Prayer is possibly our most important activity and the main way to make progress in our lives in the Lord. Through prayer we tap into the beyond imagining resources of heaven (See Ephesians 3:20). But prayer is also possibly our biggest challenge and might be for some our most neglected opportunity. I find myself regularly repenting of my lack of sustained, decent praying. I am always wanting to learn more about how to pray and I repeatedly find myself being led back to the Lord's Prayer as the resource for an effective prayer life. The Lord's Prayer was Jesus' response to His disciples request to be taught how to pray (Luke 11:1f). The Lord's Prayer is so much more than just a prayer to say. This simple outline of what prayer involves is a rich and helpful guide to our praying. In the next few blogs I would like to share some thoughts on the four big ways of praying that Jesus teaches us in the Lord's Prayer. We will look at Abba prayer, Adoration Prayer, Advancing Prayer and Asking Prayer.
Abba Prayer
Today lets take a quick look at Abba Prayer as revealed in the first line of the Lord's Prayer.
Jesus said, 'Pray then like this:
Our Father in heaven'
(Matthew 6:9).
Jesus is here teaching us that prayer begins as an intimate relationship with God 'our Father'.
This is in contrast to a meaningless, repetitive, mere 'heaping up empty phrases'. Prayer is so much more relational than just saying 'many words' (Matthew 6:7).
When we pray, we relate to a 'Father who knows what we need before we ask him'.
(Matthew 6:8).
This prayer relationship with our Father is not meant to be a sort of religious performance to be 'seen by others' (Matthew 6:5). In fact the heart of prayer begins in a 'secret' intimacy with 'your Father' as you find a place of solitude to be with Him (Matthew 6:6).
This does not mean that prayer is a totally private thing just for me and my God. In one sense all prayer is personal but never totally private. The Father is never only my Father. All prayer is really a 'family' thing for we are praying to 'OUR Father'. Even when I get alone geographically with the Father, I have spiritual access to Him as part of His huge community of believers 'who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ' (1 Corinthians 1:2. See also Ephesians 2:18). What I am saying is that praying people are Church people and on a regular basis they will express this spiritual family belonging by gathering with brothers and sisters in Christ to pray together in addition to their alone times of prayer (See Matthew 18:20; Acts 2:42).
For some people the name 'Father' may be a bit of a challenge because their earthly father was not a good reflection of the 'heavenly' Father. It is important to realize that God is the first and finest Father, the originator of all fatherhood (Ephesians 3:14-15). Prayer relates to the perfectly good 'heavenly' Father.
That our Father is 'in heaven' also refers to the fact that He is not restricted in any earthly sense and is everywhere present in the unseen realm of spiritual reality (which is heaven).
This personal spiritual intimacy with God as 'Father' is not possible without the re-creative and enabling work of God's Spirit. In John's Gospel we are taught that those who believe in Jesus, in the sense of receiving him, are born of God and become His children. The Apostle Paul teaches about a work of God's Spirit who adopts us into God's family and enables us to pray and call God 'Abba, Father.' Abba is an ancient Aramaic word meaning something like our word Dad. (See John 1:12-13; 3:6-8; Romans 8:15).
Having believed and received Jesus and with the help of God's Holy Spirit within us we can enter into Abba prayer.
One way of enjoying our relationship with 'our Father' could be to slowly and reflectively repeat the simple prayer, 'Abba, I am one of your beloved children'. As we quietly say this little prayer to our Father we can recall the amazing revelation that we are His 'beloved children' (Ephesians 5:1. Here the word 'beloved' is used as a translation of the Greek word 'agapetos' which means dearly loved, much loved.)
Prayer is grounded in this wonderful reality of the love of God 'our Father in heaven'.
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