My current sermon series is focused on offering realistic guides to improving the prayer life of people who feel that it is important. The last sermon was on models of prayer. It was grounded in the model of prayer Jesus taught the crowds on the side of mountain and taught the disciples when they asked. We have come to call this The Lord's Prayer. And it is repeated throughout churches and homes on a regular basis. I drew the implication out of what Jesus says in those passages relevant to the prayer (Matthew 6:9-13; Luke 11:1-4) that this was not THE prayer that followers were to pray, but a model to prayer. That is my take on that passage. It can be read in the sense that this was the prayer that they were supposed to pray. The disciples seemed to take it that way and commend early Christians to pray that same prayer (plus the line "for yours is the power and glory forever) three times a day. The point I wanted to make is that models of prayer are useful guides in enteri...