A Prayer Guide

In your praying, and there's nothing wrong with bringing your petitions to God, and as you read through the Bible, you'll realize that God really does encourage you over and over again to come to Him as a good Heavenly Father.

He's not going to shame you for being a person who is fallible, who has needs. So certainly God is not looking upon you with disapproval when you bring requests to Him. You're invited to bring those requests to Him, but certainly there is more to prayer than simply just asking God for things.

So we can sometimes treat God as a magic genie who we approach only when we have something that we need, and then when we fall into that temptation, we are dishonoring the Lord in a pretty fundamental and profound way.

So when we think about how we should be praying, our biblical prayers should begin with adoration and praise, and as you read through the Psalms, one of the things you'll realize is that so much of the Psalms are devoted to praising God, so it's not just presenting requests as people who need certain things from God and are only using God as a means to an end.

Our prayers to God should be filled with adoration and praise because God is worthy of all worship and He's worthy of all praise. You can imagine that on a human level. If you're a parent, you've ever had kids, you realize that kids have a great capacity to do this very thing that I'm talking about, where they'll come to you when they want something and then they'll largely ignore you during the rest of the time that you have with them.

That is a natural temptation that people have. You see this, as I said, over and over and over again, to where you can view a person as a means to an end, and certainly there's nothing wrong with a kid coming, there's certainly nothing wrong with a child coming to their parent and presenting their request to them, but being a good child means there's more to prayer than that, there's more to a relationship with their parents than simply asking them for things and treating them as a means to.

An end.

Certainly our prayers should be filled with adoration, certainly they should be filled with praise, and this is part of how the Lord's Prayer is meant to start. So we acknowledge who God is. We say, God is our Father.

So in this biblical prescription for prayer, biblical framework of prayer, it starts out with acknowledgement that God is our Father. He's the source of our life. He's the source of everything that we have.

He is a good Heavenly Father who has provided us everything that we need for life and godliness. He's the reason why we exist. We owe everything to Him. So just as a child owes their existence to their parents, so also we owe our existence to God, and when we approach God in prayer, it's proper to acknowledge our relationship.

To Him.

So we acknowledge who He is. So not only are we acknowledging who He is, He's our Father, we're also acknowledging His location as it were. Now God is obviously, He's everywhere, He's omnipresent, God is everywhere, but then acknowledging that our Father is in Heaven is a way of acknowledging His power and His authority and His rule over all the universe.

So looking at God in that way, we're simply acknowledging something in phenomenological language about the nature of Him and His power and His authority. So when we approach God in prayer, we should be thinking in the first instance of giving Him praise, acknowledging who He is, and praising Him.

So our Father in Heaven, hallowed be Your name. When we pray this way, we're essentially saying, God, You are worthy of all worship. You are worthy of all praise. And there's plenty of things that can fit in this general category that you might describe in the language of adoration and praise, thanksgiving for who God is, for what He's done, for His attributes, His character, His purposes in the world.

As you read through the Bible, what you're going to find is very often Biblical prayers are going to be centered around God's mighty acts in history, His purposes in the world. So you read through the Old Testament, you'll realize that many of their prayers, even very late in the Old Testament, they're looking back to the Exodus and God's mighty act of deliverance with the Exodus and giving Him praise for who He is and for what He has done.

So our prayers should include this foundational element. We're not just approaching God as users, like in the way that a user would, like I only come around to you when I have something I want from you.

We're not just simply approaching Him that way, we're approaching Him in terms of our relationship with Him and praising Him in the process. So Romans 1 says that man is condemned because they did not glorify God, neither did they give thanks, but they became foolish in their thinking, their foolish hearts were darkened, professing to be wise they became fools.

Much of Biblical prayer should be centered on glorifying God, giving thanks, praising Him for who He is and for what He has done. Man is fundamentally condemned because he rejects that responsibility to praise his.

Maker.

