The Lord’s Prayer

Religious leaders have taught us to memorize the prayer Jesus used as an example of how to pray.

He was responding to his followers when they got upset because John’s disciples knew how to pray but they didn’t. We were told to call that prayer the “Our Father” or the “Lord’s Prayer.” The implication is that it’s what Jesus prayed every morning. Since He wasn’t asking our Father to forgive His sins like He was forgiving people who had sinned against Him, I call it the “disciples’ prayer.”

His prayer instructions included what burst out of Him in Matthew 9:35-38. As He considered the combination of lostness and preparedness of the humans around them, He instructed his disciples again about how to pray. “Pray earnestly that the Lord of the harvest would send laborers into the harvest fields.”

If you are in Jerusalem and need money, pray for Israeli money, not rupees or pesos. If you have many demonized people around, pray for harvesters who have the gift of discerning of spirits so that you can tell when you have cast out the last one or not.

If all the believers around you are evangelists, pray for pastors and teachers and prophets to raise up the harvested when the evangelists bring them in. If you only have teachers around, pray for the rest of the particular laborers you need.