What is prayer? How does it work? What is happening when we pray? Why can’t I seem to do it more often or more consistently? Can I do it better? All of these questions get wrapped up into one request that the disciples had for Jesus. In Luke 11:1 they said, “Lord, teach us to pray.” Jesus responds by teaching them what has come to be known as the Lord’s Prayer. In this study we will look closely at the Lord’s Prayer and what it teaches us about the nature and power of prayer. This prayer is a gift to believers for shaping our own prayers. Remember that the request wasn’t what we should pray, but how we should pray. While we can and do pray this prayer from memory, Jesus taught it as a pattern of prayer for his disciples to follow. We can do no better than to sit under the teaching of Jesus when we have the same request. We will use the Bible and Luther’s Small Catechism as our textbooks.
Instructor: Ed Nugent
Course Objective
To help you to appreciate the importance of prayer in a believer’s life by looking closely at the Lord’s Prayer and what it teaches us about the nature and power of prayer.
What You Will Learn
- To explain what biblical prayer is and why we can always have confidence that our prayers are heard and are always effective
- To explain how God answers prayer, the Trinitarian nature of prayer, what it means to pray to a holy Father God, and what kinds of things we are called to pray for
- To explain how your sinful nature wants your name to be exalted. and how Jesus intentionally confronts your sinful nature and gives himself as the one who is holy for you
- To explain your desires for the coming of your kingdom and how Jesus is the one who promises the coming of an everlasting kingdom
- To explain your demands that your will would be done and how Jesus proclaims the Father’s good and perfect will to save sinners
- To explain why living in dependence upon God is difficult for you, but your Father knows your needs and graciously provides for his children
- To explain that Jesus teaches you to live in the forgiveness that he has earned for you and to extend that forgiveness to others
- To explain how your Father is not the source of your temptations, instead he provides his son Jesus as your Deliverer from the evil one
- To explain how Jesus himself prayed the way that he taught his disciples to pray and how Jesus modeled each of the petitions of the Lord’s Prayer in his own prayers
- To explain how a successful prayer life is rooted not in getting God to do what you want him to do, but in resting in what God has already done for you and promised he will complete in you
Textbook Requirement
- Olsen, Warren and David Rinden, eds., Explanation of Luther’s Small Catechism, Fergus Falls: Faith & Fellowship Press, 1992.
Copies are available through the CLBA Faith & Fellowship Bookstore at the following link: https://clbforge.org/store/p/explanation-of-luthers-small-catechism
Course Module Topics
- Introduction to Prayer
- Your Name, Your Kingdom, Your Will
- Our Daily Bread, Forgiveness, and Deliverance
- The Prayer Life of Jesus