I'm not trying to say that man enters into the world obviously in a non-condemned state and then he becomes condemned because he refuses to praise God, but that is confirming and adding to his condemnation the fact that he refuses to give adoration and praise to God.

Any questions about that one? First, adoration and praise? Alright, second, so the Biblical framework of prayer, we say adoration and praise is the first element of the Lord's Prayer. Second, the advancement of God's Kingdom.

So notice the Lord's Prayer here, it says, Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. And as we think about this in general, as I've heard people talk through the Lord's They often present this as an isolated element when I would think that a lot of the other stuff needs to be put into this kind of framework, meaning what you shouldn't be doing is thinking about these things as completely isolated kind of components, even though there's some utility in doing that, if you understand what I mean.

So I've given you a framework of prayer, I said, number one, you have adoration and praise, two, the advancement of God's Kingdom, three, physical needs, four, confession of sin, five, spiritual aid. There's a temptation when you're looking at something like this to consider all of these things as being distinct categories, if that makes sense, like distinct categories that are completely unrelated, are you following what I mean?

So if you were to, maybe an analogy would be helpful here, I don't know if this is the best analogy, but if you were to imagine a sandwich, you can imagine one of these things is a piece of bread and then you have a piece of cheese is another thing, and a piece of meat is another thing, and then another piece of bread kind of thing.

Now if you have all those things laying on the counter as distinct elements, a lot of times we're tempted to treat this framework in that way as if they're all just distinct things, so the first one is just a piece of bread, and the second one is a piece of cheese, and then that third one is a piece of meat, and then maybe the fourth one is a piece of lettuce or whatever, some vegetables, and so you see all those things laying on the counter and then you treat them as separate things, but then the issue is you need to kind of put them all together and realize that they're all connected.

If you put them all together, you realize there's a relationship between them all, like a sandwich is not just individual components, if that makes sense. So when you think about the advancements of God's kingdom, that's the priority that should govern all of the rest, does that make sense?

Do you understand the difference between viewing the advancement of God's kingdom as one distinct element and then viewing it as the priority that governs all the rest? So for instance, like when you're praying for number three, when you're praying for physical needs, you're not just praying for physical needs, period, the end, why?

Can someone tell me why? I'm going to quiz you, ask the question one more time. I'm trying to say why is it important to consider the advancement of God's kingdom as the category which governs all the rest, so what would be the difference between doing that and then praying for physical needs, period, the end, in an abstract way?

Right, right, so is it God's, for instance, let's think about the relationship of these two things together for a second. Is it God's purpose for us to live to be 150? Okay, but you could pray for physical needs like that, if you understand what I mean.

You could be praying for physical needs as if it's just God's purpose and plan for you to be infinitely old. But then if you read through the Bible, one of the things you'll realize is that obviously it's a point that a man wants to die and after that judgment to live as Christ and to die as Cain.

Death is a certainty, there's two certainties, death and taxes, and I suppose they even tax you for dying now, so those two are connected too. But no, the point there is just to say that we're not promised just a long, healthy life, period, the end, and you can adopt a mindset that basically says, like that is coming to God in prayer for your physical needs to where your expectation is that he almost extends your life out indefinitely because in your heart and in your mind you're really afraid of dying and you're trying to just put it off because you're afraid of dying.

But just because the fact that the point here that I'm trying to say is just because the Lord's Prayer includes prayers for our daily needs, this isn't meant to say that you just pray for your physical needs any way you want to pray for them.

My point is to say that you should be praying for your physical needs in view of the advancement of God's kingdom. That's what I'm trying to say. So you shouldn't just be praying for physical needs, period, the end.

So for instance, just to give you an example of the kind of thing that I'm talking about, like imagine that you have a 95-year-old woman who has Alzheimer's who is your loved one, who has just gotten sick and there's a possibility that her sickness could lead to death.

How should Christians pray for her in that moment? Well there's any number of ways in which you could pray for her in that moment, but sometimes what Christians think is the Christian way to pray for her because we're told to give us this day our daily bread is just to pray that she keep on living indefinitely, forever, that God will just heal all the sickness and take it all away.

