The second part of our prayer series discusses the importance of praying in the name of Jesus. By praying using the name of Jesus, the prayer is a recognition of his life, death, and resurrection, which is what has brought us back to God. Because of our belief in Jesus, we can pray and receive anything that God wants us to have, including all of the promises in the Bible.
Memory verse: "Jesus said, 'I am telling you the truth; the Father will give you anything you ask Him for in My name'." John 16:23
Our lesson began with a story called "Aisha's Letter," which is a story of an old woman's faith in a letter that helped her to gain the access she needed to heal her blindness, which is a parallel to how we have faith that in the name of Jesus we can have our prayers heard.
After the story of Aisha's letter, I gave the children color paper, markers, envelopes, and colored pencils. We wrote out our memory verse across the top of the page. Beneath the memory verse, we wrote "In the name of Jesus, I pray that..." and we wrote what we desired of the Lord. We decorated our pages and folded them and stuffed them into an envelope with our name (I decorated mine), and then we sealed our prayers inside the envelope. We agreed that once a day we will pray in the name of Jesus with our envelope - this is to get the children practicing prayer and developing a prayer life.
At the end of the church service when Pastor Horne asked for any prayer requests, we told the congregation about our prayer envelopes, and we had the church pray with the children and their envelopes. It was a moving event, and one I believe that instilled the importance of prayer.
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