PRAY Like Jesus Newsletter

Church newsletter pastoral column for St. Peter Lutheran Church, Greene, Iowa, for February, 2019.

Pray Then in This Way

Jesus was praying in a certain place, and after he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.” He said to them, “When you pray, say…”
– John 11:1-2a

Good relationships depend on healthy communication. If you’ve ever done pre-marital counseling, or any kind of intentional work on a relationship, you know how essential good communication is. You can’t grow closer to your spouse or your friends without spending time talking with them. The same thing is true of your relationship with God.

Growing in faith requires spending time communicating with God. The challenge, of course, is that talking with God is a little different than talking with your spouse or your neighbor. You can’t just pick up the phone, dial a number, and be connected with God.

Communicating with God requires something different, something we call prayer. Prayer is both simple—all you need to do is talk and listen to God—and incredibly profound. We have the ability to talk to God, the Creator and Ruler of the cosmos! And not only that, God wants us to do it. Over and over in the Bible, God invites us to pray. In fact, God commands it! Just a few examples:

• Are any among you suffering? They should pray.(James 5:13)
• Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer.(Romans 12:12)
• Devote yourselves to prayer,keeping alert in it with thanksgiving. (Colossians 4:2)
• Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayerand supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.(Philippians 4:6)
• Pray without ceasing.(1 Thessalonians 5:17)

Obviously, prayer is a pretty big deal in the Bible. So why is it so hard to pray?

Lots of people are nervous about praying the right way. I’ve had more than one person tell me, “I’m not very good at praying.” Another asked, “How do I become a better prayer?” As it turns out, Jesus’ disciples wondered the same thing. They saw Jesus praying, and they knew it was something they wanted to do, but they didn’t know how. So, they asked Jesus, and he responded by giving them an example prayer to use—a prayer we pray together in worship every week.

For 5 weeks beginning on February 17, our congregation will be looking at the topic of prayer.Sunday School will be doing a unit on the Lord’s Prayer, and Junior High and Luther League will be exploring different ways to pray as well. In worship, I’ll be preaching my first ever sermon series: “PRAYing Like Jesus.”

I hope you’ll make it a priority to join us for worship those five weeks as we explore Jesus’ teaching about prayer and the Lord’s Prayer as a pattern of prayer for our own lives today.

Your servant in Christ,
Pastor Daniel Flucke