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CONNIE: Ever feel like your prayers are just bouncing off the ceiling? Maybe it’s time to get back to the basics. Join us today in a basic course in prayer—as taught by Jesus.

Giving God’s trumpet a Certain Sound for more than 70 years, this is the Voice of Prophecy.

CONNIE: Hello, I’m Connie Jeffery

LONNIE: and I’m Lonnie Melashenko. Connie, today we’re continuing our journey through Jesus’ sermon on the mount, and we’ve come to the section dealing with the Lord’s Prayer. Jesus often spent whole nights in prayer, and I don’t think He felt like He was just bouncing words off the clouds, do you?

CONNIE: Well, of course not. But you know that whole image of prayers bouncing off the ceiling brings to mind a recent news story from Pennsylvania—about those nine coal miners who were trapped 240 feet underground for several days.

LONNIE: Can you imagine what that must have been like. I mean, these are men who are accustomed to spending long periods underground. But to be completely cut off from the outside world. . .

CONNIE: You could shout as loud as you like, and no one could hear you.

LONNIE: That’s right. I can only imagine what it must have been like. But even there, in that intense blackness, with seemingly impenetrable rock separating you from everything you count dear in the world, you would know one thing: There are people up there, above. Somewhere. People who care. People who will do everything in their power to rescue you.

CONNIE: It’s a great story to illustrate the power of prayer, I think. Because if you know that there’s someone up there who cares about you, then you know they’ll be doing whatever they can to help you. Even if your shouts just bounce off the ceiling.
LONNIE: In fact, one of the news accounts told of how the men did bang on the ceiling over and over, but no one up above could hear them.

CONNIE: Still though, they kept drilling.

LONNIE: Imagine what it must have been like when that first little six-inch drill bit came through. At last! You’re connected with the outside world once more! The men RAN to where that drill had broken through, and POUNDED on it with their hammers. Nine blows, signifying all nine are here and waiting for rescue!
CONNIE: it must have seemed like the hand of God reaching down. That tube—that air shaft drilled down from above—

LONNIE: And that that’s what prayer can be for us—a shaft that reaches up to God, because He has reached down to us.

CONNIE: Because we know there’s someone up there, someone who cares. Someone who will do everything He can to rescue us.

LONNIE: As we look at the Lord’s prayer today, we’ve invited Dr. Philip Samaan to join us. I had the privilege of hearing him speak recently at a prayer conference, and his insights into Jesus’ way of reaching down to us through prayer were very inspirational. So I was very pleased to set up an interview.

CONNIE: Let’s listen in as Lonnie speaks with Dr. Philip Samaan.

LONNIE: On the telephone line today we want to welcome Dr. Philip Samaan, a professor of religion at Collagedale, TN, there near Chattanooga. Welcome to our broadcast.

PHILIP: Thank you Lonnie, I appreciate it.

LONNIE: You’re writing a book on a subject that’s a hot topic today, Prayer!

PHILIP: That’s right. I’m writing a book entitled, “Heart Cry” with the sub-heading, “How Jesus Prays for Us and With Us”.

LONNIE: Now statistics say lots of people are praying and in all denominations and of course everybody seems to have bought the book “The Prayer of Jabez”. How is your focus a little different from that book?

PHILIP: Well “The Prayer of Jabez” is wonderful, I have read the book, I’ve learned from it, but you see we need more than the prayer of Jabez. We need to engage our weak prayers with the mighty prayers of Jesus. I want to focus on the praying Jesus.

LONNIE: So the focus that we seem to be having in many prayer conferences today is on what I can do, and how far I can reach in my prayers. But you’re saying that there’s another side to this.

PHILIP: Certainly there is a much more important side and that is connecting our weak prayer with the mighty Jesus because without that our prayers our without avail.

LONNIE: Get us into some of the scripture where we have prayer language and Christ getting involved with us and for us in prayer.

PHILIP: First of all how does Jesus pray for us, and we have the reference from Hebrews 7:25, which say that Jesus ever lives to pray for us and to intercede for us. That’s one verse, and we know that Jesus prayed for Peter in Luke 22:31-32, and He prayed for those who we’re going to crucify Him in Luke 23:34.

