Prayer: Talking to the Father

Most people have prayed. Very few would say they know how. Ask a room of believers about their prayer life and you will meet a particular kind of embarrassment — not because they think prayer unimportant, but because almost everyone privately suspects that theirs is inadequate, ill-informed, and probably not reaching very far.

Part of the trouble is that we are rarely taught. We are told to pray, frequently and earnestly, and are seldom told what prayer actually is, whom we are addressing, on what ground a sinner has any right to be heard — or that Scripture lays down a definite order for coming to God, an order that began at a particular point in history.

1. Whom you are speaking to

Begin here, because everything follows from it. The Christian at prayer is not addressing a force, a principle, or a distant power that must be persuaded. He is speaking to a Person who is his Father.

Take the weight of that. If you have trusted Christ, you are not petitioning a monarch you have never met. You are speaking to your own Father, who already knows the whole matter, and who was disposed toward you before you opened your mouth.

This one fact dissolves a great deal of anxiety about prayer. A child does not rehearse before speaking to his father, does not fear he will use the wrong form of address, and does not assume he must be eloquent to be heard.

2. “In that day” — the change that made this possible

On the night before He died, the Lord Jesus Christ told His disciples something that must have sounded like a loss, and was in fact the greatest gift He could leave them.

"And in that day ye shall ask me nothing. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you. Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name: ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full." (John 16:23-24)

Weigh each part of it.

In that day — a day still future when He spoke. For three years these men had brought every question straight to Him, because He was standing in front of them. He is telling them that an arrangement is coming in which they will no longer do that, because something better will have opened.

Ye shall ask the Father — the direction is named. Not the Son, whom they had been asking; the Father.

In my name — the ground is named. Not their own standing, but His.

Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name — read that slowly. Up to that very evening, not one prayer had ever been offered in His name. Not by the patriarchs, not by David, not by the prophets, not by these disciples during three years at His side. The thing was entirely new, and it did not exist until the cross opened it.

He says as much again two verses later: in that day they would ask in His name, and He would not need to say that He would pray the Father for them — for the Father himself loveth you. No one standing between a child and his Father's ear.

So this is not a technique or a style of devotion. It is a divine order that began at a moment in history, at Calvary and Pentecost, and we live in that day now. The privileges of that verse are not promises awaiting fulfilment; they are the present property of every believer reading this page.

3. The pattern Scripture gives

Church-age prayer has a definite shape, stated again and again in the epistles: prayer is offered to the Father, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, by the power of the Holy Ghost. All three Persons are engaged, each in His own office.

To the Father — He is the One addressed. The apostle Paul bows his knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ; he gives thanks unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ; and epistle after epistle opens by blessing the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. This is not one verse but a settled apostolic habit.

In the name of the Son — He is the ground on which we come, and the one Mediator between God and men.

By the Spirit — He is the One who enables. And a single verse holds all three together:

The apostle Paul states the whole of it in a single sentence in Ephesians 2:18 — that through Him we both have access, by one Spirit, unto the Father. Through the Son. By the Spirit. Unto the Father. The entire order in one line.

Keeping these distinct is not theological fussiness. It guards the believer from two common errors: praying as though God were reluctant and had to be worn down, and praying as though our own sincerity were the thing that made us acceptable.

It guards against a third as well, which is confusing the Persons. It was the Son who came and died, not the Father — so we do not thank the Father for dying on the cross. Rather: Father, we thank Thee for sending Thy Son; Lord Jesus, we thank Thee for coming and bearing our sins. Each Person honoured in His own work. And Scripture nowhere directs prayer to the Holy Ghost, who already indwells the believer and needs no summoning; we say to the Father, by the power of Thy Holy Ghost — which honours Him precisely in the office He has taken.

One qualification, so that nobody is bound tighter than Scripture binds. It is not wrong to speak directly to the Lord Jesus Christ. Stephen did, under the stones — Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. The apostle Paul besought Him three times about the thorn. The Bible closes with the church crying Even so, come, Lord Jesus. He is God and may always be worshipped and addressed. But the appointed, ordinary direction of church-age prayer remains to the Father, through Him.

4. What “in His name” actually means

The phrase is attached to the end of most Christian prayers, and used by many as a formula for closing — a verbal signature that finishes the transaction. But that is not what the Lord Jesus Christ meant.

To ask in someone's name is to come with their authority and on their account. When a man sends a servant to a bank in his name, the servant is not asking on the strength of his own credit. He carries someone else's standing.