You can pray for that in such a way that you're denying God's purposes in the world. Do you see what I mean? For instance, I hope when I'm 95 everyone's not praying for me to just stick around for another 20 years, okay?

I hope at that point you just pray that we've had enough of him, okay? Just let him go to heaven, you know? I'm happy with that. I hope at that point everyone is ready for me to go see Jesus who is the object of my hope.

He's had a nice long life. Hopefully people at that point will be thanking God for whatever God has done through my life and ready for me to go to my reward. Do you see what I mean? I hope that people aren't, if I'm 95 years old, just praying, take all the boo-boos away still for me, take all the sickness away, just make everything easy and comfortable and safe for me and just keep me around indefinitely, forever.

I hope that we've all read Ecclesiastes and seen that, yeah, this fallen world has effects on us and old age, desire fails, the grasshopper is bent because man is going to his eternal.

Maker.

In other words, I hope that when I'm that age people aren't still trying to hold on forever and have a perspective of my life that to live is Christ and to die is gain and hopefully they look at my life and say, hey, he's ran his race well and we're excited about the fact that he's going to his maker.

We're not just trying to keep him here forever kind of thing, does that make sense? So you can pray, but what I'm trying to say is you need to as you're looking at all of these categories, you need to not just be viewing them as distinct categories that bear no relation to each other, you should realize that they're all connected.

So the advancement of God's kingdom should be the priority that we should be praying towards which informs all of the other categories. So what would that look like, yeah, what would that look like with praying for physical needs for instance?

Yeah, I mean, what I'm trying to say is if you're praying for things in light of God's kingdom, then God's kingdom advancing is the priority if that makes sense and so everything that you're praying for should be informed by that kind of category.

So if you have someone who's been working, this is their life work for the kingdom that they've been working on their whole life, praying, help them to finish it would be a prayer that would be informed by the advancement of God's kingdom.

It wouldn't be a prayer that would be informed just simply like keep us here as long as possible because we'll miss them when they go kind of prayer, right? So it is directed towards the advancement of God's kingdom in the first instance because I mean that's what Paul says, to live is Christ and to die is gain.

It would be better for me to depart, right, but I desire to remain to be needful with you for you, right, but then I'm hard pressed between these two priorities. A lot of times we can pray in such a way that there is no it would be better for my sake that I depart portion of that at all, right?

It's only just help me to stick around and be as healthy as possible for as long as possible, peer the end with no thought about how that would relate to the advancement of God's kingdom at all really.

Yes?

Would you say that that would be selfish basically? There could be a very real element of self-centeredness that James is addressing in James 4. So James 4 we're going to talk about that with questions to ask before praying but that's number two on your list.

Am I asking with right motives but there is a kind of self-centeredness that could be present there. I'm wording this in a very qualified way but James 4 .1 says what causes quarrels and what causes fights among you?

Is it not this that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have so you murder, you covet and cannot obtain so you fight and.

Quarrel.

You do not have because you do not ask and you ask and you do not receive because you ask wrongly to spend it on your passions that you ask wrongly to spend it on your passions. Many of our prayers for physical needs can be if you view them through that lens they could be prayers that we're putting forward where we're asking wrongly just to spend it on our passions kind of prayers.

Now if you hear me to be saying that every time you pray for a physical need you're asking wrongly to spend it on your passions that would be a mishearing right of what I'm saying. I'm not saying that.

I'm simply saying that you can be praying for physical needs like that and you should be aware of that temptation and the way that you try to fix that temptation is realize that the advancement of God's kingdom is the agenda that should be informing all of the rest of these things.

So you should in your mind be thinking the thing I want most is to advance God's kingdom whether by life or death, by health, by sickness, by wealth, by poverty. I want to advance God's.

Kingdom.

