Prayer is a two way conversation

Talking to Jesus

Talking to yourself

Jesus has taught us how to pray and he does it through the sermon on the mount which he told not on a mountain but actually just a hill side, the sermon on the hillside. Jesus goes and tells us what not to pray like and what to pray like:

Matthew 6:5–8 NIV

“And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

We are told don’t be like the hypocrites who pray only to be seen on the street corners.

These are the clout chases of the Christian world, we are not to be chasing the christ like clout but to actually be chasing Jesus.

See when we pray with the expectation that people will think we know Jesus the most or have the best friendship with Jesus we are chasing clout not from God but the people that are around us.

When we choose to follow Jesus we have to know that we are putting to death the potential clout chasing ideas that we have and it’s a very real part of the world today.

“I want to be noticed” is such a real thing and it is only multiplied by the internet.

Jesus’ disciples got in trouble for this, they wanted to be the very best and they even went and asked Jesus about what would happen when they got to heaven. They asked Jesus who would get to sit beside him when he was on the Throne.

Wild right? that even in heaven they thought they their status or clout would be important.

Jesus starts the whole Sermon on the Mount topic of prayer by saying; do not chase clout. Don’t be prideful in prayer and don’t show off.

So lets start our idea of what prayer is as something that is not about a status or something that can be only performed by pastors. Jesus is suggesting that anyone can pray and so He says;

when you pray, pray in secret so that God will reward you in secret

That is not to say never pray infront of others, I did that before I started to talk is pray infront of you and with you.

it’s all about your heart, what is the intention of what you are doing?

are you praying for Jesus or people?

So with that, you don’t need to worry about what is said or how it is said.

I remember this time in College where I prayed infront of a group of 8 people and they said that I was really good at praying. I awkwardly said thank you.

I walked away a little too prideful that day. See I would stack and setup the best words to make myself sound like I was in with God.

However a little over a month ago I was doing some learning and the guy who was teaching said “short prayers are still good prayers”

I tell you I pray sometimes the shortest prayers now!

God works in the short phrases too, you don’t need a dictionary to pray!

This is a converstation with Jesus not scabble.

don’t string fancy words or feel a need to fill a space, pray how you feel led to pray.

If its “Rub a dub dub, lord bless this grub” Then so be it!

I pray for people sometimes and it’s just “Lord bring healing to _____” or “Lord would you help _____” Amen. Thats all, becuase Jesus already knows what you want even before you ask.

Silence and Solitude

However we need to bring ourselves to a place to have these conversations with Jesus. See Prayer is like a conversation, and conversations usually require two people, you cannot talk to yourself and have a cov, thats a little weird.

When we talk to God we want to bring our heart to a place where we can be real and be receiving.

See Jesus models this early on by choosing to go out into the desert to be alone. See Jesus gets baptized and chooses that before he even starts in his mission on earth he needs to spend time with God.

it is easy for us to jump into the deep end of being a Christian and ignoring God.

So Jesus models time with God

Luke 4:1–2 NIV

Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them he was hungry.

Jesus choses to go and fast in the desert for 40 days,

Fasting is a practice of denying yourself food so that you can be closer to God. its like saying “this food is not as good as God” which is wild espeically if you are like me and love anything that is edible.

It takes some self control to deny food for a day or even a extended amount of time.

Jesus does something that we can’t do here, is he does it for 40 days. Unhuman (so it shows the is also God).

However I don’t want to talk too much about fasting, its cool I recommend it but I want to focus on something that you can do daily and fasting is not recommended for daily practice as if done wrong it can be dangerous.

The other practice is called silence and solitude or as I just say solitude or being alone with God.

Kinda a few different ways to explain that Jesus is going away alone with God so that he can connect/reconnect with God.

See there is alot of distractions around us and the biggest one is a phone.

I tell you I sometimes cannot keep a clear thought in my mind. I jump from task to task sometimes and I just can’t sit still and even when I do I start to fall asleep.

I actually have a narcolepsy award which means that I would just randomly fall asleep.

I find being alone with God to be a hard task because I’m too much of a go go go or too much of a fall a sleep when I sit still.

Jesus calls us to be in the desert and this a metaphor of being alone and away from distraction.

This is two things

that Jesus would call us away from the distractions of life

tiktok (i deleted it this week)

being too busy

always wanting to be around people

He is not calling us away from all these things, don’t hear me wrong- those things rock! Jesus loves those things in moderation, however he wants a deep and persoanal relationship with YOU!

that’s up to you, so to practice prayer with a intention to get Real with God you gotta carve out time to spend with him, going to the desert instead of the market place.

When you are busy or going to the next activity to carve out space to pray. That is what Jesus want, he wants your heart to say “Jesus I love you more then ____”

2. Is that Jesus is asking us to settle our hearts and just listen to Him.

There is so much to do in life, things that are probably going to give us a burst of joy rather then long lasting joy.

Jesus is calling us to quiet our hearts to find that he is this everlasting source of joy but also contentment, really the only thing we need in life. He will satisfy everything but he calls you to sit and listen.

Silence and Solitude is the pratice of just being quiet, making space to find quiet and being away from people for the purpose of being present with Jesus.

Look at it like this

Illistartion

Jesus Talks

So now for the fun stuff:

Jesus is not a silent God,

see we do not follow a God that is distant but rather He is very close to us, we believe that Jesus is with us but also that He speaks to us.

Listen to what he says in John:

John 10:14–16 NIV

“I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me— just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd.

Jesus talks about sheep, shepherds and his voice so let me break down what he says without using the farming language;

You are the sheep,

Jesus is the shepherd, he takes care of the sheep

his voice is literally his voice

So what he means is that we can hear his voice, however its different for everyone; for some hey can litterally hear it, for others Jesus brings visions or images, and some it just a gut feeling like a compelling feeling to do something.

However Jesus speaks to us. We need to be ready to listen and that comes with the silence and solitude but that also needs to happen on our end. We need to come to Jesus seeking his advice not asking him to do something that is opposite of who he is.

Take that last verse for example; they too will listen to my voice and there shall be one flock and one shepherd.

one flock and one shepherd, so if Jesus is the leader of your life, just like a shepherd is to a sheep. Then we must realize that Jesus’ way is the best way.

If he is a good shepherd/good leader then we got to trust that his pathway is the best one. Not ignoring it to accomplish what we want in life nor can we just try to get the best life that we desire. Jesus knows the plans for our life but it’s up to us to listen to his direction and to act on those plans.

Think about it like this:

I used to play baseball but I was really bad, like my batting average was about 0.

So when I stuck out I though well that sucks, however I heard someone in the crowd who I later found out was my mother yell “RUN LIAM RUN”.

Not know that was happening but know that I should follow through with the command I ran!

it turns out it worked and there was a specific reason to run, that the catch dropped the ball meaning that I was still able to run to the 1st base.

Wild story but it would have never happened if I had never listened to the voice (in this case my mom) to run to the base.

However that is not a story about Jesus speaking, I have seen so many stories of Jesus speaking and my hope is that you all choose to listen to Jesus first in your life.

Jesus has such great plans for you and he wants to share them with you but you need to listen and most importantly have a desire, a heart to listen to the things he is doing and the words he is saying to you about yourself and the world around you.

How can prayer help you in life?

Have you ever had a prayer retreat? (where you go away from people to pray). What was that like?

Why is listening to Jesus in prayer important?

What should you do if you can’t hear God right away when doing a listening prayer?

*Make room for some listening prayer instead of taking prayer requests*