Message #5 (of 20) from the PrayerPower radio series
"Jesus' Teaching on Prayer"

by Kaye Johns

Jesus is the One Who taught us to pray to God as our Father. This was an incredible teaching, because throughout the Old Testament, God had been referred to as "Father" very few times, and His people dared not directly address Him as Father. It was unheard of.

Yet Jesus teaches we are to come to God every day in our quiet time [Matthew 6:5], and are allowed the privilege of knowing and addressing Him as our heavenly Father [Matthew 6:9].

We know we can only come to the Father through His Son, Jesus Christ [John 14:6]. The key requirement of prayer, then, is that we be born of the Spirit into the kingdom of God [John 3:5], that we be adopted as His children through Christ [Romans 8:14-15], for only His children can call Him Abba, Father [Romans 8:15-16].

We become children of God when God in His mercy makes us alive with Christ, even when we were dead in our sins, for it is by God’s grace we are saved [Ephesians 2:5]. We are saved not because of righteous things we have done, but because of His mercy through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom God pours out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior [Titus 3:5]. We are saved and become God’s children when we confess with our mouths and believe in our hearts that God raised Jesus from the dead [Romans 10:9].

Then we can come to God as "our Father." Only then.

Pray with me now -- Father, in Your mercy, send Your Spirit of regeneration to bring spiritual birth to those who are lost. In Jesus’s name, amen.

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