That's what I want. That's what it means to say to live as Christ and to die as gain. I want to advance God's kingdom. That's what I'm here for. That's my whole purpose for existence. That's what I want.

So then when you're praying, what I'm trying to say is when you're praying for physical needs you can pray for them in that light. If it would honor you, if it would honor you God and help to advance your kingdom more by keeping me around, then I would ask you to keep me around.

If it would advance your kingdom more and honor you more to take me home, well that's gain for me, right? But that's a very different perspective of praying for physical needs than just simply I'm in a scary situation, fix it kind of thing.

So, and we shouldn't be surprised that if that's our perspective at times, I'm in a scary situation, just fix it. Why God would just not answer those prayers because he says those are the kind of prayers that he doesn't answer, if that makes sense.

So your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven, that is the priority that should govern all of the rest. Any thoughts or questions about that? Was he worse off to stick around? Explain the thought process about why he would, just because of the thing.

I mean I think, yeah, I don't know that I would say he's worse off, but certainly you could use those years in a way that honors the Lord or you can use those years in a way that doesn't. I don't know that everyone uses them perfectly for sure.

A lot of times people, when they are praying for things like that, they can get real serious when there's an imminent threat and then when the threat is lifted, then they go back to complacency. So I mean that's a common temptation that many people have when they're praying along these lines, but yeah.

So biblical framework of prayer, you have adoration and praise, you have the advancement of God's kingdom, you have prayer for physical needs, so give us this day our daily bread. This could be viewed in a hyper-Calvinistic kind of way to where you think that because God is sovereign, you shouldn't pray at all, right?

So because God is sovereign, everything that He declares to happen is going to happen because if you view the world in a fatalistic kind of way, you can think to yourself, well, everything that God wants to happen will happen.

If He wanted it to happen, He would have made it happen. He's going to do whatever He's going to do. There's nothing that I'm going to do that's going to change His mind. I can't twist His arm. I can't make Him do anything that He doesn't want to do, so therefore, why pray?

So in a hyper-Calvinistic way, there are many people who have that temptation to view prayer like that, to say, well, because God's determined the ends from the beginning, why bother? In the opposite extreme, in a hyper-Arminian kind of framework, and I don't even know if it's hyper, I think it's more the logical entailments of Arminianism and the logical entailments of Arminianism, there's almost, it almost doesn't make sense to pray at all anyways.

I mean, this is how I used to think when I was growing up. I used to think that, you know, related to prayer, that because my will was sovereign, I saw my will as sovereign, and God had decided to limit Himself by refusing to interact with my will, because that's the way I viewed God, then prayer stopped making sense for me, because, you know, why would it make sense?

So for example, if you have a loved one who is not saved, you have a natural inclination to bring that request before God and say, will you save my loved one? Well, the problem is if you're embraced like an Arminian view of free will at that point, then it becomes very difficult to even know how to bring that request to God, okay?

Because imagine how it works, it's like, well Lord, will you please save him, well, I guess you can't, you've given him free will, you can't change his will, so, I guess that doesn't make sense to say, Lord, will you please save him?

