[After this manner]

Jesus was asked by His disciples to teach them how to pray. Jesus answered with the following example. It is the basis of the prayer format.

Mat 6:9  After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.
Mat 6:10  Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.
Mat 6:11  Give us this day our daily bread.
Mat 6:12  And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
Mat 6:13  And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.


When Jesus said not to use "vain repititions" He was talking about those  individuals that stood in the synagogues and street corners saying the same thing over and over again. An example of this would be a prayer that had Jesus, Jesus, Jesus again and again with no other real content.

As long as this prayer is used to teach people how to pray, just as Jesus did, there is nothing wrong in it.

The main idea here is:

1.)  Addressing our Father and giving Him praise:

     Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.

2.)  Gods will not ours:

      Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in
       heaven.

3.)  Seek Gods guidance:

      Give us this day our daily bread.

4.) Ask for forgiveness of our sins:

      And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.

5.) To ask for strength in fighting temptations and evil. For
      God is the only one with the power to help us do so:

      And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil:
      For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory,
      for ever. Amen.

Should we pray with these exact same words? As long as you understand the meanings of it and it is indeed heartfelt not just repeating something because everyone else is doing so. Then is when it is no longer a prayer but vain babblings.





       

blackeyedpeas,

Thank you for those links. I occasionally visit the Federalist Patriot but I hadn't seen those yet.

I could just do this ALL DAY LONG!!

Psa 11:6  Upon the wicked he shall rain snares, fire and brimstone, and an horrible tempest: this shall be the portion of their cup.

Brother, can I assume correctly these numbers are missionaries, those feeding the hungry, and those providing medical attention to the dying?

Tom, no, they aren't. As a matter of fact, there are only a few throughout a given year that fall into that category, although it generally makes the news.

The vast majority, by far, are the believers in a given area that have converted, and are then persecuted by either their neighbors or the government.

Like "Josi". A Phillipino, converted from Islam last year, shot to death during a prayer meeting last month.

Or Soong...arrested by the DPRK on his 10th trip into NK with a load of bibles for some underground churches....hung by the heels from a bridge, it took him 5 days to die.

Or the twelve members of an "unauthorized" church in China...held in a prison for 8 months, they were marched into a sports stadium in front of several thousand people, and executed with a shot to the head for "fomenting discord with the People's government and preaching religion."  The execution took place because they could not be "re-habilitated" (would not renounce Christ).

Or the Montagnards of Vietnam....almost 100% Christian, they are being systematically exterminated, village by village.

I would have believed an even higher number than those that you gave especially with the situation in Nigeria, Iran, Saudi Arabia and other such countries today.

Even here in the U.S. there is an increase of such activity against Christians since the election although it is not as widespread as it is in those other countries.

To those on this forum who are military Veterans, active duty Military and all their families.

THANK YOU!

And may God bless you and keep you.

Why do these people or groups do stuff like that? I am still fairly new to all this, but just don't understand it. I have to and hate to admit it, but I used to be someone who would make fun of Chrsitians and what not (but not proud of it. In fact I'm very ashamed of it), but I would never go to the lengths that some of these people will go to just to try and get a laugh.

In His service,
Robert

One of the most well known Apostles used to torture and kill Christians before he came to know Jesus. He came to be one of the strongest witnesses for God through Jesus.

I have never seen the movie myself so I am not going to comment on it directly. I do know that God uses many things to bring people to Him and this movie is one of those things.

A young lady that had heard the Word but refused it, a drug addict for many years, sin very prevalent in her life in many ways, had her heart softened by what she saw. She came to know the Lord that day. She is no longer using drugs or participating in those other worldly things. She has become a great witness for the Lord.

Praise God for His wonderful mercy.

Man, that's such an awesome story. I tell ya, I sometimes feel as if I am too much a sinner for even God to forgive, then I see something or hear a testimony or read a story like this and it restores my faith that no matter what I have done in the past, I'm a saved Child of God because of my faith in Jesus Christ. I still am having major struggles, but things like this really help me to get through them. Thank you Pastor for posting this. You just helped a struggling guy get a little bit closer to the light.

God Bless,
Robert

It is Gods doing. Praise God for His wonderful mercies.

