Reflective Bible Study

As we continue our year podcasting through Luke’s gospel, we come to a place where Luke describes Jesus teaching His disciples to pray. While Matthew’s gospel gets the majority of attention when looking at this event, the prayer Luke describes is surprisingly simple, while also being incredibly profound.

Let’s read what Luke wrote down, and discover what Jesus wanted the disciples to know about prayer. Our passage is found in Luke’s gospel, chapter 11, and we will read from the Good News Translation. Starting in verse 1, Luke tells us that:

¹ One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.”

² Jesus said to them, “When you pray, say this:
‘Father:
    May your holy name be honored;
    may your Kingdom come.
³ Give us day by day the food we need.
⁴ Forgive us our sins,
    for we forgive everyone who does us wrong.
    And do not bring us to hard testing.’”

While our passage continues, let’s pause here briefly. With this last request about not bringing us to hard testing, it appears as though the prayer ends. There is no “amen” or any other concluding phrase. This makes me wonder if the last portion of the prayer was lost, or if Jesus is sharing a simple example we can use as a framework for prayer.

Spread throughout the gospels are times when Jesus spent extended periods of time in prayer. Sometimes these prayers lasted for minutes, others hours, and a few even all night long. The example Jesus gives us likely wouldn’t even take us a minute to pray. This tells me that God probably values short, to the point, prayers over long prayers with lots of repetition.

When we look at this prayer Jesus told the disciples, we see four key parts. While some people can easily make acronyms and fancy models for prayer, I won’t attempt to do this. Instead, I will simply share the four big pieces I see in this prayer and how these pieces fit together in a powerful way.

The first portion of the prayer acknowledges God as our Father, and then we give Him glory, honor, and praise. Verse 2 states: “Father: May your holy name be honored; may your Kingdom come.” To summarize this first verse: Our prayer opens with acknowledging God for who He is and looking forward to the arrival of His Kingdom.

The next part of this prayer acknowledges God’s blessings and our requests for our present circumstances. We request our immediate needs focusing on God’s providing for the present moment of time we are living in. This is stated in verse 3 when Jesus says, “Give us day by day the food we need.” Not only do we ask God to be with us each day as we move forward through life, we ask Him to be actively giving us what we need every “present” moment of our lives.

The third part of this prayer focuses on forgiveness in the present, because of forgiveness in the past. We ask God to continue forgiving us because we are forgiving those who have done us wrong. Jesus states this by saying in the first part of verse 4, “Forgive us our sins, for we forgive everyone who does us wrong.” We want God to forgive us and we acknowledge Jesus’ promise that we are forgiven when we choose to forgive others.

The last part of this prayer focuses on protection for our future. While it sounds obvious that we wouldn’t want God to bring hard test or trials into our lives, this statement is a reminder for us that God protects our future. Jesus finishes this prayer at the end of verse 4 by saying “And do not bring us to hard testing”. We want God to protect us from things we cannot bear, and in a subtle way, we are reminding ourselves that God protects us and that anything that comes our way has been allowed into our lives because God knows He can turn it into a positive when we’ve learned from it.

This is Jesus’ model prayer.

In this prayer, we have two parallel progressive themes. The first big progressive theme is that this prayer begins by honoring God, before then asking God to provide for our present, forgive our past, and protect our future!

The second progressive summary still begins by honoring God, but then it asks God to provide for our physical, spiritual, and emotional needs. Our physical needs are represented by our food each day, our spiritual needs are represented by forgiveness, and our emotional needs are represented by our request for protection from the big tests of life.

If we keep all this in mind for our prayer time with God, I believe He will honor our prayers and answer them with our best interests in mind.

However, Jesus still has something else to teach us about prayer. Continuing in verse 5, Luke tells us:

⁵ [And] Jesus said to his disciples, “Suppose one of you should go to a friend’s house at midnight and say, ‘Friend, let me borrow three loaves of bread. ⁶ A friend of mine who is on a trip has just come to my house, and I don’t have any food for him!’ ⁷ And suppose your friend should answer from inside, ‘Don’t bother me! The door is already locked, and my children and I are in bed. I can’t get up and give you anything.’ ⁸ Well, what then? I tell you that even if he will not get up and give you the bread because you are his friend, yet he will get up and give you everything you need because you are not ashamed to keep on asking. ⁹ And so I say to you: Ask, and you will receive; seek, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you. ¹⁰ For those who ask will receive, and those who seek will find, and the door will be opened to anyone who knocks. ¹¹ Would any of you who are fathers give your son a snake when he asks for fish? ¹² Or would you give him a scorpion when he asks for an egg? ¹³ As bad as you are, you know how to give good things to your children. How much more, then, will the Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

