Prayer...

Wat is prayer to us?? To some it may be kneeling infront of an image of their god in their own religion and start praying asking for blessing and help with a repayment condition at the end. To some might be burning of offerings/ sacrifice. well there is so many religion in this world that all has its own way of praying. But for us Christians we too hav a habit of prayer. And the typical way we do it is by closing our eyes and head bow down to show our humbleness and pray to God. Well read Matthew 6:5-15 and Luke 11:2-4, this mainly about the Lord's prayer as we call it today but it lays the very foundation how our prayer should structure. But first i will touch on other point in the verse.

Matthew 6 verse5, it says '...do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men....' Well this doesn't mean we can not pray outside in the public but where as what is referring here is the motive of praying outside. If we are to pray outside to show people how 'holy or how good their prayer are or to show how prayer-ful they are' the motive there is wrong. We do our prayer is mainly for God to hear our prayers and be answer according to His time. And our prayer should be from our heart and we should be humble as i think we are asking form God. And in verse 6 it says we should go into our rooms and pray this to show that we are humble when praying, not to show off to people. I think it is base on this verse that today's Christians are taught to pray with thier eyes close and heads bowed. I also once heard that another reason y we close our eyes is so that we wont be distracted by the things around us. Since it is a prayer and it is for God, we should focus our hearts unto God.

Now the more important part is the prayer. In Matthew 6:9-13 the prayer goes

"Our father in heaven,
hallowed be Your name,
Your kingdom come,
Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one"

Now that was from Matthew in Luke it is similar but with a little different as Luke was a Physician by profession and the purpose of his writing the Gospel was for the high rank Romans at that time to read. But for me over the years in church i've been saying that prayer this way

"Our father in heaven,
hallowed be Your name.
Your kingdom come,
Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us of our sins,
as we forgive those who sins against us.
Lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
For the kingdom, the power and the glory are Yours,
now and forever, Amen."

Practically it has the same foundation as been laid by Jesus. As i mention earlier that this the very foundation how our prayer should structure as the prayer covers every point that we should everyday pray for. Look at first sentences of the prayer, when we pray we are acknowledging God as our Father. Then it goes on to say that we surrender everything to Him, 'Let Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven'. And follow on the prayer goes on to say 'Give us today our daily bread' which means that we are to be taught about His word everyday. And this prayer also consist of forgiveness, 'Forgive us of our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us'. This is not only asking for forgiveness but also to be taught to forgive others. 'Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil' And this is the part we ask for protection against the devil's work on us and to provide us with everything we need to prevent us from sinning. And the last line, 'For the kingdom, the power and the glory are Yours now and forever' it means that everything in this world is God's and we are laying it all into His hands.

Now u may say that wat is this the prayer that we are to pray everyday and cant pray about others??...yes we could pray for other things but then this prayer is useful for it covers most important things that we as Christians should grow on. Besides it is the prayer that is taught by our Lord Jesus!!