1a) Do you pray?

b) What do you pray for?

c) Who do you pray to?

Jesus is talking to a crowd of people. Jesus wants to teach them how to pray. First he gives them two examples of the wrong way to pray.


READ MATTHEW 6:5-15 

5 ‘Also, you must not pray in the way that the hypocrites pray. They like to stand and pray in their meeting places. They like to do it on the corners of the busy streets.[a] Then many people will see them and they will praise them. I tell you this. They have already received their gift from people. God will not give them anything more.

6 But this is how you should pray. Go to a place in your house where you can be alone. You can shut the door and you can pray to God your Father. He is in that secret place. He sees what you do there. He will give you good things in return. 7 When you pray, do not say the same words many times. People who do not believe in God do that. They use many words that mean nothing. They think that when they pray like that, their gods will hear them. 8 Do not pray like they do. God your Father already knows what you need. He knows this even before you ask him.

9 So this is how you should pray:
“God, our Father who is in heaven,
we want people to give honour to you.
10 We want the day when you rule everyone to come soon.
We want everyone to obey you on earth, like everyone in heaven obeys you.
11 Please give us the food that we need today.
12 We have forgiven people who have done wrong things to us.
In the same way, please forgive us for the wrong things that we have done.
13 Do not let us agree to do wrong things.
Keep us safe from Satan.” ’

14 Then Jesus said, ‘When other people do wrong things against you, you must forgive them. Then God, your Father in heaven, will also forgive you for the wrong things that you have done. 15 But if you do not forgive other people, then your Father will not forgive you.’

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Reflection Questions:

2a) What is wrong about the way hypocrites pray? Why do the hypocrites pray?


b) Where should we pray? Why?


c) What does this teach us about the purpose of prayer?


d) Does this mean we can never pray with other people? When we do pray with other people, what should be our reason for praying?


3a) What is wrong with the way pagans pray?


b) Why do they use lots of meaningless words?


c) Why must Christians pray in a different way?

V8 - God always hears us and already knows what we need - we don’t use prayer to try to control God and make Him do what we want instead of what He wants.


d) If God already knows what we need, why do we need to pray?

Being a Christian means having a relationship with God. Prayer is an important part of that relationship, it’s the way we communicate with God. If we pray and ask God for the things we need it reminds us to be thankful for them when He gives them to us.


4a) What sort of things should we pray about? What do the first three things mean?

1. Honour God: That we want people to know how wonderful God is and to praise him.

2. God's kingdom come: That we want people to obey God as their king.

3. God's will be done: That we want everything to happen as God wants it to happen.


b) Which of these things do you think is the most important? Which do you think Jesus thought was the most important? (Of course they're all important!) Why do you think he said start by praying about God's honour and God's will?


c) Jesus said pray for the food you need. What other things do we need? Do you think we can pray about those things too? Why do you think Jesus said pray for what you need, not for what you want?!!


d) Why do you think Jesus said we can pray for forgiveness for the things we do wrong, as we forgive others. Why will God only forgive us if we forgive others?

Before God forgives us we have to repent of our sins, including our anger at others. If we understand how

much Jesus has forgiven us we will be willing to forgive others (Matthew 18:21-35)


e) Do we have to use exactly these words? (We already said the words you use are not important, it's what's in your heart that matters.)


f) Does it matter what language we use for praying? (We're reading this in English, it was originally written in Greek, but Jesus probably spoke in Aramaic!)

⁃ Don't pray to impress other people – pray to God

⁃ The words you use for praying don't matter – what is in your heart is what matters.

⁃ We shouldn't use prayer to try to control God, prayer is an expression of our relationship with God

⁃ Good things to pray about:

⁃ For God to be honoured/glorified

⁃ For God's will to be done

⁃ For the things we need

⁃ For forgiveness (and help in forgiving others)

⁃ Protection from evil/hard testing


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