Our Discipleship Journey: Part 1Sample

Prayer

Thankfully, it’s not our job to make disciples. God is the only one who saves us and forms us as disciples, and we partner with Him as He lovingly draws people to Himself. Prayer, then, plays a critical, indispensable role in discipleship and alleviates the pressure we may feel to make disciples. And prayer is fundamentally relational, not transactional. It’s more like a conversation, and less like clicking ‘add to cart’. We can approach prayer with confidence and expectation because we’re praying to someone we know: our Father.

Before Jesus came to Earth, people spoke to God through temple priests and rituals, but now we get to speak directly to God through Christ. In Luke 11, we read that one of Jesus’ disciples asked Him to teach them how to pray. Jesus’ answer, ‘When you pray…’, clearly reveals that He expects His disciples to pray. The model prayer Jesus offers is structured around our relationship with God. Jesus makes it clear that it’s not so much about how we pray, but who we pray to. Prayer was never supposed to be through an intermediary. It’s ultimately about you and me communicating with God. And just knowing that God isn’t distant, weak, limited, or ungracious has massive implications for us when we pray for others. As much as He’s our loving Father, He’s also the loving Father of those we’re praying for, and He longs for everyone to know Him and experience His love. He’s our sovereign, forgiving, prayer-answering, enemy-defeating God! Remembering God’s perfect power and limitless love galvanises us and reenergises us to pray for those whose hearts seem impossibly hard to the things of God.

It may be helpful to connect a story from the Bible to each of God’s different character traits. He hasn’t changed! His character on display in the scriptures is the same as His character today. A really powerful way of inviting people into a relationship with God is to offer to pray for them and with them – in the moment, not some other time – and appealing to an aspect of God’s character as we pray can be an effective way of introducing someone to God.

Pause now to contemplate the power of prayer in discipleship. When we understand who God is, we can confidently pray with expectation as we continue to partner closely with Him in making disciples. May you be increasingly excited to pray, knowing that prayer isn’t part of the work of our discipleship journey – it is the work.