How to pray

Our Lord has given us a model prayer. He said, “After this manner therefore pray ye . . .” This is not necessarily a prayer to be repeated by rote. Our Lord warned about vain repetitions in this same passage. Sometimes we’ll be in a public assembly and someone will say, “Let’s all stand and say the Lord’s Prayer.” Well, friend, you don’t say prayers; you pray prayers.

Suppose I come and sit down in your living room, you look at me and say, “Say a conversation.” That wouldn’t make much sense, would it? Prayer is not talking at God, it is talking with God. It is not rattling off beautiful thoughts, or even verses of Scripture. Jesus is giving us a model prayer. Jesus is saying, “Pray like this.”

“Prayer can do anything God can do, and God can do anything.”

Don’t try to pray for a particular length of time. It is not the length of your prayer that counts. Don’t argue with God. It is not the logic of your prayer that counts. Don’t use fancy language. It’s not the language of your prayer that counts. It is the focus of your prayer. Focus on Almighty God. It is the force of your prayer. Pray in the power of the Holy Spirit of God. It is the faith of your prayer. Pray, believe, and you’ll receive; pray and doubt, you will do without.”

How important it is that we learn to pray. Friend, the time will come, if it is not already here, that for God to answer your prayer will be the most important thing to you on this earth. You can learn many things. But you can learn nothing better than to learn how to pray.

Nothing can stand against the man who can pray because prayer can do anything that God can do, and God can do anything. It has well been said that nothing lies outside the reach of prayer except that which lies outside the will of God. You do not have a need but what proper prayer would help you to attain that which you need. You do not have a failure in your life but what proper prayer would have avoided that failure. You do not have a burden, a heartache, a tear, or a fear that proper prayer cannot help to remove, to soothe, to bless, to help, to heal. I’m telling you, my dear friend, that prayer is the order of the day. The prayer Jesus taught His disciples to pray begins with these words: “Our Father.” Don’t just lightly pass over these two words. They are the key to the entire prayer. When we say Father, we express His nature. God is Father. When we say Father, we expect His nurture. He will take care of us. And when we say Father, we exalt His name.

God is Father. We come to Him as His children. Incredible things are in store for us “when we say Father.”

Adrian Rogers and Steve Rogers, When We Say Father: Unlocking the Power of the Lord’s Prayer (Nashville, TN: B&H Books, 2018).