Lord, Teach Us

Luke 11:1-4
John 15:17
{This devotion was given in August of 2014, but these words still apply today}

Lord teach us how to love one another.
Lord teach us how to live right.
Lord teach us to hold our tongue.
Lord teach us what to say.
These are things that we can say when we pray, these are things that we can ask for.

Jesus’ disciples came to him and asked him a question.  The disciples did not come to him and say, Lord, teach us how to sing or teach us how to quote scripture or how to play musical instruments, not even teach us how to handle the church business.

They said “Lord, Teach us to pray.”

In answering Jesus said, “When ye pray, say Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name…”
This prayer that Jesus is teaching is not a prayer to be prayed every day.  It is not just to be repeated or to be done in repetition. A lot of people look at this prayer as the Lord’s Prayer, but it’s actually a model for prayer.  Now if what you really want is to look at Jesus praying that is in John 17.  Our scripture passage today from Luke 6 is an example for the disciples - a prayer to show them how to pray. 

Jesus himself was a model.  He taught those men and even teaches us how we should pray.

When we pray, we are to recognize God as “Our Father”.  And this model prayer asks that His will be complete or accomplished. That’s what we should be praying - that his will be accomplished. We are taught that we need to ask him for daily bread, and we need to ask him to forgive us of our sin.  Not only that but we should ask him to deliver us from sin and evil.  As the prayer continues we are taught to say “Hallowed be thy name; holy is thy name”.

We need to ask the Lord to:

• Teach us how to love one another;
• Teach us how we should walk;
• Teach us how we should live;
• Teach me how to be obedient;
• Teach me how to be faithful; and
• Teach me how to acknowledge you in all my ways.

A lot of times people don’t want to ask the Lord these things.  A lot of times we don’t pray those types of prayers.  We pray but we don’t ask him to do those things.

I was thinking this morning about the situation up there in Ferguson, Missouri.  My brothers, our nation, our country needs healing.  In Ferguson, Missouri there are families that are hurting, and not just the family of the young man that lost his life.  The officer that did the shooting, I can imagine what his folks are going through.  Although it is impossible to understand - to shoot an unarmed man five or six times - but that family is hurting.

So you got two families that are destroyed, torn up.  Not only that but you have a city/a nation on the brink of chaos.  It could be right here in this city.  We need to be praying not just for ourselves or praying for our city, but we need to be praying for that city.  We need to pray for the nation in which we live because it needs healing.  And healing is not going to come, peace is not going to come, until people of God get before God, and the Lord establishes that peace in the nation.

We definitely need to be praying for that situation, because it could even be here.

We need to be saying Lord teach me how to love my fellow man; teach me how to live right. Jesus tells us to love one another:  “These things I command you, that ye love one another.”

That means I’ve got to love you!

In order for people to see me as who I proclaim to be I can’t walk around with hate in my heart.  I might not like your ways. I might not like the things you do, but I can’t hate you. I’ve got to love you.  The most powerful weapon that has ever been created lies within man and that’s love.  If you go loving on folks they’ll stop hating.

Jesus taught them the model prayer, and he told them to ask. We certainly need some things, and we have brothers that need some things.  Let’s start by asking/praying for the same thing that Jesus tells us He wants - let’s start by loving one another. 

​~J. T.