I guess, well, Lord, help him of his own free will to choose to, well, how would God help him of his own free will, what way could He possibly help him, because he has to decide to do, to choose God, so, well, I guess that doesn't make sense either, but Lord, can you please send someone to talk, well, I guess if you sent someone, that means you would violate their will, too, so, that doesn't make sense either, well, never mind, I give up, you know, and that's kind of how I thought growing up, and I just stopped praying because I, I, I stopped praying because I realized that God, if He has given everyone free will, then He can't violate their free will in any way, then I don't know what the point of doing all this is, and, you know, so then, it just, like, why bother, so, what I'm trying to say is, in a hyper-Calvinistic way, you can say, well, everything is determined, so, why pray for it, in an Arminian way, you can say, well, God is limited, like, He can't do anything anyway, so, why bother praying for it, but yet, the Bible tells us right here in our biblical framework of prayer, in the Lord's Prayer, give us this day our daily bread, God tells us to pray for things, James 4, I've read James 4, what does James 4 say, it says, you desire and do not have, so you murder, you covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel, and it says, you do not have because you do not ask, James 4, 2, you do not have because you do not ask, so, God, obviously, plans the end from the beginning, but He also plans the means to His ends, and one of the means that He's planned to give you what you need, is by you coming to ask Him for that need, do you understand, so, basically, we are encouraged to come to our Heavenly Father, as a good Heavenly Father, and come with persistence, even, at times, so, you remember the parable of the persistent, I suppose she was a widow coming to the judge for justice, I think, but, you understand what I mean, like, we're told to come to God with persistence and to bring our requests before Him, and, in doing so, we're not trying to change His plan from before the foundation of the world, we don't know what His plan is before the foundation of the world, but whatever His plan before the foundation of the world is, is going to involve good works that we're gonna walk in, and one of those good works is going to be us presenting our requests to Him, in time, and Him responding to those requests in time, and answering our prayers, meaning, I'm simply saying that, from our perspective, looking at the order of events, God has sovereignly planned before the foundation of the world, that we would come to Him with requests, and then, see the fulfillment of those prayers answered in time, in history, so, we're told to come to God, and then, we are also told that if we don't have something that we need, it may be because we're not asking Him and bringing our requests before Him, so, biblical prayer, framework of prayer is adoration and praise, the advancement of God's kingdom, and then, physical needs, so, any thoughts about this topic of bringing physical needs to God, questions about that?