So praying in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ means presenting yourself on the basis of who He is and what He has done, not on the basis of your own record. It is the acknowledgement that you have no claim of your own and need none.

Two things follow. First, this is why a believer having a poor week may pray with the same confidence as after a good one — the ground of access never changes, because it was never his conduct. Second, the phrase cannot function as a lever. To ask in His name is to ask what He would ask, for the ends He desires. A request He would not endorse does not become endorsed by adding His name to the bottom of it.

5. “Our Father which art in heaven” — a question worth asking

Here we must move gently, because this touches words most of us learned as children and love.

If you were taught that the Lord's Prayer is the perfect and complete model for all Christian praying, hold that belief gently in your hand for a moment. Nobody is asking you to throw it away. It fell from the lips of the sinless Son of God; it is holy, and there is much in it to learn.

The question is narrower than that, and it is this: is “Our Father which art in heaven” the appointed form of address for church-age prayer?

Search it out in the noble spirit of the Bereans, and mark two things.

First, when it was given, and to whom. The Lord Jesus Christ gave that prayer in the Sermon on the Mount, to His Jewish disciples, in the land of Israel, under the law of Moses — before the cross, before the blood was shed, before the veil was rent, before Pentecost, and before a single prayer had ever been offered in His name. By His own testimony that last night: hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name.

Second, how the apostles actually prayed afterwards. Search the epistles from Romans to Jude and you will not once find the apostle Paul addressing God as Our Father which art in heaven. What you find instead, over and over, is this:

"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ." (Ephesians 1:3)

"For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." (Ephesians 3:14)

And when the Spirit of adoption teaches a son to speak, the cry recorded is not a formula of place but a word of family — Abba, Father.

Notice what the difference actually is. Our Father which art in heaven locates God: it says where He is, which was exactly right for worshippers who had not yet been brought near. The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ locates us: it says on what ground we now come, and whose Father He is, and therefore what we have been made.

This is why the distinction matters, and it is not hair-splitting. The one address belongs to a people approaching from outside a veil that was still hanging. The other belongs to sons brought inside by blood already shed. To keep the first as our settled form is to pray from the wrong side of Calvary, and to leave unused the very thing it cost Him everything to obtain.

The same difficulty runs through the petitions. Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors reads very differently beside the word given to the church — forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you. There, forgiveness is asked on terms; here, we forgive because we have already been forgiven.

So the Lord's Prayer is not worthless — far from it. It is precious, it is instructive, and it is the model prayer of the kingdom. It simply is not the church-age form of address. Learn from it, love it, and then come as what you have been made: a son, to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

6. Why you may come boldly

Under the old covenant, access to God was hedged about with restriction. A veil divided the holiest place; one man entered once a year, and not without blood. The ordinary Israelite could not approach at all. And when Christ died, that veil was torn from top to bottom — the tearing beginning at the height no man could reach, because it was God's act and not man's.

This is the background to one of the most encouraging passages in Scripture:

"For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need." (Hebrews 4:15-16)

Notice the sequence. First the sympathy, then the invitation. We are told to come boldly because the One who receives us has been where we are — tired, hungry, misunderstood, grieved, tempted at every point.

And notice what kind of throne it is. Not a throne of judgment, where a guilty man would be right to hesitate, but a throne of grace. The word boldly means with freedom of speech — the liberty of a person who may say anything without weighing whether it will be permitted.

"In whom we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of him." (Ephesians 3:12)

7. What prayer is not

It is not informing God. He knows what you need before you ask. Prayer is not a report submitted to someone who lacks information; it is a child bringing his life to his father, which changes the child rather than educating the father.

It is not a performance. The Lord Jesus Christ warned against praying to be seen, and told His disciples to go into a room and shut the door. The audience is One. Anyone praying with half an eye on how it sounds to others has already received all the reward he will get.

It is not vain repetition. He also warned against the notion that we are heard for our much speaking. Length is not leverage. A long prayer is not more likely to be answered than a short one, and some of the most effective prayers recorded in Scripture are a single sentence.

It is not a technique for moving God. Prayer is not a mechanism that produces outcomes if operated correctly. Anyone who has been told that the right words or sufficient fervour would guarantee a result has been badly taught, and usually at the worst possible moment of his life.

8. Four habits worth examining

What follows is not fault-finding, and it is aimed at nobody. These habits are found in sound churches, among people who love the Lord — and most of us have used every one of them. God is tender toward the sincere heart and hears the weakest prayer offered in faith through the Lord Jesus Christ. But He would have us grow, and a thing is not right merely because it is common.

