Morning Light – Luke 11 Part 1: Jesus, Teach us to Pray

In Luke 11 (Part 1) Jesus concerns Himself with conveying to us what the character of our prayer life should be. The early Christians were known to greet one another with the words “do I find you praying…” If the disciples were in fact men and women of prayer, then the prayer they emulated was found in the prayer life of Jesus, witnessed by the apostles, taught upon extensively by Jesus Himself, and passed down to you and me. Do I find you praying? If you are found in prayer, are you praying according to the pattern that Jesus taught, or some other form of prayer not reflective of what Jesus would expect from us in our prayer endeavors.

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[Luk 11:1-32 KJV] 1 And it came to pass, that, as he was praying in a certain place, when he ceased, one of his disciples said unto him, Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples. 2 And he said unto them, When ye pray, say, Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in heaven, so in earth. 3 Give us day by day our daily bread. 4 And forgive us our sins; for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil. 5 And he said unto them, Which of you shall have a friend, and shall go unto him at midnight, and say unto him, Friend, lend me three loaves; 6 For a friend of mine in his journey is come to me, and I have nothing to set before him? 7 And he from within shall answer and say, Trouble me not: the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot rise and give thee. 8 I say unto you, Though he will not rise and give him, because he is his friend, yet because of his importunity he will rise and give him as many as he needeth. 9 And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. 10 For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. 11 If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? or if [he ask] a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent? 12 Or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? 13 If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall [your] heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him? 14 And he was casting out a devil, and it was dumb. And it came to pass, when the devil was gone out, the dumb spake; and the people wondered. 15 But some of them said, He casteth out devils through Beelzebub the chief of the devils. 16 And others, tempting [him], sought of him a sign from heaven. 17 But he, knowing their thoughts, said unto them, Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and a house [divided] against a house falleth. 18 If Satan also be divided against himself, how shall his kingdom stand? because ye say that I cast out devils through Beelzebub. 19 And if I by Beelzebub cast out devils, by whom do your sons cast [them] out? therefore shall they be your judges. 20 But if I with the finger of God cast out devils, no doubt the kingdom of God is come upon you. 21 When a strong man armed keepeth his palace, his goods are in peace: 22 But when a stronger than he shall come upon him, and overcome him, he taketh from him all his armour wherein he trusted, and divideth his spoils. 23 He that is not with me is against me: and he that gathereth not with me scattereth. 24 When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest; and finding none, he saith, I will return unto my house whence I came out. 25 And when he cometh, he findeth [it] swept and garnished. 26 Then goeth he, and taketh [to him] seven other spirits more wicked than himself; and they enter in, and dwell there: and the last [state] of that man is worse than the first. 27 And it came to pass, as he spake these things, a certain woman of the company lifted up her voice, and said unto him, Blessed [is] the womb that bare thee, and the paps which thou hast sucked. 28 But he said, Yea rather, blessed [are] they that hear the word of God, and keep it. 29 And when the people were gathered thick together, he began to say, This is an evil generation: they seek a sign; and there shall no sign be given it, but the sign of Jonas the prophet. 30 For as Jonas was a sign unto the Ninevites, so shall also the Son of man be to this generation. 31 The queen of the south shall rise up in the judgment with the men of this generation, and condemn them: for she came from the utmost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and, behold, a greater than Solomon [is] here. 32 The men of Nineve shall rise up in the judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: for they repented at the preaching of Jonas; and, behold, a greater than Jonas [is] here.

In Luke 11 Jesus takes upon Himself to instruct His disciples regarding prayer. Here we gain invaluable insight into how Jesus, as a sinless man, in total union and communion with the Father, prays, and how He would be pleased for us to pray likewise. This is something that the disciples would have witnessed, for Jesus prayed in their company many times. Peter, James and John went with Jesus to the mount of Transfiguration and would have heard Jesus praying in this manner when Elijah and Moses appeared before Him in glory. We must realize that prayer, even for one such as Jesus who was sinless, perfect very God in the flesh it was necessary for Him to pray. If Jesus found it necessary to pray, guess what? It is also necessary for you to pray. Prayerlessness, and the attitudes that bring it about are the great enemy of your faith. The human spirit must pray just as the body must breath. When breathing stops, life ends. When prayer is absence, spiritual death rules. Do I find you praying.

In prayer Jesus beings with acknowledging the relationship between Himself and God on high by calling Him Father. We know that God was Jesus’ father, what about us? Is it legitimate to call Him Father? One question I am asked consistently when people hear me call God “Father” is who the Father is that I am addressing? That tells Me that those believers a deaf to the spirit of Adoption on the inside of them crying “Abba, Father”. In John 20:17 Jesus declared that He was ascending to “my father and your father…” This is the most basic truth of our relationship with God. God is your Father by virtue of the provisions of the Cross. As our Father then, it is fitting to hallow His name and to declare “thy kingdom come, as in heaven so on earth…”

We also see how Jesus saw the world around Him in this prayer. All that Jesus believed for and worked for was about “as in heaven so on earth…” Is there any suffering in heaven? Is there any sickness in heaven? Is there any poverty in heaven? Are there any broken relationships, broken lives or any such thing in heaven? No, of course not. Then we know that no such things are God’s will for us on earth. You can instantly know the perfect will of God by asking yourself what your situation would look like in the context of “as in heaven, so on earth…” This is the will that we are to pray out and ask the Father concerning each and every day in each and every need we have.

