Practical Helps

• Prayer and Relationship: Pray out our love for God and His love for us
• Prayer and Ministry: Pray out of our dependence on God
• Prayer and Practice: Pray spontaneously and planned, for immediate needs and prescribed lists, together and alone
• Prayer and Scripture: Pray according to the Scripture

 

Reminder: Structure of Matthew 6:1-18

• Giving, Matthew 6:2-4; Praying, Matthew 6:5-15; Fasting, Matthew 6:16-18

 

Reminder: Warning from Matthew 6:5-6

• Do not pray like the hypocrites who are motive by love of self and the praise of others
• Instead pray like Christ who is motivated by love of His Father and the reward that comes only from His Father

 

Do not pray like this, Matthew 6:7

• Gentiles and their meaningless repetition: an incantation, babbling, magic words
• Analogy from the prophets of Baal in I Kings 18

 

Pray like this, Matthew 6:8

• With a knowledge of the character of God OR Why theology matters in our prayer life
  • He knows: He is omniscient, He is omnipresent, He is omnipotent
  • He cares: He is loving, He is kind, He is gracious