Prayer

This past Sunday (11.04) we finished a three part series on prayer. Our passage for this study was Matthew 6:5-15, focusing on the Lord's model prayer. One thing I take from this series is a sense of Jesus' desire for people to abandon the vain, self-righteous pursuit of "religion" for a rich, life-changing encounter and relationship with the living God. The comparison between religion and relationship is subtle, but once noticed powerful.  In Matthew 6, Jesus addresses the three most important pursuits of Jewish piety...fasting, giving, and prayer.  In each he mentions the self-righteous/religious approach and offers an alternative.  The poison of religion is it becomes the end in and of itself (6:2, 5, 16), thus subverting our relationship with God. Prayer is a privilege that Christ offers us through the cross meant to refresh and encourage our hearts. When we follow the model He has left us not as a formula, but as a marked path we find we don’t walk alone…and the trials of the journey are worth the company we keep.

 

In my life, I've found prayer to be sweetest when I've understood it not from a theological perspective, but from the place of being a small participant in God's story.  I'd like to know...what has had the most positive impact on your prayer life?