"Now it came to pass, as He was praying in a certain place, when He ceased, that one of His disciples said to Him, Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples."
Luke 11:1 (NKJV)
Several years ago I had a job that involved training people to work on different machines. While I was not an expert at operating all of the machines that we had in this factory, I did know how to use them well enough to do what needed to be done. This was one of the reasons I was put in charge of training others, I knew what had to be done and I knew how to do it. The majority of the people I trained had no previous experience working with the machines we had but I showed them how to do the work until they could operate the machines on their own.
Jesus had His twelve disciples but there were many other people who followed Jesus besides the twelve. As these disciples followed Jesus they learned through His teaching and His life examples how to live the best kind of life, a life connected to and in service to God. The story in Luke 11 is interesting because we see that it was after Jesus was done praying that His disciples asked if He could teach them how to pray too. It was not just that Jesus knew a lot of principles about prayer but Jesus knew how to pray and that was the key to Him being able to teach His disciples how to pray. Prayer was not a theory to Jesus it was a part of who He was.
Jesus was successful in teaching His disciples how to pray, how to live by faith, how to deal with people, and how to teach and preach because Jesus knew how to do these things. What Jesus did was not something that was separate from who He was, it was a part of Him. Too often people learn how things work but there is no practical experience involved, theories are being passed along by people who have no real experience in what they are talking about. What we do for God should be a reflection of our relationship with God. What others see us do they can do too and we can teach them how, if what we do is a part of who we are.
Luke 11:1 (NKJV)
Several years ago I had a job that involved training people to work on different machines. While I was not an expert at operating all of the machines that we had in this factory, I did know how to use them well enough to do what needed to be done. This was one of the reasons I was put in charge of training others, I knew what had to be done and I knew how to do it. The majority of the people I trained had no previous experience working with the machines we had but I showed them how to do the work until they could operate the machines on their own.
Jesus had His twelve disciples but there were many other people who followed Jesus besides the twelve. As these disciples followed Jesus they learned through His teaching and His life examples how to live the best kind of life, a life connected to and in service to God. The story in Luke 11 is interesting because we see that it was after Jesus was done praying that His disciples asked if He could teach them how to pray too. It was not just that Jesus knew a lot of principles about prayer but Jesus knew how to pray and that was the key to Him being able to teach His disciples how to pray. Prayer was not a theory to Jesus it was a part of who He was.
Jesus was successful in teaching His disciples how to pray, how to live by faith, how to deal with people, and how to teach and preach because Jesus knew how to do these things. What Jesus did was not something that was separate from who He was, it was a part of Him. Too often people learn how things work but there is no practical experience involved, theories are being passed along by people who have no real experience in what they are talking about. What we do for God should be a reflection of our relationship with God. What others see us do they can do too and we can teach them how, if what we do is a part of who we are.
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