Here is the kind of closing prayer heard in good churches every week. Read it first as it stands.

There is nothing insincere in it. But mark four things.

The address. Father in heaven is the address of Matthew 6 — given before the cross, to Israel, under the law. The church-age address is Our Father, or our God and Father, or the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The bare name. In Jesus' name. The name is holy and precious and using it is not sinful. But Scripture rarely leaves it bare, heaping upon Him instead a wealth of reverent titles — the Lord Jesus Christ, our Saviour, our Redeemer, the Son of God. If every knee shall bow at that name, we may take the trouble to speak it with reverence.

The filler. We just… we just… Said once it means nothing; said repeatedly it becomes a verbal tic that fills the space while the mind catches up — a mild form of the very thing He warned against.

The vagueness. Bless it to your people asks for nothing in particular, and so nothing in particular can ever be seen answered.

Here is the same prayer, meaning every word it meant before:

Consider a second, of the kind offered at a prayer meeting:

The same address, the same filler — and one thing further. Count the word Lord. It appears four times in two sentences, not once as address or as confession, but as a comma: a place to rest the voice. The name of God is being used to fill a pause.

There is also a drift the speaker almost certainly never intended. The prayer opens to the Father, then turns to Lord, and it is no longer clear which Person is being addressed. Clarity honours God; confusion, however innocent, does not.

Corrected, and no colder for it:

Read the two versions aloud and notice what happened. Nothing warm was lost. What went out was padding; what came in was precision — and precision, in prayer, is another word for attention.

A closing word on this, because it can be taken wrongly. If you have prayed Father in heaven and in Jesus' name all your life, you have not been unheard. God hears His children. This is not a formula that unlocks a door already standing open; it is a matter of praying in the order He has revealed — which is simply what a son does who has troubled to learn his Father's ways. And if you ever correct another believer in this, do it gently, or you will have traded one fault for a worse one.

9. What to bring

The instruction Scripture gives about content is startling in its breadth.

"Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus." (Philippians 4:6-7)

Be careful for nothing — the older sense of careful is full of care, anxious. The command is not to be indifferent but to stop carrying what you were never built to carry.

In every thing — the door could not be opened wider. Not merely in great crises and spiritual matters, but in everything, including things that feel too small to trouble God with. A father is not troubled by his child's small concerns; he is glad to be told them.

With thanksgiving — easily skipped, and deliberately placed. Thanksgiving recalls what God has already done, which steadies a person before he starts asking for more.

And note carefully what is promised in return. Not the outcome you asked for. Peace — a guard set over the heart and mind while the situation is still unresolved. That is a better gift than most of what we request, and it is the one He guarantees.

10. Praying according to His will

"And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us: And if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him." (1 John 5:14-15)

Some read according to his will as a loophole that empties the promise. It is the opposite. Consider what an unqualified promise would mean: God bound to grant every request of every believer, including the ignorant ones, the short-sighted ones, and the ones we would beg Him to refuse if we could see a year ahead.

Every parent understands this. A good father does not give a child everything asked for, and his refusals are as much love as his gifts.

How does a believer learn what God wills? Chiefly by Scripture, which tells us plainly what He desires. A person who reads it will increasingly find his requests reshaped — not because he has given up asking, but because he is coming to want what God wants.

11. When you cannot pray at all

There are seasons when words will not come — in grief, in exhaustion, in a confusion so deep that a person cannot tell what to ask for.

Scripture speaks directly to this. The Spirit helps our infirmities, for we know not what we should pray for as we ought, and He Himself makes intercession for us with groanings that cannot be uttered.

Weigh that. It is not a rebuke for not knowing what to pray; it is stated as our normal condition. We know not what we should pray for as we ought — and the apostle includes himself. The provision for it is that the Spirit takes what is inarticulate and presents it perfectly.

So the person kneeling with nothing to say but a name, or a groan, or a single repeated word, is not failing at prayer. He is being carried by Someone appointed to carry him.

And there is a second Intercessor. The Lord Jesus Christ ever lives to make intercession for those who come to God by Him. Which means that on the day your praying is at its poorest, prayer is still being offered for you by One whose prayers have never been refused.

12. When prayer seems unanswered

Sometimes the answer is no, and the no is kindness. The apostle Paul asked three times for a thorn to be removed and was refused, and given sufficient grace instead. He came to regard the refusal as a greater gift than the removal would have been.

Sometimes the answer is wait. Scripture is full of long delays that were not denials. The waiting frequently does something in the one who waits that the immediate answer would have prevented.

