Many Christians today are vainly looking for blessings already available to them. They pray for God’s direction, although He has already supplied direction in abundance through His word.
They pray for strength, although the Bible tells them they can do all things through Christ who strengthens them (Phil 4:13). They pray for more love, although Paul says that God’s own love is already poured out within their hearts through the Holy Spirit (Rom. 5:5).
They pray for more grace, although the Lord has said His grace is sufficient (2 Cor. 12:9). They pray for peace, although the Lord has given them His own peace which surpasses all comprehension (Phil. 4:7).
But mostly we don’t pray at all. Prayer is very neglected and not understood.
No prayer is so universally known and repeated, yet so little understood. It is short and easily remembered. Most people call this the “Lord’s Prayer.” In fact, it is a model to disciples of how we are to pray.
The first thing you should notice is its brevity—57 Greek words in all. Prayer should be simple and to the point. My dad would say long prayers at the dinner table. Our three-year-old son learned that “amen” meant we could now eat. So when dad began to pray Aaron would begin to say “amen.”
We assume that the longer we pray, and the harder we batter at the doors of heaven, the more likely God will answer our prayers the way we want.
Prayer is not informing God of something He doesn’t already know. Nor is prayer seeking to get God to change His mind. And prayer is not the time to preach to others. Prayer is our acknowledgement of our heavenly Father, and our adoration and worship of Him.
This is a Christian prayer. “Our Father in heaven,” is personal. Anyone can say, “Our Father,” but it doesn’t mean they are a child of God. Only Christians are God’s children and able to communicate with God.
This is the starting place—to realize that you are a child of God because of what He has done for you through the Lord Jesus Christ. Here’s what happened when you accept Christ as your Savior:
You were adopted into God’s family. You received His Spirit. You became joint-heirs with Christ in the blessings of heaven. You also received God’s continual presence with you the rest of your life. What can be better than to be in His family!
Jesus identifies our Father as being in heaven. He is not an earthly father—He is our heavenly father. There are many people in this world to whom the idea of fatherhood is not one of love. They were brought up in abusive homes.
But Jesus reminds us that our heavenly Father does not have the failings of earthly fathers. To be reminded that God is our heavenly Father is to be reminded of His love, His holiness, His majesty, His greatness, His almighty power, and of his justice and perfect righteousness.
Be careful about rushing into God’s presence with a shopping list of your needs. His name is to be “hallowed.” That is we long for God’s character to have top place in the world and in our hearts. So we worship and honor Him.
We have a responsibility to honor our parent’s name: I received my name, “Myers,” from my father. I didn’t choose it. Much of my makeup, also, is not of my own making. It is inherited—I have my parent’s genes. To a certain extent I am what my parents made me. I’m known by their name. I have a facial, and sometimes a behavioral, resemblance.
This means I bear a certain responsibility—a responsibility to honor my parent’s name, to not bring shame to it.
To honor God’s name means we, His children, take the responsibility to live lives worthy of His name. When we pray, “Hallowed be your name,” we are not trying to make God holier than He is. That’s impossible. He is absolutely holy in Himself. His moral character is unchangeable.
Prayer for the hallowing of God’s name is recognition of our personal responsibility to live holy lives worthy of that name.
If you have accepted Christ as your Savior, then you are God’s son or daughter, and you bear His name. Others look on you as God’s child. They expect to see in you a family resemblance to God.
When we pray, “Your Kingdom come,” we are not just praying for God’s reign in the world, though that is included.
This is a prayer for ourselves. We are praying that God’s rule will be absolute in our own hearts. For us who claim the name of Christian, nothing—friends, family, government, the boss, coworkers, our stuff, power, possessions, or prestige—should be allowed rule in our hearts.
God’s kingdom must first rule in our hearts before it can rule in the world at large. Heaven must be in us before we can be in heaven. God’s kingdom must be in us before we can be in His kingdom. It must begin in our hearts.
A good test is how others see us. Do others see the characteristics of God in your life? Do they see that you are righteous and just? Is the joy that fills your heart obvious to others?
God’s kingdom is not limited to our hearts, but that must be the starting place. Then, as Christ’s love flows from us, it will extend beyond us to others who don’t know Him. This is what it’s about.
To pray for “our daily bread” is to acknowledge that God is the source of all that we have. By implication it includes all the needs of life—for food and clothing, a home, a good job, and many other physical necessities.
In other words it acknowledges that everything is from God, and it is a request that God everyday would grant our daily ration of life’s necessities.
It shows that God cares for our bodies, and that we should also care for them with proper diet and exercise, and not smoke and get drunk or high.
