Lord, Teach Us to Pray

By Robb Brunansky

Published August 26, 2025

How do we pray to our Lord in heaven – the God of the universe and the redeemer of our souls? This is a question that countless Christians have asked over history as they have sought a deeper relationship with our Creator.

In Luke’s Gospel, we have a wealth of instruction about prayer as Christ instructed His own disciples concerning this important subject. This subject requires our full attention so we can absorb these truths into our hearts and minds to inform our practice of prayer.

When we think about prayer, Martyn Lloyd-Jones aptly wrote, “Prayer is beyond any question the highest activity of the human soul. Man is at his greatest and highest when, upon his knees, he comes face to face with God.” It is truly astonishing, wonderous, and glorious that the eternal God would give attention to frail, finite, fickle, and fallen creatures like us.

Furthermore, not only is prayer a high and great activity, but a marker of our walk with God. Lloyd-Jones also wrote, “When a man is speaking to God, he is at his very acme. It is the highest activity of the human soul, and therefore it is at the same time the ultimate test of a man’s true spiritual condition.” John Owen remarked, “What a man is on his knees before God, that he is, and no more.” The quality of our spiritual life is not tested by the measure of our giftedness, knowledge of Scripture, or religious appearance before men. Rather, the quality of our spiritual life is tested by the quality of our fellowship with God in prayer.

Yet prayer is one of the most difficult things for a Christian to do. Speaking to a holy God in His very presence and aligning our wills with His is impossible in ourselves as fallen creatures. We see this reality in the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve after the Fall. Before the Fall, they routinely walked with God. After they sinned, though, their first instinct was to hide from God, no longer comfortable in His holy presence. So, it is with us all too often.

One reason we know of the difficulty of prayer is our own experiences, but we can look also to the Scriptures for more examples. Our text shows us how difficult we find true prayer, as the disciples ask Jesus to teach them how to pray (Luke 11). Jesus responds by giving them the Lord’s Prayer, to be used as a guideline and structure for their prayers.

This event was likely not the first time the disciples came to Jesus with this request, as we see another account in Matthew’s Gospel, where Christ taught the same basic prayer. We can relate to the disciples here. Growing in prayer does not remove this need for a deeper understanding (Romans 8:26); and whenever we feel our prayers are weak, repetitive, ineffectual, dull, boring, or offered in ignorance, we naturally return to the disciples’ request: “Lord, teach us to pray.”

This desire is perhaps more acute for the disciples because they witnessed Christ’s prayer life. The disciples were used to the formulaic and formal prayers of Judaism, and the pomp and circumstance, hypocrisy, religiosity, and self-righteous pretension Jesus repeatedly criticized. Hearing Jesus pray was an entirely new experience that caused disciples to desire to relate to God as Christ did. They knew they did not relate to God as Jesus did, that their prayer lives were deficient, and that they did not pray as He did. To pray like our Savior is not something we are born knowing how to do; we must learn it from Him.

When we consider this request, let us consider this contrast between the Lord’s prayers and the disciples’. Luke’s Gospel is filled with Jesus in prayer, and we see many wonderful things about His praying in this text. So first, let’s look at Jesus’ exemplary prayer life.

Jesus’ prayer life was perpetual. The first public act of our Lord was prayer, while He was baptized (Luke 3:21). He began His public ministry with prayer. He anticipated the devil’s temptations with prayer. His entire life, therefore, was defined by prayer. The perpetual nature of Jesus’ prayer life gave rise to these questions and ultimately brought the disciples to ask Him to teach them how to pray, that they might know His secret and pray as He continuously did.

Jesus’ prayer life was also deeply personal. Christ spoke to the Father from a deep, abiding relationship marked by love and unity. His prayers were not cold or distant. The Jews did not dare to refer to God as their personal Father in prayer, and they did not dare even mention His name. Frequently, when they made any reference to God, the Jews tacked on the overused and meaningless phrase, “Blessed be he.” Here, though, was Jesus praying and speaking to God as if He knew Him personally – as if God was His own Father, filled with joy and emotion and love. The disciples longed to relate to God this way.

Jesus’ prayer life was powerful. Of all the markers of Christ’s prayer life, perhaps this was the most stunning: God heard Jesus when He prayed, and the Father answered. Our Savior’s prayers were mighty. His prayers tore down strongholds, plundered Satan’s kingdom, and accomplished miracles. His prayer life was powerful and awesome, and it defied explanation and expectation. Christ’s prayers were shocking because it was so far outside the norm of what they knew from their traditions. Prayer may have been important, but it did not seem powerful until Jesus came on the scene and prayed.

Now, contrast our Lord’s prayer life with the disciples’ immature prayer lives.

The disciples’ prayer lives were inconsistent. They are almost never found in prayer in the Gospels. Before Christ teaches them how to pray, their prayer lives are abysmally inconsistent. However, we shouldn’t be too hard on them because we know what it’s like to be inconsistent in prayer or in a situation where we forget to pray until we are reminded.

The disciples’ prayer lives were impersonal. When we find the disciples in prayer, they fall asleep 100% of the time prior to Christ’s resurrection. The disciples realized Jesus had a personal prayer life, and they had a cold, impersonal prayer life. They needed to learn how to pray from the Master.

The disciples’ prayer lives were indifferent, which naturally follows from prayer being impersonal and inconsistent. The disciples accomplished nothing in prayer during Jesus’ earthly ministry. One reason is because they were indifferent and sleepy in prayer. They weren’t passionate or consumed with love for God’s glory, kingdom, and holiness. The disciples’ prayer lives in the Gospel of Luke are marked by inconsistency, impersonality, and indifference – and their results are markedly absent.

Again, we can’t condemn these beloved apostles without condemning ourselves. Most of us would probably identify with the disciples when it comes to our prayer lives. Almost none of us are completely satisfied with our prayer lives. When we see Christ’s prayer life, we want, yearn, and hunger for that.

Here’s the key, though. We must get to the point of these disciples, where we recognize our need to learn how to pray. In fact, until Christians see they need the Lord to teach them how to pray, they will never truly pray as he ought. That quandary could explain much of what is so wrong today. We pray, but we don’t really know how to pray. Like the disciples, we have need of His instruction in this all-important area of our lives. O Lord, we plead, teach us to pray.