Sometimes the request itself is wrong. Scripture says plainly that men ask and receive not because they ask amiss, to spend it upon their own pleasures.

Sometimes there is unconfessed sin. A believer harbouring something known does not lose his relationship, but the fellowship is disturbed, and Scripture links this directly to hindered prayer. The remedy is simple:

"If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." (1 John 1:9)

And sometimes we are simply not told. Scripture does not promise an explanation for every unanswered prayer, and pretending otherwise would be dishonest. There is a real trust involved in continuing to pray when nothing has been explained — and that trust is itself part of what God is producing.

13. How to begin

Start with honesty rather than with language. Say what is actually true, in the words you actually use. God is not impressed by vocabulary and is not deceived by piety.

Fix a time and a place. Prayer that depends on feeling like it will not survive a difficult month. A set time is not legalism; it is the ordinary way anything of importance gets done.

Pray Scripture back to Him. When you do not know what to say, read a psalm and make it your own. Generations of believers have found their voice this way.

Keep a short list. Not to be mechanical, but because we forget — and because a written list becomes, over years, a record of answers that would otherwise have gone unnoticed.

Begin with thanks. It reorders everything else, and it is much harder to be frantic while giving thanks.

And be brief if brevity is honest. A short prayer meant is worth more than a long one endured.

14. The one prayer that must come first

All of this assumes a relationship already established. Prayer as a Father's child is not open to everyone indiscriminately, and it would be dishonest to imply otherwise — for it is to those who receive Christ that He gives the right to be called the sons of God. There is one prayer available to anyone, and it comes before all the rest.

"For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God." (Romans 3:23)

"For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." (Romans 6:23)

"But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5:8)

"But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name." (John 1:12)

"Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." (Acts 16:31)

The veil is already torn

Prayer is not a discipline for the advanced, and it was never intended to be difficult. The hard part was done at Calvary, and the way in has stood open ever since.

You do not need better words, a stronger feeling, or a better week behind you. You need only to remember whom you are speaking to, on whose account you come, and that the throne you are approaching is a throne of grace.

He said in that day — and this is that day. He is your Father. He is not busy. Speak to Him.

Let us Pray:

Our gracious heavenly Father, we come before Thy throne of grace through the precious name and perfect merit of our Lord Jesus Christ, who alone has opened the way into Thy presence.

We thank Thee for Thy beloved Son, and for **Him** who opened the way and said that whatsoever we ask **Thee** in **His** name **Thou** wilt give. We praise Thee for Thy preserved Word, which declareth **"Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you"** (John 16:23), and which cannot be broken.

We confess before Thee that we have neglected the throne of grace which cost **Thy Son** everything to open. Forgive us, we pray, and cleanse us, for Thou art faithful and just to forgive us our sins.

We beseech Thee for every soul reading these words who is yet without Christ. Send forth Thy Holy Ghost to convince them of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment; open their understanding; and draw them to Thy Son before this day is done.

Strengthen Thy people who read it. Comfort the discouraged, establish the wavering, and let none go away empty. And use this message to make every reader a praying believer, in the order **Thou** hast revealed, for Thy glory and not for ours.

We pray all of this to Thee, O God, our Holy and Heavenly Father, in the precious name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, by the power and anointing of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

The Most Important Prayer You Will Ever Pray

Before you close this page, one question matters more than everything you have just read: if you died tonight, do you know where you would be?

You cannot be saved by joining a church, by being baptized, by giving money, or by living a decent life. Salvation is not a wage that is earned; it is a gift that is received. Every one of us has sinned, the wages of sin is death, and there is a real hell prepared for sin — but the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, died on the cross in the sinner's place, was buried, and rose again the third day.

If you know yourself to be a sinner, and you are willing to turn from your sin and trust Him alone, then speak to God now. There are no magic words — but if these words are the cry of your heart, pray them and mean them:

After You Have Prayed

1. Tell somebody today. "That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved" (Romans 10:9).

2. Begin reading the Bible. Start with the Gospel of John, then Acts, then Romans. Read a little every day. "As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby" (1 Peter 2:2).

3. Talk to your Father every day. You may now come boldly, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. No appointment is needed and no man's permission.

4. Find a Bible-believing church and be baptized. Not to be saved — you already are — but in obedience, and as the public confession of what has happened to you.

5. Rest in this, and do not be shaken by your feelings. "He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life" (John 5:24). You will still sin; when you do, confess it and go on — "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9).