LONNIE: So we see a biblical precedence here for the fact that the Lord’s Prayer wasn’t something that just happened two thousand years ago. He prays for us...
PHILIP: …and He continues to do that today. He ever lives to do that.

LONNIE: Now talk about how He prays with us.

PHILIP: You see, the same Jesus who prayed for Peter in Luke 22, just a short time later He invited Peter, James and John to pray with Him. In fact He wanted them to pray with Him three times in the Garden of Gethsemane.

LONNIE: And they slept through the whole thing.

PHILIP: He really wanted them to join His prayer vigil.

LONNIE: And what would that have resulted in?

PHILIP: I believe if they had stayed awake and joined Him, that their weak prayers would have been beautified with fragrance by His own passionate prayers.
LONNIE: Talk a little bit about Jacob from way back there in the Old Testament and how maybe the coal miners who came out of Pennsylvania had no hope. I mean it was over for them until that little shaft was burrowed through.

PHILIP: That is an excellent example, it fits in very much with the prayer of Jacob because Jacob felt so abandoned by God. Of course God was with him, but he did not feel that he was close to God. Exhausted at the end of the day, he found a stone that looked like a pillow and he slept on it. Praying that God would prove Himself to him, and then God sent him that dream and when he woke up he said, this is the house of God, and that’s the gate of heaven. It’s interesting, he took that pillow of prayer and made it into a pillar of prayer, which means now it was pointing heavenward short, yes, small, yes but now it was lining up with that ladder.

LONNIE: From pillow to pillar. I like that, from horizontal to vertical.

PHILIP: Exactly and you know Jesus said that the ladder was Himself. In John 1:51, he said angels ascending and descending upon the Son of Man. So we line up with Jesus, we cling to Him and we climb up on Him in our prayer life.

LONNIE: I love that. You know your language there must speak to people listening today right now Dr. Samaan. People who feel like Jacob, running away from all of their problems, feeling abandoned, talk to us a little bit about that and how it ties in to our special song coming up about just finally saying Lord you just have your own way.

PHILIP: You know in our prayer life we must ask Jesus to have His own way, because you see I want His way of the ladder, I want His way of that shaft coming down to the miners because without that we’re abandoned we’re alone. I want to be connected to heaven, and I want everybody to have confidence to connect with Jesus.

LONNIE: You know those miners down there at first they thought that nobody was hearing, but He is hearing and that shaft reminded them that yes there is somebody out there.

PHILIP: Absolutely, and look at how hard they tried to reach to them. If they tried so hard, how much more would Jesus?

LONNIE: Talk to us in our final moments about how Jesus taught us to pray, and continues to teach us to pray with Him.
PHILIP: Well Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever. He ever lives to pray for us, and He joins them in this prayer so we can not only pray for ourselves with Jesus, but also pray for other people with Jesus.

LONNIE: Thank you Dr. Philip Samaan for your beautiful comments on prayer, and really the bottom line then is to submit ourselves and our little weak prayers to Jesus and have Thine own way Lord.

CONNIE: “Have Thine own way Lord,” is the title of that song, played by a group called Summer Church.

LONNIE: That’s an important principle for prayer—the willingness to surrender our will to the will of God. And yet, Connie, I think that sometimes Christians are almost a little too willing to say “if the Lord wills.”

CONNIE: How do you mean?

LONNIE: Well, we have in our library here a little book called The Incredible Power of Prayer. It was written by Roger Morneau, and when you read the stories, well . . . here’s a man who really knew how to pray down the power of the Lord.
I guess it makes me think of that story from Pennsylvania again. What if the miners, trapped underground, had just said “Oh, well, I hope someone will try to rescue us. But maybe they’d rather not. We’ll just have to wait and see.”

CONNIE: I think that would be pretty discouraging.

LONNIE: That’s right. They knew from the very moment the problem developed that the people above cared enough to do everything in their power to rescue them. And I believe we can know the same about God. That He’s concerned about us. And the stories in this little book illustrate that so clearly.

CONNIE:If you’d like a book that will strengthen your faith in God, this is the book for you, and we’d like to send you a copy as our gift.

LONNIE: That’s right. You can request a copy of The Incredible Power of Prayer by calling our toll-free number, 1-800-872-0055, and asking for it.

CONNIE: You can also write to us of course, and we’ll give that address a bit later, but right now, let’s listen to Lonnie’s message for today, “How to Pray.”