To pray, “Give us today our daily bread,” is an acknowledgement of God’s ownership and provision. The trouble with many people today is that they make the earning of their daily bread the goal and purpose of their lives—when they should understand it is only a means to glorify God.
To pray for “daily bread” is to understand that we are to live in a moment by moment dependence upon God. To live one day at a time and not be anxious about an unknown tomorrow.
Don’t misunderstand what Jesus is saying here. Scripture is clear that It would be wrong and a sin to neglect to save in order to provide for our family, or to save for retirement, or to neglect insurance policies, pension plans and savings accounts.
Part of our “daily bread” or daily ration consists of money to be laid aside for the next. But it becomes a sin when we get so wrapped up in these kinds of things as if our life and future depended ultimately on them.
Instead we are to have confidence that our heavenly Father is providing for our every need. As a Christian, has God ever been unfaithful to you? Have you ever lacked the necessities of life? No! This prayer is not a demand, but an acknowledgement of God’s provision:
“Forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors”
Jesus is not talking about the forgiveness we receive when we first believe on the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation. When we are born again we accept Christ’s death as the one and only sufficient sacrifice for our sin—past, present and future—and that it is once and for all.
Here Jesus is speaking of the forgiveness that comes later, that comes repeatedly, a forgiveness from sin that restores broken fellowship with our heavenly Father. When a child disobeys his or her parents, there is a barrier that comes between the parents and child. In the same way, sin creates a barrier between ourselves and our heavenly Father.
When we become a Christian we do not cease to be a sinner any more than we cease to be a human being. We have a new nature planted in us by God Himself which will constantly direct us away from sin.
But we also still have a sinful nature that will never be completely eradicated in our lifetime. It’s this sinful nature that gets us into trouble time and time again. And every time it does it breaks the fullness of the fellowship we have with God.
Isn’t it interesting that Jesus uses the words “us,” “our,” and “we”? Aren’t our own sins personal? Well, yes and no. We are personally responsible for our sins, and we will stand before God to give an accounting of our life….
But our sin also inevitably affects others. We must recognize our personal share in the evil that exists in the world. “My” sin soon becomes “our” sin. Personal sin never affects us only.
Some years ago, in a five-story building in Boston, someone left a faucet running from Saturday to Monday in a photographic studio in the top floor.
For 36 hours the water ran and by Monday morning it had seeped all the way down to the first floor, extensively damaging a dress shop, a shoe store, and a restaurant. The damage was in the thousands of dollars just because one careless worker forgot to turn off a faucet.
Life is like that building. We don’t always know who is immediately above or below us, but we know that people are there. When we leave the faucets of sin running in our lives, their lives are affected also.
So what are we to do? We must return to the Lord again and again to confess our sin and ask forgiveness.
“…as we have forgiven our debtors.” It is not as though God petulantly says, “I won’t forgive you unless you forgive those who have wronged you.” The fact is if we open ourselves to receive His gracious pardon, then we cannot refuse to forgive those who have sinned against us.
How can we accept what Christ did on the cross for our salvation, yet refuse to forgive others their relatively minor wrongs compared to the cross? We can’t.
Isn’t it interesting that this part of the prayer comes immediately after asking for forgiveness? This is because so often after we have experienced the cleansing that forgiveness brings that Satan tries so hard to get us to fall into sin again.
We are surrounded by evil. At all times we are surrounded by evil that tempts us and can cause us to stumble and fall. God never, ever tempts us or influences us to do evil or give in to it. But God allows us to live in this world to be the salt and light, the influencers for good.
And He leads us through the evils that surround us. When we pray in this way we are asking God not to withdraw His guiding and protecting hand from us. God is leading us through the valley of temptation. We don’t want Him to abandon us. “Lead us, yes Lord, but come along with us.”
“Deliver us from the evil one.” We are surrounded by evil temptations. God allows us to be tempted even as He allowed the devil to tempt Christ. There’s a reason for it—to help us grow and mature in our faith. We cannot dictate to God the way He will deliver us, or to what extent He is going to allow us to be exposed and tempted.
The only harm Satan and his demons can do to a Christian is to cause us to sin. We may be tempted, Satan may press us, but as long as he cannot induce us to sin, he has gained no victory over us.
It is possible for us to be surrounded by all sorts of evil circumstances, and yet, not be harmed by them if we do not allow them to induce us to sin. This is what we are praying for when we ask for deliverance from the evil one.
True prayer is offered to God the Father on the basis of the death of His Son, Jesus Christ. The author of Hebrews wrote, Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus . . . Let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith (Heb. 10:19, 22). Jesus taught us how to pray. Now, in confidence, pray.