Learning to Pray with Jesus

By Chad Glazener
Lead Pastor, First Covenant Church of Portland

Have you wondered why Jesus thought his disciples needed to learn how to pray? Even though they had grown up in families and synagogues where prayer happened, he thought there was more for them to learn. But when you’ve prayed your whole life, what more is there?

Lots, apparently. It turns out that, since prayer has ever-new depths, we can’t finish learning how to pray. Jesus wanted to give his disciples, and us, a new and better way to pray. 

Over the course of his teachings on prayer, Jesus confronted a number of problems, from praying without faith to praying for enemies. But more often than not, he focused on one key problem: our prayers don’t aim for the right rewards. Jesus saw religious leaders praying for the reward of being seen, heard, and admired for eloquence and piety. But he wanted to share a way of praying with new kinds of rewards. 

Jesus teaches that our prayers should shed hypocrisy and replace it with intimacy. That we shouldn’t just speak for the sake of speaking. That prayer isn’t a place to win points for being the best, the smartest, or the most spiritual. That we should be careful, in case when we think we are praying to God, we might be showing off to others or ourselves. 

In sum, Jesus asks us to consider why we pray. Do we pray just because we think it's the right thing to do? What's behind all our words?

QUOTE

“Since prayer has ever-new depths, we can’t finish learning how to pray. Knowing this, Jesus wanted to give his disciples, and us, a new and better way to pray.”

But Jesus didn’t just teach about the danger of aiming for wrong rewards. In order to help us get through the mess of our bad intentions, Jesus also gave a gift. When his disciples asked him how to pray, Jesus gave them the Lord’s Prayer. 

At first glance, it might just seem like another string of words to say. How could yet another prayer teach his disciples how to pray more than all the prayers of their life before could? But looking deeper, we see more. 

Where should we look deeper? At Jesus, whose prayer it is. Instead of giving us a list of principles about prayer, Jesus invited us to join him in a prayer of his own. He placed us next to him, and invited us to share his position. When we pray his prayer, we step into his place.

QUOTE

“When we pray with Jesus, we’re entering his love (love itself!), and being swept up in the prayers the Son shares with the Father through the Spirit.”

Since he is the Son of God, the Lord’s Prayer is our invitation to step into our new, final home as the Father’s children too. It’s a chance to share words with Christ as we are made co-heirs with him. 

The Lord’s Prayer is also a new model of prayer for us. It shows that prayer isn’t simply a verbal sacrifice, or a recitation of what we know (though it can be both of these). It shows us that prayer is also our chance to share in Jesus’ love of the Father. When we pray with Jesus, we’re entering his love (love itself!), and being swept up in the prayers the Son shares with the Father through the Spirit. 

Prayer isn’t just an activity; it’s also a heavenly home. 

We all need to learn how to pray, and keep learning. We need to move out of hypocritical and shallow ways of praying and into prayer that can endure anything. Following Jesus’ cue and joining his prayer, we can learn how to live lives of prayer so intimate and familial that no matter what happens and no matter how we feel, we can know that we are children of the Father, brothers and sisters of Jesus, and houses of the Holy Spirit. 

Thanks to Jesus, we can share in heaven’s joys now, even as we patiently wait for our Father’s kingdom to come and his will to be done on earth as it is in heaven.