Prayer is vital to the life of a Christian. The Bible emphasizes that Christians should be engaged in a life of prayer. Jesus said, in Luke 18:1, that we “should always pray and not faint.” Do you have a daily practice of praying? We saw in our previous blog that we should discipline ourselves to enter the prayer closet, that is, a place where we can be all alone with God, apart from distractions, and pray regularly. So, is prayer an important part of your life as a Christian? It must be if you are to reach your full potential. But, when we enter the prayer closet and pray, how should we pray? Fortunately, in this next portion of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus tells us.

Matthew 6:9 (ESV)
⁹ Pray then like this: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.

Jesus, then, begins His model prayer by teaching us that we must pray with the right spirit, that is, we must have the proper attitude toward God whenever we pray. There are two things that jump out at us immediately from these words of Jesus.

1. We must recognize to Whom we are praying.

Every time we pray, we should be cognizant of the fact that we are praying to our Father. We are not praying to a stranger. We are not praying to someone who is indifferent about our needs, or even our wants. We are praying to a Father who loves us. Remember, God is our Father because He wants to be. He adopted us into His spiritual family according to the good pleasure of His will (Ephesians 1:4-5). This is a reflection of the great love that He has for us (1 John 3:1-2). What does this mean so far as our prayers are concerned? It means that whenever we pray, we should be mindful of all that this fatherhood implies. That God is our Father implies that He will protect us, provide for us, love us, guide us, and defend us. What all this simply means is that we can, knowing that God is our Father, approach His throne with confidence (Hebrews 4:16; 10:22).

2. We must pray with reverence.

Jesus said, “Hallowed be His name.” The Greek word is hagiazo, which Vine says means, “to make holy, to set apart for God, to sanctify, to make a person or thing the opposite of common.” When we pray, we should be comfortable and confident, but we should, at the same time, be acutely aware of the awesome greatest of the One to Whom we are praying. God’s name must always be honored and never profaned in anyway. I heard of one brother who addressed God in a public assembly as “sir.” That does not show a lot of reverence toward God, and one thing that God always deserves is reverence. Our hearts should always be filled with godly fear (Ecclesiastes 12:13; Hebrews 4:1; 1 Peter 1:17). When we pray, our prayer should reflect the respect and reverence that we have for our heavenly Father. Prayer is an act of worship and our attitude should reflect that every time we pray.

What a wonderful privilege it is to pray. It is because of the shed blood of our Savior that this new and living way, a way in which we have free access to the throne of God, was opened to us (Hebrews 10:19-20). We must remember, however, that there is a right way to approach God, and that way begins with praise in our hearts, and by giving honor to Him as our Father. It begins by praying respectfully (1 Chronicles 29:10-13).

As you wind down for the night, think on these things.