Lesson Review

Last week, we learnt that Hannah prayed for a baby for many years and God answered her prayers. Hannah had been teased by Peninah and was so sad but she never gave up praying; telling God how she felt and asking God for a baby. We learnt that we should also tell God about our pain and believe that He cares for us even when the answer we want takes a long time.

Introduction

Give one child a Bible to hold as everyone sings “Read your Bible, pray every day” over and over. Tell the children that any time you shout “stop”, the child holding the Bible should pass the Bible to someone else, and that child should answer one of the following questions with the help of the others, if needed, before resuming with singing the song. How should we pray? When should we pray? Is it a must for us to kneel down when we are praying? When you finish, tell the children that today you shall be learning how to pray according to what Jesus taught.

Bible Story

• Matthew 6:5-13 – Appoint one child to read this passage.

• Communication is important in all our relationships, so it should be no surprise that prayer is one of the most important parts of our relationship with God. You’d think talking to God would be harder or more complicated than it is but God gave us eight verses to show us how to do it right just as we have read.

• Today we’re learning about how God would like us to pray. Jesus’ closest friends, the disciples wanted to know how to pray but before Jesus taught them how to, He said a few things first. Jesus said that we should keep our prayers simple. God listens to us, and to Him, it doesn’t matter if our prayers are long or short and if you just don’t have the right words God knows what we mean (and we don’t need to use fancy words either)!

• Jesus also mentioned that we shouldn’t ‘show off’ when we pray. He said this to the people that used to stand on the street corners praying loudly so that everyone would see what ‘good Christians’ they were. God doesn’t want us to pray so people can see us or hear how well we can pray. He wants us to pray in a quiet place with our own words about our needs, thanking and praising Him, and telling Him what we’re sorry for.

• After saying these few things, this is how Jesus told us we should pray:
  Our Father who art in heaven, Hallowed be Thy name.
  Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.

  Give us this day our daily bread.

  And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.

  Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For Thine is thy kingdom, the power, and the glory, forever and ever. Amen.

• Anyone can read the Lord’s prayer, but it may be a little tough to understand when you first hear it. It’s important to think about what you’re saying, and today, we shall go through this prayer step by step to understand it.

• Our Father who art in heaven: We start the prayer out this way so that we know that we’re praying to God our Father and we’re not alone. God likes it when we call him Father and He wants us to talk to him like we talk to our own fathers here on earth. God is our loving Father and we are His special children, so if you do not have a Father here on earth, remember, you have a loving Father in heaven.

• Hallowed be thy name: This means holy is Your name. Even though God wants us to call Him our Father, He is still God. God is Holy and perfect. He is great and mighty – He created everything and there is nothing that is impossible for God. When we pray, we need to treat God in a special manner because He is God and so when we pray to Him, we need to be respectful. Closing our eyes, putting our hands together and bowing our heads when we pray helps us to shut out all distractions when we’re praying so that we can focus on God and respect Him.

• Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven: If we think about where God lives, we know it’s pretty great. The Bible says that in heaven there will be no more crying, God will live with us, and there will be no hunger or hurt there. This part of the prayer means we are praying that people would live in peace and love with one another the way it is in heaven. It reminds us that we should be living the way God wants us to every day.

• Give us this day our daily bread: This means give us today all that we need. Keep in mind that these are things that we can’t live without. We don’t need video games and toys. Those are the things that we want, we need food, water and shelter.

• And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us: Trespasses means our sins and mistakes. This next part of the prayer is asking for forgiveness for our mistakes. Forgiveness means that we are sorry for something we’ve done and we don’t want to do it anymore. But we also need to forgive people who have done wrong to us. Sometimes others hurt us very badly, so we need to ask God to help us forgive them. If we forgive others, God will forgive us.

• And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: Is it sometimes tempting to do something you’re not supposed to? This part of the prayer is really lovely because it asks God to help us to know the right thing to do. We are asking God to protect us against the evil that is in the world and keep us away from it. We cannot resist temptation alone. We need God’s help.

• For Thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, forever and ever. Amen: This last part of the prayer is the best part! For Thine is the kingdom means that Heaven will last forever and will always be God’s. God also has all the power and all the glory FOREVER! It makes me happy knowing that God will never die and He’s the strongest and greatest. With God, we will always win!

• From this amazing prayer that we have learnt and reviewed today, let us remember these key lessons:
  1) God loves to hear from us: God loves you and wants to know everything about you and how you’re doing so talk to Him often.
  2) Pray every day: Prayer is our special way of talking to God so remember to pray as many times as you can. Pray every day. The Lord’s prayer asks for daily bread. That means we can and should talk to God daily and make our requests known to Him.
  3) Daily depend on God: We might easily take for granted things like food, shelter, clothes, water, and family. Praying for these needs reminds us that God is the giver of life. Prayer helps us remember to daily depend on God for our needs, both great and small. We should depend on God alone for all our daily needs.

Lesson Application

Learn the Lord’s Prayer by heart and pray to God every day this week.

Discussion Questions

1. What things did Jesus say to do and not to do when you pray? Why? We should pray privately to God. We should not pray to talk on and on without meaning it. We should honour God and ask Him for what we need and for forgiveness. God sees what we do in secret and knows what we need even before we ask.
2. When should we pray to God? Every day, at any time; in the morning, noontime, evening, when we’re walking, before sleeping, before food, when we’re scared – any time and all the time.

(Teacher note: Invite any child who has never given their lives to Christ to do so. )