Some things we need to ponder when we pray to God up yonder!

I'm sure all of us have had our moments. You know, when we speak before we think. I call it foot-in-mouth disease. Those moments where we open mouth and insert foot! Though we do that all to often in life as we communicate with others, our communication with God should not be like that. Some things we need to ponder when we pray to God up yonder.

We need to ponder the caution of prayer.
Many things in life have caused us to approach with caution. Whether it's a deer crossing sign on the highway while we're driving down the road of it's a caution light at a dangerous intersection, some things we have to be cautious of before approaching too carelessly. One of the things Jesus points out from the Gentiles is their use of vain or meaningless repetitions. You can find examples of these in 1 Kings 18:26 and Acts 19:34. It doesn't take many words to get our Father's attention, so we need to be cautious of these meaningless repetitions.

We need to ponder the content of prayer.
Sometimes people can say a whole lot about a lot of nothing. They might have used a whole lot of words, but they have used the content equivalent of a twinkie: not much to it inside! Jesus teaches a sample prayer where He uses the following content:
Adoration - praising God (Hallowed be your name)
Direction - God's will is to be done over ours (use Jesus as our example in Mt. 26:39-44)
Supplication - giving us our daily bread (God is the supplier of these needs)
Confession - asking forgiveness of our sins (implying we are sinful creatures in need of this)
Protection - God will protect us from the Devil (1 Cor. 10:13)
Content is very important as we communicate with our heavenly Father.

We need to ponder the contingency of prayer.
Have you ever heard the phrase everything hinges on this? It means if this doesn't happen, then other things will not occur. Jesus says our forgiveness from God is contingent on our forgiving others. Consider Matthew 18:21ff and Ephesians 4:32. We need to make sure that we're showing this to others if we want the same from God.

Not too long ago, Tiger Woods claimed he had committed transgressions. We need to ponder these things with our prayer life in order to receive the ultimate transgression protection!

Baptized believers praying the kingdom come?

The Lord's prayer; oh, what a great model used by so many people in the world even today. This prayer has been recited at worship, in funerals, parts of it used in public prayers across the ages. This is no doubt the most famous prayer lesson in Scripture. That's right, I said prayer lesson, not prayer. Jesus was teaching his disciples how to pray when this was recorded for us; He was not actually praying to His Father (Mt. 6:9-13; Lk. 11:2-4).

Are you still with me? I hope so, because there's something else I want to bring to your attention. In His words to the disciples, included are the words, "your kingdom come" (Mt. 6:10). We shouldn't pray this today. What; what did you say preacher? I said you can't pray this today. Why not? Because the kingdom is already here. The kingdom is the church which was established the first Pentecost after the ascension of Christ as detailed in the book of Acts.

I recommend highly praying for the kingdom to flourish, grow, attain greater spiritual maturity, but the kingdom cannot come once it's already here. What we are waiting on is the kingdom of Heaven, which the faithful will not be able to enjoy until after Judgment.

The next time you lead a public prayer, and you want to pray "The Lord's Prayer," keep in mind that the kingdom is here. Those who have obeyed the gospel message haven been transferred into the kingdom (the church) by Christ Himself (Col. 1:13).

Are you part of the kingdom?