How to Pray, Part 1

By Robb Brunansky

Published September 4, 2025

Once we cry out, “Lord, teach us to pray,” we are ready for the instructions for prayer from our Lord (Luke 11:2-13).

Prayer is, without question, very difficult. Martin Luther wrote, “There is no greater work than praying.” To pray is waging warfare upon our knees, battling our own flesh, warring against sin, and fighting against the minions of hell.

Despite the difficulties of a consistent and vibrant life of prayer, it is beneficial to the Christian. John Calvin noted, “To know God as the master and bestower of all good things, who invites us to request them of Him, and still not go to Him and not ask of Him – this would be of as little profit as for a man to neglect a treasure, buried and hidden in the earth, after it had been pointed out to him.” The disciples saw this magnificent treasure in Christ’s prayer life and desired to learn how to unearth it for themselves.

Jesus is not at all put off by their request but gives instructions. What He does not include is as striking as what He does. Consider how many questions we might have about prayer that our Lord does not address in this passage. Questions like, “When should we pray?” “How long should we pray?” “Where should we pray?” “What posture should we use in prayer?” “Should we pray silently or out loud?”

So, if Christ does not emphasize concerns that so often trouble us, what does He emphasize? Well, Jesus first highlights the content of our prayers (verses 1-4).

We must first learn what to say in prayer. Perhaps we think we can come into God’s presence and just prattle away whatever thought flits through our minds. Jesus teaches us that mentality should not be so. There are both appropriate and inappropriate things to say to the Lord.

Thus, we have this prayer from Jesus, the Lord’s Prayer, where He informs the content of our prayers. This prayer serves as a guide and framework to teach us necessary content for true, effective, passionate, powerful, and personal prayer. Of course, though, there is no guarantee people understand the prayer if they merely read it. Luther called this prayer, “the greatest martyr on earth,” because of the propensity to torture and abuse it. So, we must deduce the meaning of this prayer, gleaning how Jesus has taught us to pray for everything.

Having established that the content of our prayers is paramount, we now examine the first word of Christ’s prayer: “Father.”

The Hebrew word for father is abba, and it was one of the first words Israelite babies learned. It was such a significant word that even adults called their father by this word. The term emphasized intimacy, relationship, honor, and respect. This word sets the entire tone of the prayer and gives a depth of richness that should revolutionize and revitalize our prayer lives.

We learn three things about prayer from this term, starting with the fact that Christ addressed God Himself.

Addressing God might seem obvious, but that’s not always the case for us. When we pray alone, do we recognize we are talking, not to ourselves, but to God? When we pray in groups, this problem can be magnified even more as we might think more about our audience than the Lord. In prayer, we are not speaking to the congregation or the others in our prayer circle, but to our Father; and we manifest that reality when we speak to God using second person pronouns (You, Your). We have an immense privilege of directly addressing our God.

One question some encounter pertains to the relationship of the persons of the Trinity and prayer: Should we only pray to the person of the Father, or is it okay to pray to the Son and the Spirit? From Scripture, we see the New Testament pattern for believers is to pray to the Father, through the Son, by the Spirit. The Father, then, is the one to whom we directly speak. The Son is the mediator through whom we come to the Father, and the Spirit is the One at work in our hearts to empower and enable us to pray effectively (Ephesians 2:18).

However, addressing the Father through the Son by the Spirit is really to address all three persons of the Godhead with every prayer. Luther said, “For you cannot call upon one Person without calling upon the others, because the one, undivided divine Essence exists in all and in each Person.” We pray, not to just one Person, but to God Himself in His triunity. That reality is a great mystery for us, but not for the Triune God. We should think of prayer as speaking to none other than the sovereign God who created the universe, the Lord of all, and the mighty King.

Another thing we learn about prayer from this term “Father” is to approach God humbly and gratefully.

Inherent in the word “Father” in this prayer is a recognition of salvation through the work of His Son. Therefore, there is a sense in which this prayer begins with high praise and thanksgiving to God for His saving work, which enables us to call Him our Father. We can only become God’s children through His work in our hearts, which causes us to be born again. He adopts us as His own, and we cry out to Him by His Spirit: “Abba, Father!” He is our Father, not by natural birth, but by the new birth, calling us to Himself, and giving us new life when we were dead in sin.

This truth about our salvation must humble us before God. Yet, at the same time, it should lift us to the highest heights of praise and thanksgiving to Him. Here we pause to consider all God has done to save us, reconcile us to Himself, adopt us as His children, forgive our sins, clothe us with His righteousness, make us heirs with Christ, make Jesus our elder brother, glorify us together with Him, and bring us to His eternal dwelling. What a wonder we may address God, the King of kings and Lord of lords, as our Father!

Additionally, we learn how to acknowledge God’s Fatherhood from Jesus’ teaching.

The word “Father” carries numerous ideas in Scripture, but we will only highlight two here. The first is authority.

The Father is the authority. When we call God our Father, we assume a posture of humility, obedience, and honor to our Father in heaven. It reminds us of who we are and who He is. It also informs us of our duty to honor God, and for our prayers to tend toward His glory, not ours.

The second idea from Scripture about the word “Father” is love. God being our Father means we can run to Him for His love, which is greater than we can possibly comprehend (Luke 15). When we come to the Father and understand His love, we almost automatically desire His honor. How could we not praise, thank, honor, or obey Him?

So, Jesus begins to teach us how to pray, beginning with the content of our prayers, and starting with the all-important title for God: Father. When we have understood what it means that God is our Father, only then are we ready to truly pray.