, we'll repeat the same thing. But we'll get up and begin again. We'll pray again, seek God again, confess again, cry out again, keep going. God amazingly accommodates us in our fleshly condition and our sinful tendencies. Isn't that amazing? I'm getting excited. I don't know about you guys. I'm getting excited when I think about this. God wants a relationship with us and the lengths to which he's gone. When we look at the cross, when we think about Jesus, you know, there is no exceptions in his family. There's no excuses that we can give. There's no sin too deep. There is nothing. Even if our faith is tiny, like a mustard seed. It's enough said Jesus. [00:28:15] (51 seconds)  #PersistentGrace

What the disciples don't realize is that Jesus, their own rabbi and teacher, is their perfect sacrifice and high priest working ahead of them. He alone can enable our entry into God's holy presence by his life, ministry, death on the cross and resurrection. I wonder if tonight you realize that as we study prayer, Jesus is praying for us. [00:30:15] (26 seconds)  #JesusPraysForUs

When Jesus teaches his disciples to pray Our Father, he invites us into a divine relationship based on a new covenant with the Creator of the universe. It's written in blood. It can't be undone. No matter how tongue tied and how concerned we can be, there is no thing too trivial for our Heavenly Father. [00:33:09] (31 seconds)  #NewCovenantConnection

God is transcendent, High and lifted up. He's eminent. He's here with us tonight. By His Spirit he inhabits eternity, but also with him who is contrite of spirit. God is Spirit. He's not restricted to location or space. He is other. And yet he is a person who clearly wants to make himself known, even to coming, becoming one of us. Hallelujah. The Word became flesh and made us dwelling amongst us. And we have seen the glory of the one and only, who came full of grace and truth. [00:36:26] (40 seconds)  #GodIsSpirit

So when he says our Father, it speaks to us of our divine relationship with God through redemption, our union with the Lord Jesus. Hence when he says in heaven, it reminds us where God is. He's greater than anything and everything else we'll ever encounter. He is eternal, he's infinite. He's almighty, he's unlimited. He's unconquerable. This God's love is unchanging on purpose. His power is more than able to deal with anything we bring for Him. He is amazing and he's your Father in heaven. [00:37:10] (35 seconds)  #FatherInHeaven

The purpose of prayer is not to make God do my will. He's not some magic genie that we rub and we get three wishes. He's not to answer my requests the way I want them. We are saying, lord, bring my will into your perfect will, just as Jesus did. And this is no easy task. But asking to do God's will may well mean not getting what I want or what I wish. I might not change the circumstances. I might not change the situation that I'm pleading with them to change. [00:43:24] (38 seconds)  #AligningWills