Prayer: Not Like Them
Selected Scriptures
Connect:
Share how you have seen God in the Highs and Lows of your week.
Prayer:
Pray that God would lead your discussion time and bring fresh insight, conviction, and hope through your time together.
Review:
The disciples once asked Jesus, “Teach us to pray.” Which means they realized they didn’t know how to do it. So he teaches them the prayer known as The Lord’s Prayer. In Matthew 6, Jesus doesn’t just give words to say, he reshapes how prayer works—the posture, the priority, and the practice of prayer. This series walks straight through Jesus’ teaching, helping us move from religious, performance-driven prayer to relational, trusting, God-centered prayer. We’ll learn to pray the Jesus way, and this week we look at what ‘not’ to do i prayer…
The Grand Tour of the message: Thinking back on what you heard this Sunday…
o What did you learn about God?
o What did you learn about people?
o What did you learn about yourself?
o What do you want to commit to putting into practice?
Reflection:
Personal Experience:
Let’s say you have a friend who is a strict and dutiful Muslim; s/he prays scripted prayers 5 times a day and never misses the recitation of the Quran at the Masjid (even though it is in Arabic, a language s/he does not speak). DISCUSS: One day s/he asks you, “How is a Christian supposed to pray?” How would you respond?
Reflective Discussion (Remember to look at the context of the verses as you are reading!):
Read the following passages and discuss
What are signs that our prayer is a matter of mindless recitation, a public performance or simply not that important? (1 Sam 16:7, Ps 91:1-2, Micah 6:8, Matt 6:5-8, Matt 23:5-12, Luke 18:9-4, 1 Cor 14:15, Col 3:23-24)
What is the source, the heart, of a living, vital prayer life in these passages: (Ps 24:3-4, Ps 62:5-8, Ps 141:1-3, Is 30:15, Jer 29:12-13, John 15:1-8, Rom 8:14-17)
When we pray, we pray to God Who calls us to pray to Him as Father. DISCUSS: Use the following Scriptures to identify facets of the relationship we are invited into as His children; Who is He to us and who are we to Him?
Is 49:13-17, Matt 6: 9-13, Phil4:4-7, John 15:7-17, Rom 8:15-17, Heb 4:14-16, 1 Peter 5:5-7.
Watch this VIDEO together what impacted you the most in regards to our discussion question (Who is He to us, and we to Him)?
If we are to pray an “honest prayer”, we need to be honest not only about how we feel (our doubts, fears, pain) but also about who we are (saved by grace, needing to grow, not aware of everything God is doing….). DISCUSS: Read the following passages and draw out the characteristics of an honest prayer that honors God.
1 Kings 19:1-18, Ps 13:1-6, PS 66:16-20, Ps 131:1-3, Ps 22, Mark 9:20-27, 1 John 1:6-9
Application:
What is a prayer that you have to bring to the Lord this week that is both honest and humble?
Prayer:
Spend some time together praying that the Lord would help us to keep that commitment and teach us through HIs Word, by His Spirit, in a way that we do not just learn more ‘about’ Him, but rather draw closer in our relationship with Him.
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