In this additional teaching on prayer, Jesus challenges the disciples to pray purposefully and continually until we see God fully grant our request. However, we shouldn’t stop praying when God has started answering our prayers. Instead, we are challenged to shift our prayers from asking for our request to thanking God for answering our prayer.

The last big detail we have time for in this episode is where we should focus our prayer requests. When we ask God for His help, and for things that we need in our walk with Him, He knows exactly what we are asking for and He knows what the best thing we need is. God is more than willing to give us the best gift we need in any and every circumstance. However, it is worth pointing out that God has a much bigger perspective than we do, and this is why His best gifts might not always feel like the best gifts.

God knows exactly what we need, and God knows exactly the way to answer our prayers that leads us, and the most possible people, into a saving relationship with Jesus that ultimately leads into eternal life.

The best gift that God can give us is a gift that He is more than willing to give to us when we ask for it. This gift is His Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the best gift God can give us, because the Holy Spirit is the ultimate guide for our lives, and the Holy Spirit is more than willing to bless us with everything we need to lead us into eternity with God when we let Him into our hearts and lives!

As we come to the end of another podcast episode, here are the challenges I will leave you with:

As I always challenge you to do, intentionally seek God first in your life and choose to ask Him for His gift of the Holy Spirit. God is more than willing to answer this request and this request is one we should persist in when praying. Also, when praying, always acknowledge God for who He is, and ask Him to provide for your present, forgive your past, and protect your future!

As I also always challenge you to do, continue praying and studying the Bible for yourself to learn and grow closer to God each day. Prayer and study are among the best ways to grow a personal relationship with God and a personal relationship with God is what leads to eternal life. Above everything else, don’t let anyone get between you and your relationship with God!

And as I end every set of challenges by saying in one way or another, never stop short of, back away from, chicken out of, or give up on where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!

As we approach the halfway point in our year moving through prophecies and connections between Jesus’ ministry and the Old Testament, we arrive at a fascinating prophecy that marks a shift in the prophecies that point towards Jesus. As we will soon read, tucked within a prophecy about one of Israel’s neighboring nations being judged and punished, we discover a little bit of space being dedicated to pointing forward to the coming Messiah.

With this said, let’s read this prophecy, and unpack what we can learn from what is shared about the Messiah.

Our passage and Old Testament prophecy are found in the book of Zechariah, chapter 9, and we will read using the New American Standard Bible. Starting in verse 1, Zechariah writes:

¹ The burden of the word of the Lord is against the land of Hadrach, with Damascus as its resting place (for the eyes of men, especially of all the tribes of Israel, are toward the Lord),

² And Hamath also, which borders on it;
Tyre and Sidon, though they are very wise.
³ For Tyre built herself a fortress
And piled up silver like dust,
And gold like the mire of the streets.
⁴ Behold, the Lord will dispossess her
And cast her wealth into the sea;
And she will be consumed with fire.
⁵ Ashkelon will see it and be afraid.
Gaza too will writhe in great pain;
Also Ekron, for her expectation has been confounded.
Moreover, the king will perish from Gaza,
And Ashkelon will not be inhabited.
⁶ And a mongrel race will dwell in Ashdod,
And I will cut off the pride of the Philistines.
⁷ And I will remove their blood from their mouth
And their detestable things from between their teeth.
Then they also will be a remnant for our God,
And be like a clan in Judah,
And Ekron like a Jebusite.
⁸ But I will camp around My house because of an army,
Because of him who passes by and returns;
And no oppressor will pass over them anymore,
For now I have seen with My eyes.
⁹ Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion!
Shout in triumph, O daughter of Jerusalem!
Behold, your king is coming to you;
He is just and endowed with salvation,
Humble, and mounted on a donkey,
Even on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
¹⁰ I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim
And the horse from Jerusalem;
And the bow of war will be cut off.
And He will speak peace to the nations;
And His dominion will be from sea to sea,
And from the River to the ends of the earth.

