WHAT DID JESUS SAY ABOUT PRAYER

 WHAT DID JESUS SAY 

ABOUT PRAYER?

Jesus showed by example (He who knew all things He who was God) that He still spent time watching and praying and asked His Disciples to do the same. The Garden of Gethsemane this story can be found in Matthew 26, Mark 14, Luke 21

   Matthew 26:36 Then Jesus came with them to a place called Gethsemane, and said to the disciples, “Sit here while I go and pray over there.” ³⁷ And He took with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and He began to be sorrowful and deeply distressed. ³⁸ Then He said to them, “My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death. Stay here and watch with Me.” 
³⁹ He went a little farther and fell on His face, and prayed, saying, “O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will.” 
⁴⁰ Then He came to the disciples and found them sleeping, and said to Peter, “What! Could you not watch with Me one hour? 

⁴¹ Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” 
⁴² Again, a second time, He went away and prayed, saying, “O My Father, if this cup cannot pass away from Me unless^[e] I drink it, Your will be done.” ⁴³ And He came and found them asleep again, for their eyes were heavy. 

⁴⁴ So He left them, went away again, and prayed the third time, saying the same words. ⁴⁵ Then He came to His disciples and said to them, “Are you still sleeping and resting? 

Behold, the hour is at hand, and the Son of Man is being betrayed into the hands of sinners. ⁴⁶ Rise let us be going. See, My betrayer is at hand

Jesus sounds here astounded that in this very serious time of Spiritual upheaval that His disciples could not pray yet for one hour. He even shows them that they are not prepared and that the hour has come. This leads me to believe that at some point in time He had taught them to watch and pray.

 So let’s go back a little to

Matthew 6:5--to the end of the chapter

 The Model Prayer

1.     Pray in Private and not to show off 
5 “And when you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites. For they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. 6 But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.[b]

2.     Don’t pray long repetitive prayers but rather listen to what to pray and then pray it. Don't preach to God or during a prayer meeting. God does not need us to repeat things over and over to hear us long prayers are not more spiritual, neither is one that sound holy or pious prayers loud prayers but rather prayers with authority. 

    Vs: ⁷ And when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do. For they think that they will be heard for their many words.

3.      God already knows what you need He just has a pattern for receiving and that includes speaking it out.

     vs:⁸ “Therefore do not be like them. For your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him. 

4.     For the Lords prayer, I will discuss this five minutes at a time On Fridays using the book by Larry Lea Could you not tarry It also teaches us how to be respectful and ordered in prayer.

  vs:⁹ In this manner, therefore, pray: 

 Our Father in heaven, 
 Hallowed be Your name. 

¹⁰ Your kingdom come. 
  Your will be done 
 on earth as it is in heaven. 

(I think this is where Jesus taught His Disciples to watch)

       ¹¹ Give us this day our daily bread. 

       ¹² And forgive us our debts, 
      as we forgive our debtors. 

       ¹³ And do not lead us into temptation, 
      but deliver us from the evil one. 

      For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.  

     Amen.

Then Jesus went on to tell them the qualifiers for having the answers to their prayer and the guidelines for prayer

¹⁴ “For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. ¹⁵ but if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

Matthew 6 continues to teach us more about how to pray and how to pray strategically;  however, we normally quit with the “Lord’s Prayer” The next few verses teach us how to prepare to pray and be victorious.

Look good when you pray as fasting is seen by God our motivation for prayer should not be to look or appear we are something we are not.

Don't show off

   
¹⁶ “Moreover, when you fast, do not be like the hypocrites, with a sad countenance. For they disfigure their faces that they may appear to men to be fasting. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. ¹⁷ But you, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, ¹⁸ so that you do not appear to men to be fasting, but to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.

Let heaven be your motivation and the Kingdom of Heaven on earth motivate your entire life in giving through prayer, finances etc.

   
¹⁹ “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal;²⁰ but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. ²¹ For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

The Lamp of the Body

   
²² “The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light, ²³ but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!

God suggests to us here that our prayer is often hindered because we are caught up in worldly motivations to the point that the truth can actually become a lie.

   
²⁴ “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.