How to Pray

Is there a certain magic formula to prayer? Is there a special way that you can pray that will guarantee results? If so, what is it?

When Jesus was on earth, His disciples once asked Him to teach them how to pray. You can read the story in Luke 11. And the interesting thing is that when they made this special request for instruction in praying, Jesus gave them basically the same prayer He had already taught them as part of the Sermon on the Mount.

We call it the Lord’s Prayer, and most of us who’ve had a Christian upbringing memorized it as children.

Here in the passage we’re look at today, Matthew 6:5-15, Jesus not only gives us a pattern to follow in prayer, but He also tells us what our attitude should be as we pray.

“ ‘When you pray, go into your room, [He says], and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly’ ” (Matthew 6:6, NKJV).

Now, in saying this, Jesus isn’t telling us we should never pray in public—at a worship service, or in a small prayer group. What He’s trying to get across to us is the proper attitude in prayer. Some people say their prayers only in public—to make a big show of being spiritual. If that’s your purpose for praying, you may a well forget it.

The type of prayer Jesus wants to teach us is far different from that. It has nothing to do with our standing before people, and everything to do with our standing (or kneeling!) before God.

If you have genuine faith that God is listening to your prayers, you don’t need any other audience. Going into your private room to pray makes that relationship with God all the more personal, and I might add, all the more real. Because, frankly, you’d feel pretty stupid talking to an empty room, if you didn’t believe God was there!

The next thing Jesus teaches us is that it’s not quantity that counts, but quality.

“ ‘And when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do. For they think that they will be heard for their many words. Therefore do not be like them. For your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him’ ” (Matthew 6:7-8 NKJ).

Did you know that you can teach your computer to pray for you?

I’m not being facetious here. There are actual sites on the Internet where you can download software that will turn your computer into a virtual prayer machine. It’s based on the ancient Tibetan custom of carrying prayer wheels. At least since the fourth century, A. D., the Buddhists of Tibet have had the custom of carrying prayer wheels, which they spin continually, believing that in so doing the prayer written on the wheel is being repeated over and over.

High-tech wizards have now improved on this, suggesting that by putting your prayer on a computer’s hard drive, the computer’s spinning disk will say the prayer for you several thousand times per minute. “Given those rotation speeds, you'll soon be purifying loads of negative karma,” suggests one Buddhist website.
But is this the type of thing God is looking for? Does He want heaven’s switchboard flooded with millions of prayers per second, ascending from machines?

No, He wants earnest, sincere, carefully thought out prayers from real human beings. He wants prayers that we’re involved in. Our Discover Bible course, which we invite you to enroll in, has a lesson called “The Secret of Answered Prayer,” and I’d like to share just two sentences from that lesson with you, regarding the prayer we’re studying today: “Sometimes Christians refer to the Lord’s Prayer as a model prayer They often memorize and repeat it in public. Although the Lord’s Prayer gives guidelines on what to pray for and how to formulate a prayer, our communication with God works best as a spontaneous composition of the heart.”

I like that—a spontaneous composition—springing from exactly what our heart desires right now. God wants to hear from us about what we want.

Yes, I said what we want. I’ve heard people say you shouldn’t pray about what you want, but what you need. But notice this from Matthew 6:8 “ ‘your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him.’ ”

If you look closely at the Lord’s Prayer, you’ll notice that it’s not so much about telling God what you need, but telling Him that you want Him to fulfill your needs! It’s an expression of faith, turning to God to supply basic necessities such as daily bread, and also the greater things such as guidance and the coming of His kingdom.

The prayer begins as an expression of faith that you have a father in heaven—one whose name is worthy of being hallowed.

The prayer is also an expression of humility. When you say “Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name” you’re not just storming into God’s presence and saying “Hi, God! How’s it going?”

There may be a time for that kind of relationship with God. After all, Hebrews 4:16 does say, “Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (NKJV).

Yes, there’s a time for holy boldness with God, for Jesus Christ has paid the price for our sins, and we can come before God knowing that we are covered with Christ’s righteousness. We need not be fearful of God.

But that doesn’t mean we need not respect Him. We come to Him, at the beginning of the Lord’s prayer, addressing Him respectfully as Father, and ascribing holiness to His name.

