Faithbase

Hello and welcome to Thinking About the Bible. This edition or episode is about prayer. We're going to be thinking about prayer and I want to read to you, I'm reading off my tablet here, a definition of prayer from John Bunyan. It says, Prayer is a sincere, sensible, affectionate pouring out of the heart or soul to God through Christ in the strength and assistance of the Holy Spirit for such things as God has promised or according to his word for the good of the church with submission of faith to the will of God. Now that's just one definition of prayer, nothing wrong with it by any means, and when we look to the Bible and ask what is prayer, in the Old Testament there's a number of terms that are translated in our English translation as prayer, words that can mean to pray or to entreat or to supplicate, words that are just simply expressing the sound of voice, so you're voicing something. Or just a term, tefillah, I think it is that just means to pray, just means to communicate with deity. When we get to the New Testament, the primary term that is translated as prayer or a related term, pray, is prosuche, and that is a prayer that's specifically addressed to God. So in the New Testament you could certainly pray to a non, a false deity, I guess what I'm trying to say, but in the New Testament we're told to pray to God. Now prayer is supposed to be offered in a particular way. Jesus said pray then in this way, our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever. Now that's a prayer we can pray, but there's also an outline of prayer. In the mornings we have a, it's called praying the Bible, and we can, one of these days we'll pray that particular passage of the, of what we call the Lord's Prayer. So that's, that's how we pray, yes, but it also tells us that our prayer must be directed to our Heavenly Father. So actual true prayer, as John Bunyan is, as he defines it and alludes to this, but it must be directed to God the Father, and we do that in the name of Jesus Christ. Paul says in Ephesians 5 20 that we should give thanks always for all things that God has done, and we do that in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus himself said that if you ask anything in my name, our Father will hear you and answer your prayers. So those passages and others remind us that our prayer should be offered in the name of Jesus Christ. It's customary to conclude our prayer by saying in Jesus name, amen. In my, my experience, and I pray a lot because I'm a chaplain in the daytime, that's my day job, for much of the week, and so I'm praying for folks all the time, and one thing I like to do is, is let's say the fellow's name is Joe, and I pray for him, I say Heavenly Father come before you on behalf of Joe in the name of Jesus Christ, or something like that, and always open, I actually open with a prayer offered to God in Jesus name, and then I conclude that way as well. But prayer is very simply communication with God. True prayer is communication with the true God. You can pray to false gods, but it's of no value whatsoever. So thinking about the Bible, I would ask you today to be thinking about prayer, and one thing you might do is join us, it's posted at 6 every morning, praying the Bible, something I'm doing every day, and you can participate in that, and that'll be part of your morning prayer time. So think about prayer as we go throughout our day, think about prayer, and praying in Jesus name.