 

God also tells us that money is at the heart of our prayers.  I started to think about what we teach and what the Lord tells us in the Bible about money.  You will never be effective in prayer and warfare till you get a handle on money that’s what this scripture says.  Jesus went right from telling them how to pray to what hinders us in prayer. From Genesis through most of the Old Testament the Bible clearly teaches us that money was used for the redemption of someone.  So there is a price for us to see others redeemed.  I can not possibly quote all the scriptures about this so I suggest that you put money into the www.Biblegateway.com website and look for yourselves. Actually the only purpose of money is to redeem something or someone.  Think about it when you have money its purpose is to get something it isn’t good for anything else.  I can not express this too much.  The only reason to have money is to buy something.  So that being said if we can not surrender to God the thing that will redeem the world and that will further the Kingdom of God then we will be ineffective.  You can not serve to masters.  Double agents not allowed in God’s army.  Matthew 6 goes on to say, Do not worry.  It actually says take no thought for your life in the King James not do not worry and I think that it means take no thought for your life.  Don’t worry at all, obey and there is nothing to worry about.

 Matthew 6:25-34

²⁵ “Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; or about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? 

²⁶ Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? ²⁷ Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature? 
²⁸ “So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; ²⁹and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. ³⁰ Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 
³¹ “Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ ³² For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. ³³ But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. ³⁴ Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

Does that mean we shouldn’t use wisdom in our finances?  No! We need wisdom, in all areas of our lives.  It teaches us to have integrity in our business affairs.

 Matthew 7

New King James Version (NKJV) Do Not Judge

 ¹ “Judge not, that you be not judged. ² For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you. ³ And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? ⁴ Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me remove the speck from your eye’; and look, a plank is in your own eye? ⁵ Hypocrites! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.
⁶ “Do not give what is holy to the dogs; nor cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you in pieces.

Jesus also gave them a recipe for getting what they had need of in

 Verses 7-12

Keep Asking, Seeking, Knocking

 
⁷ “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. ⁸ For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. ⁹ Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? ¹⁰ Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent? ¹¹ If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him! ¹² Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.

.

So we have established that Jesus taught His disciples how to Watch and pray and asked them to do it but without the Holy Spirit alive in them they we not able to stay awake and do it.  We do have the Holy Spirit so it is a choice we will have to make.

 Luke 24: 44-53

The Scriptures Opened

 
⁴⁴ Then He said to them, “These are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning Me.” ⁴⁵ And He opened their understanding, that they might comprehend the Scriptures.
⁴⁶ Then He said to them, “Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day, ⁴⁷ and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. ⁴⁸ And you are witnesses of these things. ⁴⁹ Behold, I send the Promise of My Father upon you; but tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high.”

The Ascension

 
⁵⁰ And He led them out as far as Bethany, and He lifted up His hands and blessed them. ⁵¹ Now it came to pass, while He blessed them, that He was parted from them and carried up into heaven. ⁵² And they worshiped Him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy, ⁵³ and were continually in the temple praising and blessing God.

The Book of ACTS 1:

⁸ But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

Jesus Ascends to Heaven
⁹ Now when He had spoken these things, while they watched, He was taken up, and a cloud received Him out of their sight. ¹⁰ And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven as He went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel, ¹¹ who also said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will so come in like manner as you saw Him go into heaven.”

The disciples watched Jesus ascend to heaven then went and watched and waited in Jerusalem for the Power that Jesus promised and in Act 2 we can see that it fell and after that if you read the entire book of Acts you will see that they now had the ability to watch because of the power of the Holy Spirit. We can even see that when things were horrendous around them they could worship and praise God and pray even from the jail cell, Acts 16:16-40.  We can not do it ourselves, we need the Holy Spirit.

Jesus both showed them how He watched and prayed he told them to watch and pray and after all when He went to Heaven and told them to Go and watch and wait and pray until the Holy Spirit would come and fill them with the comforter the one who would bring all things Jesus had taught them to remembrance and in Act 2 the Holy Spirit came and filled them until the things they did were greater then the things that Jesus did.  They went and focused on the Kingdom come on Earth.

Acts 2 (KJV)

2 And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place.

² And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting.
³ And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them.
⁴ And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.
⁵ And there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heaven.