We are also to ask God to give us daily provisions. Why must we ask this? Because God gave man dominion over all the earth. God will do nothing except a man first ask Him. It doesn’t matter that God knows exactly what you have need of. What God knows does not prompt Him to act, it is only when man asks that God will then move to provide to you what it was intended in His heart all along to see that you are given. It isn’t because He is holding out on you. God is a God of order. He gave man dominion over all the earth, meaning that man must invite God in by prayer and petition and only then will God move to do the thing He was disposed to do in the first place.

It is also interesting that forgiveness of sins is addressed only after acknowledging God as Father, and after asking for something as mundane as daily bread. Shouldn’t we ask forgiveness of sins first? No, because God made provision in Christ to be our Father before we ever knew our need of a savior. We were inveterate sinners and completely unrepentant when God gave us heaven’s best. Before all else our first acknowledgement is that of the Fatherhood of God. Then we ask for daily bread. Isn’t that unspiritual? Shouldn’t we humble ourselves regarding sin first, before being so crass as to ask God to provide our basic needs? Not as far as Jesus is concerned. Why? Because God rains on the just and the unjust. He gives to all men great and small breath and life whether they serve Him or not. We might think that God will not answer such a prayer from a person who has sin in their life, but if that is the case then why doesn’t Jesus put the matter of sin ahead of daily needs? We need to adjust our thinking on this matter.

We are to also ask the Father not to lead us into temptation. What does this mean? Did not James say in James 1:13 that we should not say when we are tempted that we are tempted of God? What is Jesus saying here? Because of the seeming disparity between this passage in Luke 11 and James’ statement about temptation, Martin Luther and many other prominent churchmen have suggested and in fact insisted that the book of James does not belong in our canon of scripture. What can we say about this? The tempting that Jesus is referring to is not that of God enticing us to sin the way the enemy does. The word tempt hear would be better understood as to test, as to test our mettle, or to test our resolve. What Jesus is saying is that we do not want to leave such a matter unsaid between you and God. We are to preemptively demonstrate to God before trials come that our minds are made up to serve Him, in such a way that exempts us from circumstances by which that resolve might need to be proven.

In verses 5-10 Jesus instructs us concerning the importunity with which God’s heart is disposed to answer. He gives the example of a man prevailing upon the inconvenience of his friend to provide a need. Are you willing to inconvenience God? Is that even possible? Jesus is saying we should ask and keep on asking. We are to knock and keep on knocking. We are to seek and keep on seeking. If we do, then you will receive, you will find, you will have the door opened to you. This tells us that praying for something once is not enough. Not because God is hard of hearing but because prayer is a layered thing that must be laid down over time in order to penetrate our own carnal attitudes and fully express the confidence that we have in the Father to meet the need we have brought before Him. Some have said that asking more than once is a sin. If so, then Jesus is enticing us to sin by encouraging us to pray and keep on praying until the assurance and substance of what we are asking for is provided. This then is prevailing in prayer. This is what the old divines called “praying through”.

In verses 11-13 we see another false doctrine of the church exposed. Men teach that you can ask God all you want, but He may choose to give you something you did not ask for. They teach you can ask for health, but in some cases God may in His sovereignty (they allege) give you disease or sickness. They teach that you can ask God for provision, but God may in fact be disposed to keep you impoverished for some inscrutable reason. One Christian author, a quadriplegic claims that when she experienced her accident that crippled her, that is was God’s will, that God was pleased to afflict her. It is very difficult to challenge the suppositions of a disabled person, striving to make the best of a bad situation. The question we must ask ourselves however, is will we allow even such a pitiful person to slander the name of God with such a vile statement? Jesus makes the will of God perfectly known to us, God will not harm us in any way. When we ask Him for that which is needful and wholesome, He will in no way do otherwise, regardless of who claims that He will. We must defend in our thinking against all such obscene suggestions.

In verses 14-26 we find Jesus answering an accusation that He is casting out devils by the prince of devils. A house divided, Jesus declares cannot stand. Jesus is the stronger man who casts out by the finger of God the demons that would hold men in bondage. This is not Jesus giving a methodology that we must provoke a demon to identify himself as a strong man when casting out a devil. We must guard against superstition when it comes to addressing the demonic. Unfortunately much of the practice regarding the expulsion of demons is more rooted in vulgar sensationalism than actually being effective at setting people free. Jesus then warns us that nature hates a vacuum, and when a demon is dealt with we must prepare to deny him access to our lives by reversing the behavior that let the devil in in the first place, lest the last state be worse than the first.

Finally, in our study of Luke 11 part 1, Jesus encounters a woman praising His mother. Jesus corrects the woman, saying that the blessing is not upon Mary, it is not Mary that should receive our laudation. Jesus is constituting this as dead superstition. The blessing of God is not upon religious superstition but upon those that hear the word and keep not the letter but the Spirit of what He is teaching. This is where the blessing rests and where the goodness of God is seen, by what we believe, by our receptiveness and by the fact that we do not only hear, but actually put into practice what God’s word teaches.