Sometimes we don’t find prayer easy - we can get hung up a bit, tie ourselves into knots trying to work out how to pray “well” or “properly”, when in fact, it’s as simple as talking to our Father God.
The disciples had got themselves a bit tied up in knots about prayer too. They had decided they didn’t know how to do it, so they asked Jesus what the right way to do it was. They may have been surprised about His answer – He told them to stop praying like people who didn’t know God. He doesn’t need to hear long or complicated prayers. God knows what you need even before you ask. Then He told them to pray like this – and He taught them what we now refer to as “The Lords Prayer”. Although this prayer uses words and phrases that may not be as common or usual as words we have today, it is a very simple prayer, that takes the idea of religious fanciness away and invites us to come to God and talk to Him.
This Prayer week, we will focus on five parts of this prayer that Jesus taught.
Our Father in Heaven
Holy is Your name,
Your Kingdom come, Your Will be done on earth as in Heaven.
Give us today our daily bread,
And forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For Yours is the Kingdom, the power and the Glory
Forever and Ever
Here’s a challenge for you! Can you find time everyday this week to do some of these family prayer ideas? If you have more time, you can look at the other parts of the Lord’s prayer too.
Think about what it means to call God Father. Jesus says that we should call God our “Father in Heaven.”
· How is God like a father to us?
· Can you think of any other names we call God? I’ll start – sometimes we call God Lord. What else? What do those names of God mean to us?
· Make a list of the names for God and spend some time thanking Him for being Creator, Provider, Comforter etc?
This means God’s name is holy and special because God is special. We need to honour God and remember how amazing He is. We turn our thoughts away from ourselves and onto God.
· Listen to this song:
o Spend some time connecting with God – why not draw a picture of worship to God – things that come to mind as you listen.
· Can you list the full alphabet of things you want to praise God for?
o A – You are awesome
o B – You made the beautiful skies
o C – You comfort me when I am sad.
Revelation (221:3) tells us a bit about what the kingdom of Heaven is like:
He will wipe away every tear from their eyes and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever
Heaven is a wonderful place where God rules and all is good. Who doesn’t want to live in a world like that. The world at the moment is very different from that. We know how amazing and perfect God is and when we think of how God designed His Kingdom to be, we want that to happen right here and right now! We want earth to be as amazing as heaven is.
· What do you think it means to see God’s Kingdom come on earth?
· What one thing can you do today to help earth become a little bit more like heaven for one person?
· Why don’t you try for a whole day to only say encouraging things? Or ask God to highlight one person who you can pray for today, for them to know how perfect God’s kingdom is. Is there anything you can do to encourage them?
When the Israelites fled Egypt with Moses (read about this in Exodus 16) they spent 40 years wandering in the wilderness before they entered the Promised Land. During this time, God provided substance for them to eat every day in the form of bread they called manna. The Israelites had to rely on God each day in order to keep their bodies healthy. In the same way God wants us to rely on him to keep our lives and minds healthy. Although God does provide for our physical needs, we need far more than physical bread alone. We need the bread of life to survive.
Deuteronomy 8:6
‘People do not live by bread alone; rather, we live by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord”
We can feed our minds by reading the Bible and spending time with God.
· Take some time as a family and read through the Beatitudes and have a think about some ways to practice them.
· Why don’t you think about those verses whilst you make some flatbread
Flatbread Recipe:
· 1 cup flour ; 1 cup plain yoghurt/non-dairy alternative (this is about half a large pot) ;2tsp baking powder.
· Mix together to form a dough. Split into two or more balls and roll out to less than 1cm thick.
· Put butter or oil into a hot pan and place the rolled out dough into it. Heat for around 4 minutes on each side, you will see it start to form air bubbles.
· Place on a baking tray in the oven at 200'c for 5 minutes
Today we are going to focus on the bit of the Lord’s prayer that says Yours is the kingdom. By saying this we are saying the God is the King.
Today we want to pray for our friends, for those who know that God is King, that they would experience God’s love for them during this time.
We also want to pray for our friends who don’t know that God is King. We want to
pray for them to come to know that God loves them. Why don’t you pick 4-5 friends that you want to pray for, you could do some who know God and some who don’t, then you could try out these prayer activities.
· If you have some lego, building blocks or jenga, write the name of your friend on a block and then each time you pray for them add another block and build a prayer tower for each friend.
· Make a prayer bracelet - Take a piece of string, embroidery thread or ribbon and either tie a knot for every friend or thread a bead onto it for each of your friends. Each time you see or wear the bracelet you could pray for each of your friends.
· Why don’t you to draw a picture of each of your friends and put it on the fridge or somewhere in your room and each time you see their picture you could pray for them.
You could use this prayer for those who don’t know that God is King: -
“Lord Jesus, we pray that.... may know how much you love him/her. May s/he come to love and follow you. Amen.”
You could also ask God to show you how you can share His love with them –
(maybe by sending them a card or a picture you made for them).