In this set of verses, not only do we find a fascinating picture of Jerusalem’s king riding into the city victorious on the back of a donkey, we also get a picture hinted at that God will ultimately purify and accept certain groups of gentiles that many people might think God wouldn’t be interested in.

Primary among these newly accepted groups is the Philistines. There is no shortage of stories in the Old Testament where the Philistines show up and oppose Israel and Judah, appearing first within the stories of Abraham, and moving forward from prior to Israel even entering the promised land, through the judges and the united kingdom, up until the exile and Babylon conquering all of the nations in the region. As I say this, I don’t recall the Philistines showing up in a significant way after this point, but throughout Israelite history prior to Babylon, we find many places where this nation appears.

It is interesting in my mind that immediately after describing how God will purify the Phillistines and make them like one of the clans of Judah, we find God promising protection and pointing forward to a powerful symbol of the King of His kingdom riding into His city on a young donkey.

Moving forward into the New Testament, one of the most well documented events in Jesus’ life is His entrance into Jerusalem on the back of a young donkey at the start of the week leading forward to His crucifixion. One place this event is recorded is in Mark’s gospel, chapter 11, which begins by saying:

¹ As they approached Jerusalem, at Bethphage and Bethany, near the Mount of Olives, He sent two of His disciples, ² and said to them, “Go into the village opposite you, and immediately as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, on which no one yet has ever sat; untie it and bring it here. ³ If anyone says to you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ you say, ‘The Lord has need of it’; and immediately he will send it back here.” ⁴ They went away and found a colt tied at the door, outside in the street; and they untied it. ⁵ Some of the bystanders were saying to them, “What are you doing, untying the colt?” ⁶ They spoke to them just as Jesus had told them, and they gave them permission. ⁷ They brought the colt to Jesus and put their coats on it; and He sat on it. ⁸ And many spread their coats in the road, and others spread leafy branches which they had cut from the fields. ⁹ Those who went in front and those who followed were shouting:

“Hosanna!
Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord;
¹⁰ Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David;
Hosanna in the highest!”

In this amazing event, Jesus directs His disciples to go and borrow a young colt for Him to ride on. In a somewhat random thought I just had, if there were no bystanders present to confront the disciples taking the colt, what happened would have looked no different from a theft. It is also interesting in my mind that nothing in these disciples’ instructions to the owners of this colt is any mention that Jesus would be the one using it.

I don’t know if the owner of this colt, or the group of bystanders present, would have been sympathetic towards Jesus’ plans to ride on this young donkey. In this slightly cryptic set of instructions, Jesus basically tells the disciples to say that God needs to borrow the animal, and when God was finished, He would return it to the owner.

Not only was Jesus’ instructions to His disciples a small-scale prophecy, that was fulfilled when they went to borrow the colt, but the colt they ultimately borrowed was one specially set aside in the story of eternity as being the one designated to hold the King of the universe.

It is also amazing in my mind to take one more step back when looking at the fulfillment of this prophecy to realize that when Jesus made the way of salvation open to humanity, the way was made open not just for God’s people in an exclusive sense, but the way was made open for people from every nation to be invited into and adopted into God’s family. On the surface, of Israel’s neighboring nations, God makes the promise that He is willing to forgive, purify, and adopt the nation best known for being against His people.

Forgiveness is a key piece of God’s character, and we can take this prophecy as a promise that even though our past is filled with the stains of sin, mistakes, and regret, God is more than willing to adopt us into His family, and He is willing to purify us and make us one of His children. God loves you and He loves me, and Jesus made possible the way for God to show His love for each of us through what Jesus accomplished on the cross.

As we come to the end of another podcast episode, here are the challenges I will leave you with:

As I always open by challenging you, intentionally seek God first in your life and place your faith, hope, trust, and belief in Jesus. Thank Jesus for what He made possible through His death and humbly come before God asking for His help cleaning and purifying your life as He is willing to adopt you into His family.

Also, continue to pray and study the Bible for yourself to discover just how much God loves each of us. Discover in the pages of the Bible a God who is more in love with you than you might first realize, and a God who is more interested in redeeming you than you might be interested in being redeemed.

And as I end every set of challenges by saying in one way or another, never stop short of, back away from, chicken out of, or deviate away from where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!