God came down to our level in Jesus Christ. He made the ultimate sacrifice in becoming one with us. As Philippians 2:7 describes it, He “made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness” (NIV).

But the end result of all this is not that God remains at our level, a buddy to chum around and trade jokes with. After His humiliation, Jesus ascended again to heaven, and the same passage in Philippians goes on to describe His glorious enthronement in heaven: “That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:10-11, NIV).

The Lord’s prayer invites us into God’s throne room, to bow humbly at the feet of God, to present our petitions.

And what is the first petition? It’s an expression of a desire—something we want. Yes, we may need it, too. But as we come to God, we express it as our desire: “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.”

Right here, at the outset, immediately after we have greeted Him, God invites us to express our desire for the fulfillment of our greatest hope. What Paul calls our “blessed hope.” The institution of God’s kingdom on earth, so that things here on earth can begin to run as smoothly and efficiently as things run in heaven—because God is fully in charge. Satan no longer has the opportunity to throw a monkey wrench in the gears.

This part of the prayer is both an expression of hope, and an affirmation of loyalty to God and His kingdom. It helps us get our priorities right, reminding us that as Christians we may have to live in subjection to the rulers of this world, but our true kingdom is the heavenly one where God is in charge.

Once we’ve established that, notice that Jesus moves right on to our personal concerns. “Give us this day our daily bread.”

Notice we’re not telling God we need bread. (Remember—He already knows what we need.) We’re simply asking that He be the One to supply it. We’re expressing our faith in Him and our need of His provision. Saying, OK, God, I admit it: It’s not the paycheck I earn at work. It’s not Safeway or Albertsons or Kroger or Win-Dixie that brings me my daily bread. It’s all a gift from You, and I rely upon You to provide it, and I thank You for it when I eat it.

Notice, too, that Jesus doesn’t teach us to pray “Give us this day our bread for the next six weeks.” Our dependence on God is a daily thing. We need to renew our Declaration of Dependence each and every day.

Now, once we’ve acknowledged our dependence upon God to provide for us, Jesus moves on to a part of prayer that’s easy to neglect, yet it’s so important that He emphasizes it again after He finishes giving us His example prayer. “And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.”

Now, please understand, this part of the prayer is not just for bankers. When we say the Lord’ Prayer, it’s natural to revert back to the King James English. But let’s take a look at how some of the more modern translations handle this text.

“ ‘Forgive us the wrong we have done, as we have forgiven those who have wronged us.’ ”—New English Bible

“ ‘And forgive us the wrong we have done as we forgive those who wrong us.’ ”—New American Bible

Literally, Jesus used the word for debts when He spoke, but a debt to God is a way of speaking of sins—wrongs we’ve done. So Jesus isn’t just telling us how to run our finances here. He’s talking about our whole attitude toward others. Especially toward those who have done us wrong.

Prayer should bring us into harmony with God. And if we want God to be forgiving toward us, then we need to let His spirit of grace and forgiveness fill us. At the end of the prayer, Jesus emphasizes this point again: “ ‘For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses’ ” (Matthew 6:14-15 NKJV).

This is no tit-for-tat, turnabout’s fair play pettiness on God’s part. It’s all part of our proper response to God in prayer. Prayer is not to bring God down to our level, but to lift us up to His.

It’s to make us ready to be influenced and led by His Holy Spirit in every aspect of our lives. And when we’re ready for that, we can pray “ ‘Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.’ ” The Jerusalem Bible renders this verse, “ ‘And do not put us to the test, but save us from the evil one.’ ” This seems rather different from our usual rendering, until you realize that the word for temptation is the same word used for test or trial in the Greek.

In this part of the prayer, we commit ourselves to God’s guidance, trusting Him to lead us in a way that will be safe from Satan’s temptations. We admit that we’re not able to choose the right path, and that left to our own wisdom we’d usually create unneeded trials for ourselves. This phrase continues our acknowledgment of our need of God’s sovereignty over our lives.

Because, after all, we want the kingdom, and the power, and the glory to be His forever.

We want God to rule—the world, the universe, and our own lives.

Is there a right way to pray? Yes. It’s a prayer that takes in the elements of The Lord’s Prayer. It’s a prayer that submits to God and asks that we may live in harmony with His will, and that He will bless us with the things He knows we need.