02 - LORD'S PRAYER - Jesus Taught Us How to PrayНамуна

10 – How Should We Pray?

So, how should Christians pray?

We must avoid the two pitfalls Jesus exposed: hypocrisy, as seen with the Pharisees, and meaningless repetition, as seen with the pagans. Both distort the purpose of prayer, turning it away from God’s glory toward human pride or empty ritual.

Instead, Christian prayer should be personal and sincere, reflective and heartfelt—without hypocrisy and without empty words.

Jesus wants our hearts, minds, and souls fully engaged. The Lord’s Prayer is the model He gave us—not to be repeated mechanically, but to shape the way we pray: prayers of petition, thanksgiving, worship, and praise.

As Jesus said to the Samaritan woman:
“Woman, believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” (John 4:21–24, NIV)

This is the kind of prayer God desires: in Spirit and in truth (John 4.23,24).