Day 23
Jesus’
Miracles: prayer
Read: Luke
11:1-28
Repeatedly
Luke tells of Jesus praying. In today’s
reading we see his’ disciples wanting to know more about how to pray. They realize intuitively that, prayer was the
“key to the power in Jesus’ life.”
As powerful as it is,
the Lord’s Prayer is not a prayer-formula, it’s the essential framework of effective
prayer; a dynamic framework of structured faith, confession, and
prayer-journey. It begins with our relationship as children of a loving Father,
God (11:2). Our prayer requests start with putting God’s kingdom first, before
our personal needs (an opposite of how we can tend to pray). All the requests are in the plural “us.” Prayer is personal but is always within the
context of community.
Jesus
taught the disciples to be persistent and bold in prayer (11:5-10). Because we
cannot “physically see God” we often doubt, here however Jesus emphasises our
need to continue to seek God and not give up.
Jesus teaches; we should expect to expect of a God who answers
prayer.
In
his reinforcing of Jesus’ teaching on prayer Luke tells of Jesus driving out a
demon (11:14-22). It would be foolish to
think in our own power we can make the radical difference this world needs. We are up against a “strong man,” Satan, and
only by accessing God’s power will we see victory. Prayer and miracles as signs
of “God’s Kingdom coming” are directly related. Prayer is power, prayer is
preparation for mission.
Ponder Point
(reflect)
- Jesus’ power came through
his prayer preparation
Consider
(respond)
- When I’m persistently
praying on the same matter, could it be I’m just annoying God?
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