Jesus Teaches About Prayer

This week’s Sunday School lesson is about prayer from the book of Luke. When Jesus taught His disciples how to pray, the first thing He told them to do is to recall God’s glory. His kingdom and His will are foremost on Jesus’ mind, and they should be foremost on all of ours. Prayer is not passive, wishful thinking, but implies activity and initiative. Prayer, then, makes us active participants in the plan that God has for us, not just bystanders. Through prayer, we make our desires known, speaking up and asking in faith. This passage is a great reminder that God is not waiting to be convinced to help us; He stands ready and willing to help us. Therefore, our persistence continually puts our hearts in a posture of prayerful waiting.

All of the activity pages and videos are below.

Luke 11:1-4, 9-13; 18:1-8 (NIV)

¹One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.”

²He said to them, “When you pray, say:

“‘Father,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come.
³Give us each day our daily bread.
⁴Forgive us our sins,
for we also forgive everyone who sins against us.
And lead us not into temptation.’”

…

⁹“So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. ¹⁰For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.

¹¹“Which of you fathers, if your son asks for^[a] a fish, will give him a snake instead? ¹²Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? ¹³If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

…

¹Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. ²He said: “In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared what people thought. ³And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, ‘Grant me justice against my adversary.’

⁴“For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, ‘Even though I don’t fear God or care what people think, ⁵yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won’t eventually come and attack me!’”

⁶And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. ⁷And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? ⁸I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?”