Amen Darwinatridge,

Brother, that was an excellent and timely post. As Christians, we should expect to be attacked with greater frequency and intensity. If this is the end times, and I think it is, Christians will most certainly become objects to curse and mock. Eventually, Christians will also be physically attacked or worse. Only God knows how bad things will get before Jesus comes to take us home.

I simply pray that God gives us strength to stand up and keep doing His work until His appointed time.

Love In Christ,
Tom  

Brothers, Christians are already being persecuted throughout this world. We have been very fortunate to be in the mercy of God here in America where we still have mans laws that protect us and these freedoms.

I do agree that these freedoms are threatened and are being taken from us.

There is a multi-denominational request for an International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church to take place on Nov 14th this year.

For more information on this I provide the following links.

http://www.persecutedchurch.org/index.cfm

http://www.idop.org/

 

Homeland Security is indeed a tough job. To create a balance between the safety of the people of our nation and the freedom of those people is not an easy task. One that can be trying on anyones health.

Amen.

Choice = Heaven   or Hell    = Simple

Accept Jesus as your Saviour today.

Praise God for His saving grace.

My son just upgraded my computer to Windows XP and told me to get Firefox 1.0 so I did. I really like it so far.

[FREEDOM IS NOT FREE]

Irregardless of what you may believe the governments real reason was/is for the war in Iraq anyone that is a Christian should be elated that a tyrant such as Saddam Hussein is no longer in a position to commit the atrocities that he did. He was a real threat to the security of world peace.

Some people think to have peace means to just lay down your weapons and not fight or that they can talk their way out of war.

FREEDOM IS NOT FREE

AMEN Pastor Roger, as anyone who has served in the mitilary knows.........
[size=10]FREEDOM IS NOT FREE[/size]

Amen, Dreamweaver. Even as Christians also know, Freedom Is Not Free. Jesus Christ paid for our freedom.

BreakPoint with Charles Colson
Commentary #041109 - 11/09/2004


Out of the Cold
Christianity Brings Hope to Cambodia

For nearly thirty years, the phrase killing fields was synonymous with Cambodia. Between 1975 and 1979, the communist Khmer Rouge killed at least one million Cambodians in their attempt to reinvent their society.

The killing ended only with the Vietnamese invasion which drove the Khmer Rouge out of power and into the jungle. Now, some of them have re-emerged, bearing not guns, but Bibles, a reminder of how the Gospel can succeed where man cannot.

The attempt to eliminate religion was at the heart of the killing fields. For Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot, religion was superstition and an impediment to his plans for a better Cambodia.

If Pol Pot were alive today, he would be shocked to read the headline in a recent edition of London's Guardian newspaper: "Khmer Rouge Embraces Jesus." According to the story, "at least two thousand" former Khmer Rouge soldiers "now worship Jesus."

The town of Pailin in southwestern Cambodia is the center of this movement. As one pastor told the Guardian, 70 percent of the converts there are former Khmer Rouge. Many of them have testimonies similar to Thao Tanh. He said that "when I was a soldier I did bad things … We were following orders and thought it was the right thing to do … I read the Bible, and I know it will free me from the weight of the sins I have committed."

The effects of the conversions transcend the merely personal. They have played an important role in bringing the Khmer Rouge "in from the cold" to help promote national unity.

The people of Pailin understand what many here in the West don't: Religion, especially Christianity, is an important part of a good and just society.

An example of how Westerners are ignorant of this was a recent interview of comedian and talk-show host Bill Maher. Speaking on the Canadian Broadcasting Company, Maher described what he called a "real dividing line between people of intelligence" and "people who are religious." While he graciously acknowledged that some religious people, like poet T. S. Eliot, are intelligent, he called religion "a neurological disorder."

In Maher's estimation, the "cure" for "this crazy, illogical thing" Christians call faith is to "really get therapy or take a pill."

The problem with nonsense like this is that, as columnist James Lileks noted, Maher's words "resonate" with many of our elites. They might not put it as indelicately, but they also think that religion is something to be overcome on the way to their idea of a good society.

The Cambodians know better. They have experienced a real-world attempt to overcome religion which left millions dead in its wake. Now they are seeing how Christianity is helping to heal the wounds left by that attempt.

What's true in Cambodia is true elsewhere now and can be true elsewhere in the future. Remember that on November 14, the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church. Pray for both the persecuted and the persecutors, that God's amazing grace will continue to touch and transform them both.