Here’s How to Pray According to the Bible
Prayer is a vital aspect of Christian life. But knowing how to go about praying effectively can be a challenge. Thankfully, the Bible offers many examples of how to practice this spiritual discipline. Let’s look at some examples to help us to learn how to pray according to the Bible.
How to Pray According to the Bible
In figuring out how we should pray, we would want to start with looking at what Jesus said about prayer. Questions about how to pray are not unusual. The disciples asked Jesus how to pray and he gave them a pattern to follow.
This pattern is what we know as The Lord's Prayer, found in Matthew 6:9-13. Let’s look at each piece separately to see how we can apply it to our own prayer time.
“Our Father in heaven, hallowed by your name”
Prayer begins with an important two-part addressing of God. First, we acknowledge that God is holy, meaning that he is God and there’s no one like him. But we also address him as our father — he is a God who can be known and who knows us!
When we pray and address God as both God and Father, we are saying something profound: We are expressing faith!
Scripture says:
“And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.”
With this first statement, we are stating our faith.
“Your Kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven”
The next step in prayer is putting ourselves under his will. Asking for God’s will reminds us to submit our own. Remember that he rewards those who seek him and so we can trust his will.
A biblical example of a prayer made specifically with God’s will in mind is Hannah’s prayer. Hannah was desperate for a child and earnestly prayed to God for that child, promising to dedicate him to God's service. She poured her heart out to God expressing her deepest desires and pains.
But she also wanted her blessing to honor God. She received that child and dedicated him to serving the Lord his whole live. That child’s name was Samuel, and he was an important man in Israel’s history.
Hannah’s story encourages us to pray with a spirit of surrender, asking for our heart’s desire while still being ever mindful of the will of God.
“Give us today our daily bread”
In this aspect of prayer, Jesus invites us to make requests for our basic day to day needs. We may pray for these daily needs simply because we recognize that God is the provider of all. Or, we could ask God for these daily needs because the subject of our prayer can be as basic and everyday as asking God for daily bread.
Sometimes we think that prayer needs to be eloquent or profound, but really God just wants us to talk to him about our regular lives — like what’s for dinner! God wants us to talk to him about everything.
The Psalms are filled with examples of prayers for every circumstance, from David's pleas for guidance and forgiveness to expressions of anger and joy. David celebrated important events in prayer like victories in battle, but he also prayed about mundane things like having trouble sleeping.
And that’s what prayer should look like — every day, every event in life is shared with God as our Father and as our friend. It’s simply sharing our hopes and dreams, frustrations, and disappointments with our God.
“And forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors”
This section of the Lord’s prayer focuses on a very important spiritual need that we all have: forgiveness. Jesus died for our sins so that our debt could be forgiven. We all know that to be true. If we know anything about Jesus, we know that he forgives sin.
But we do not want to take that knowledge for granted (and we have a tendency to take things for granted). That is one of the reasons Jesus instituted the Lord’s Supper — to remember. With Jesus himself establishing the Lord’s Prayer, we are reminded to ask for that forgiveness.
This reminder will also raise our awareness of the importance of both being forgiven and forgiving others.
“And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one”
It seems pretty obvious to ask God to keep us from temptation and evil. Maybe we think it goes without saying. But let’s remember to say it!
A man named Jabez said it out loud. It’s pretty much all we know about Jabez — the prayer that he prayed:
“Oh that you would bless me and expand my territory! Please be with me in all that I do, and keep me from all trouble and pain! ”
And God granted him his request. It was that simple.
Try Praying the Bible Way — Today!
Prayer is so powerful, and scripture gives us many examples of the power of prayer. Whenever you feel unsure of how to pray, comfort yourself with the knowledge that the disciples were unsure as well.
And we, like them, can follow Jesus’ instructions on how to pray according to the Bible. We can experience all of the blessings of doing exactly as asks us to do!