I'm gonna have to look it up, I don't know if I can look it up this quick, but, maybe the answer is, I don't know, we're ever dependent on God, yeah, so, I think if you look at your job, a lot of people are looking to their job to be a source of provision, in that way, to where, instead of seeing that God is sovereign behind all those things, if you have a job, then you may not think to pray, give me this day my daily bread, because you have a job, and you have a paycheck, and that paycheck is coming in, and you're looking to your bank account to do that, but, one of the things you're told as Christian is that, yes, in all your ways, acknowledge Him, so, everywhere you go, you acknowledge Him, so, praying, give us this day our daily bread, is not a person who doesn't have a job, like, it doesn't only apply to a person who doesn't have daily bread, or who doesn't have a job to provide them daily bread, so, this isn't just directed towards the person with an uncertain existence, it's directed towards everyone, we're supposed to acknowledge God in our prayers, because you know that, hey, we don't know what a day may bring, you don't know what tomorrow is gonna bring, you don't even know that you're not gonna get in a wreck in that, or stock market crash, and everything's gone, and whatever else, so, this is a prayer that everyone should be praying, and when you're praying that prayer, give us this day our daily bread, you're basically acknowledging that God is the source of life, He's the source of health, He's the source of everything that we need, and so, we come to Him, basically acknowledging His sovereignty over all of our affairs, over our day, and basically saying, give us what we need today, to accomplish your purposes, and that's, that's the way you should think about these prayers for physical needs, you're praying, give us this day everything that we need, in order to accomplish your purposes, whether that's life, or health, or strength, or sustenance, so everything, you know, a lot of your prayers for physical needs, really do need to take that form, give us what we need today, in order to advance your purposes in the world, and I mean, that's, even when there's like, specific pressing things that you think you need, in order to keep on existing in the world, they should be put in that larger category of, pray that you resolve this problem, so that we can be useful for your kingdom, with an acknowledgement that that may not be His plan, but it is amazing thought to think that we really are invincible, until God wants to take us home, so in books, you describe this phenomenon as plot armor, right, you look confused, so plot armor, like the concept of plot armor, is the concept of, like if you imagine there's a story, that you already know exists, so say that there's a, there's a movie, and then you write the prequel next, right, well you know that whatever dangers the person faces, in the prequel, are not going to be dangers that are going to kill them, because they have to get to the main movie, does that make sense, so it, you can put them in dangerous situation, after dangerous situation, but they have plot armor, like meaning, you know that whatever they go through, it's not going to take them out, even though it feels like it's like, this may take them out, you know, in the story, well the issue is like, we as Christians, we know that we have plot armor too, like God has numbered our days, there's nothing that can happen to us, that is going to take us out prematurely, there's a general, I can't, I think it was a general in the Civil War, but I can't remember who it was, but he basically said that he had learned to feel as safe on the battlefield, as he did in church, because he knew that nothing could happen to him, apart from God's will, and that when it was his time to go, it was his time to go, but we should look at life like that, that we have, we have plot armor, so to speak, right, God has, God has appointed our end, and there's nothing that's going to stop us from getting to that end, and, and so when we're praying for physical needs, you should pray confidently in that kind of light, knowing that you have, you have plot armor, you know, you're going to live, when you're going to, the moment you die is planned by God, and there's nothing that anyone can do to stop that from happening, yourself included, right, so we should be thinking about those things that way, so, our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven, give us this day our daily bread, then forgive us our debts, as we have forgiven our debtors, you know, a major part of biblical prayer involves confession of sin, and we should be realizing that our most, the most important challenges that we face in life are not category number three challenges, so God, you know, he clothes grass of the field, feeds the birds of the air, our biggest challenges in life are really not that, we know that God is going to take care of those things, we know that we serve a heavenly Father, who delights to give us good gifts, if you look back on God's provision for you in the past, you know, you should be able to realize today that you're here, you existed, God has sustained you, he's going to do whatever it takes to get you from where you're at right now, to your final destination, there's no way that you're going to be able to stop that, but he does invite you to come and to confess your sins to him, like your biggest needs in life are spiritual needs, and confession of sin is a big part of that prayer, so first John says, if we confess our sins, he's faithful and just to cleanse us our sins and forgive us from all unrighteousness, when we confess our sins before God, every time we confess our sins, that's not a moment of justification, so meaning like there is a prayer that we pray to God, where we ask God to forgive us our sins, so how do we respond to the message of good news, I'm not suggesting there's a formula or something along those lines, but how do you respond to the good news, you respond to the good news and faith and repentance, have mercy on me a sinner, there's plenty of biblical prayers along those lines to where you have the tax collector, who is praying his bombastic prayers, but the kind of prayers that God answers are the prayers where a contrite sinner comes before God, and basically acknowledges their need of him, and faith and repentance, so that is, a command is justified by faith alone, as a free gift, where God's Christ's righteousness is imputed to him, so we are justified on the basis of faith alone, and that faith, if it's a biblical faith, it will cause us to confess our sins, right, so Romans 10, 9 says, if you confess with your mouth, Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you will be saved, this is certainly part of justification as we come to God, but then this is a pattern that the Christian should have throughout the whole scope of their life, as they continually acknowledge their sinfulness before God, and receive his forgiveness, not in the judicial sense of justification, but then in the sense of restoring a familial relationship, so part of the way to think about this need for continual confession of sin, is you're not praying for God to justify you over and over and over again every time you sin, you're not just praying, justify me again, justify, it's not like your salvation is lost every time you sin, but you know, when a person is saved, they are regenerated by the Holy Spirit before that, they're given saving faith, they are justified, they are adopted into God's family, when you're adopted into God's family though, there are ways in which you can violate God's will, and you should come to him, confessing your sin, and asking for forgiveness, but then you're confessing your sin and asking forgiveness as a person who is secure in that family, so it's not as if every time you sin as a Christian, you're being taken outside of God's family, so my kids, they entered into my family by virtue of their birth, my brother has adopted two kids, he's thinking about adopting two more, they entered into his family by adoption, but there's nothing that they did in order to warrant or earn their adoption into that family, but when they sin against their parents or their brothers and sisters as members of that family, they need to deal with that sin as a family member, so it shouldn't be held over their heads that every time you sin, we may unadopt you, right, that kind of thing, so God is not doing that to us every time we sin, God's not threatening to unadopt us, at the same time we need to deal with our sin, and because we're sinners and because we have the old man that we're waging war against, a big part of our sin should be simple confession of sin, where we say forgive us our debts as we have forgiven our debtors, and so notice we're coming to the father as adopted members in his family, confessing our sin, asking forgiveness for our sin as family members, with the knowledge that we should be doing the same to our brothers and sisters who sin against us, because if God has forgiven us a massive debt that we could never repay, I mean if he's forgiven us a debt, an astronomical debt that we can never repay, we don't want to be like the wicked servant who is grabbing our fellow servant and choking him over a relatively small trifle, God would describe that kind of person as a wicked and evil person who refuses to forgive his brother their debts, and if we're that kind of person it really does call into question whether or not we've received the forgiveness that we think we've received there, so biblical framework of prayer is adoration and praise, advancement of God's kingdom, prayers for physical needs, confession of sin, any thoughts related to that, confession of sin, all right, number five, number five, lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil, finally have what you might describe as prayers for spiritual aid, it's interesting as you read through the New Testament and see the things that Paul prays about, this is a good study, I don't know if you've done this before, I've done this at different churches I've been at where we kind of walked through Paul's prayers and tried to draw some application from those prayers, there's a good book on that by D .A. Carson called Praying with Paul that I would definitely recommend you consider, but this is a good study in general but it is somewhat striking to think about the nature of Paul's prayers and think about the ratios of them, okay, so when we're, one danger of looking at this biblical framework of prayer in the way that I've divided it up is the danger of thinking about each one of these things as distinct kind of, well, separate units that are distinct, disconnected, and of equal priority, does that make sense?

