Praying the Psalms: Prayers to Live By (Chris)

Prayer is essential to a faithful life, and we are instructed by the Bible to pray constantly: “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.  Do not quench the Spirit.  Do not despise the words of prophets, but test everything; hold fast to what is good; abstain from every form of evil.”  [1 Thessalonians 5:16-22] Our prayers should have at least six aspects over time: 

• Prayer of worship – “rejoice always, pray without ceasing”
• Prayer of thanksgiving – “give thanks in all circumstances”
• Prayer of confession – “abstain from every form of evil”
• Prayer of petition – “do not despise the words of prophets, but test everything”
• Prayer of connection – “hold fast to what is good”
• Prayer of acceptance – “do not quench the Spirit”

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Praying the Psalms: Summary (Chris and Randy)

At first blush, the Book of Psalms challenge and even offend us with their brutal honesty and calls for God’s justice.  As we dig deeper and read them through the lens of Christ, we see how they reflect the entire human experience – not just what we are feeling on a given day.  Over time, as we meditate and reflect on them, the psalms teach us the rich language of prayer, and deeper prayer brings us closer to God.  In this summary lesson, we reflect on the main lessons from our study of the psalms.

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Praying the Psalms: The Lord's Prayer (Chris)

The Lord’s Prayer appears in Matthew 6:9-13 and Luke 11:2-4.  The Lord’s Prayer is Jesus’ instruction on how to interact directly with God.  It also is a model for all other forms of prayer.

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Praying the Psalms: Psalm 16 - Learning to Pray (Randy)

How do we pray?  Do we pray with the same reverence that the disciples would have brought to their prayers?  I don’t know about you, but I struggle with it at times.  I would argue that most of us focus our prayer energy on winning God’s favor and getting him to do things for us.  The psalms teach us that we have this backwards.  The purpose of prayer is not to question God, but to answer him. It is not to win his favor, but for him to win our hearts.  It is not to bend his will to ours, but to bend ours to his.  Prayer is about coming to know Jesus and learning to live like him.  Using Psalm 16 as our guide, this lesson explores how we might rethink our prayers as a way to know our Lord.

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Praying the Psalms: Psalm 22 (Randy)

Jesus cried on the cross, “My God, my God, way have you forsaken me!”  These words haunt us as we imagine him nailed to the cross, dying an excruciating death for crimes he didn’t commit.  But what did he really mean?  Did he really think God had forsaken him, or did he have something else in mind?  Psalm 22 helps us unpack the mystery of the cross, giving us a greater understanding of our faith and how God hears our prayers.

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Praying the Psalms: Emotions at Work #4 - Joy and Anger (Chris)

Joy and anger are the focus of this lesson on Psalms.  True joy reflects our connection with God.  Its absence may indicate that we are not as well aligned with God as we should be.  Anger can be a righteous reaction to injustice, but more often it is a prideful response to not getting our own way.  Connecting these emotions to Easter week, we see how Christ's disciples found true joy after the resurrection while those who despised Christ were consumed even more by their unrighteous anger. How do we find righteous joy?

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Praying the Psalms: Emotions at Work #3 - Trust and Fear (Chris)

This lesson continues the connection between prayer and emotion.  How do the Psalms provide guidance for us in addressing life's challenges and opportunities, specifically "Trust" and "Fear"?  We are taught to trust in God in order to overcome fear.  What does that really mean and how do we do it?  The answer comes back to the most basic teaching in all of the Bible: love God and love each other as ourselves.

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