I mean that's a real danger in thinking about this, now I would say most of the churches I've been at my whole life, if you have a prayer list, what's going to find its way on that prayer list is all number three kind of things, and so then what prayer time is is mostly just rehashing the sick list, that's what it is, you know, and that hasn't been my experience here but that's been my experience in other places, but what I'm trying to say here is that this, you shouldn't think about this prayer framework as if these things all, in biblical prayer, should be devoted equal time, if that makes sense, and that's not really what comes from a study of the Bible, like if you study biblical prayers what you're going to find is that Paul's prayers, for instance, are imbalanced in certain ways, so you shouldn't think about these things as a thing of balance, so I mean I think as I said, I mean our natural temptation as we go out into the world is we live our life from day to day, if you try to pray without any intentionality, I imagine there's going to be a lot of three, maybe a lot of four too, okay, and I think every time you sin you should take that as an opportunity to do number four because that should be there, right, but what's amazing is I think this number five kind of prayers in our own experience as Christian often are not being prayed as much as they should, and so we're like Peter and the disciples in the garden who are basically saying if all men deny you I wouldn't deny you, and then we fall asleep and we don't pray, stay awake and pray with Jesus, and then big shock, you know, we fall into sin after sin after sin, so I think of all of these things, number five is the one that we're most tempted to neglect, I would say, in our own experience, and then we fall into sin as a result of that, just like Peter, we're just playing that snare and arrow out every day and multiple times in multiple ways, and then we're kind of surprised as to why we don't have as much victory over sin as we should.

When you think about Paul's prayers, I mean they sound very different than our prayers at times, okay, I want to just give you an example of what I'm talking about so that you'll understand what I mean.

Here's one example of this kind of thing. Let's read Ephesians 3 .14. So Ephesians 3 .14, for this reason I bow my knees before the Father from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named. That sounds like the our father who is in heaven, hallowed be your name part, right?

So for this reason I bow my knees before the Father from whom every family in heaven and earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory, we're still in, you know, adoration and praise, right?

He may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit, that in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, that you being rooted and grounded in love may have strength to comprehend with the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations forever and ever.

Amen. So you think about that prayer, that's the way that most of the prayers in the New Testament sound. So you walk through this Lord's Prayer Guide and what you'll see is equal attention is often not given to every one of these elements.