Understanding The Lord’s Prayer
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Understanding The Lord’s Prayer
A personal relationship with God: “ Our Father.”
The word signifies with all the other Christians. While the Bible nowhere presents the universal Fatherhood of God, it does declare the brotherhood of believers. The word ‘Father‘ signifies the relationship between God and the believer.
Faith: “which art in heaven.”
one of his disciples said unto him, Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples. And he said unto them, When ye pray, say, Our Father which art in heaven.. (Lk 11:1-2)
Hebrews declares that without this element our prayers are useless. (Heb 11:6)
Worship: “Hallowed be Thy name”
The word “hallow” means “render” “sanctify” or “treat as holy”.
“Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name” (Mt 6:9) So when Jesus instructed His disciples to say “hallowed be thy name,” He was declaring that God’s name is holy and showing reverence to that name.
David felt this part of prayer to be so important that he appointed a select group of men who did nothing else in the Temple but praise and worship God. (See 1 Chr 23:25; 25;1, 7).
In the book of Revelation, John sees four special angels who exist solely to worship God and who “rest not day and night, saying, HOLY, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is to come” (Rev 4:8). See also Christ’s statement to Samaritan woman (Jh 4:23:24)
Expectation: “Thy kingdom come”
If you pray “Your kingdom come,” you are inviting the King, Jesus Christ, to move into your life and the lives of others and breathe His Holy Spirit into you and them.
The kingdom is that blessed millennial kingdom spoken of so much in the Old Testament (see Isa 2:2-4; 25:8; 35:1, 8, 10; 65:20, 25) and (Rev 20:1-6).
“Your kingdom come” means we are to pray that God will hasten Christ’s return to establish the literal Kingdom of God on this earth (Rev 11:15; Mt 6:33).
The Lord has established his throne in the heavens, and his kingdom rules over all” (Ps 103:19).
Jesus came healing and teaching. When He cast out demons, He said, “But if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you” (Mt 12:28).
Submission: “Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven”
Jesus would later give the finest example of this element in Gethsemane. (see Matthew 26:39)
“…he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, ‘My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will'” (Mt 26:39).
Jesus is telling us that when we pray to God, we should entrust Him everything that He deems best.
Petition: “Give us this day our daily bread.”
This suggest that our praying should be as our eating – daily.
Give us this day — we’re not guaranteed tomorrow. Give thanks for what we have at the present.
This is the filial boldness of God’s children. We ask, and we know we shall receive. For what father, “if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone?” (Mt. 7:9).
In the generations after the death of the apostles, we find that the common practice of Christians was to receive the Eucharist every day. Tertullian attests to this in North Africa, and St. Hippolytus in Rome.1 St. Cyprian of Carthage, in 252, speaks at length about the spiritual meaning of this petition:
And as we say “Our Father,” because He is the Father of those who understand and believe, so also we call it “our bread,” because Christ is the Bread of those who are in union with His Body. And we ask that this Bread be given to us daily, that we who are in Christ and daily receive the Eucharist for the food of salvation may not, by the interposition of some heinous sin, be prevented from receiving Communion and from partaking of the heavenly Bread and be separated from Christ’s body.
Confession: “as forgive as our debts”
The blood of Christ will forgive us of every sin, but not one excuse! Only confessed sin can be forgiven (see 1 Jn 1:9).
Compassion: ”as we forgive our debtors”
Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgive each other just as in Christ God forgave you. (See Eph 4:32, Matt 18:21-35; 1 Jn 4:20)
Jesus associates the idea of us seeking God’s forgiveness and forgiving another. If we have personally experienced God’s forgiveness, then we will be able forgive those who have wronged us.
“For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.” ( Mt 6:14-15)
Dependence: “And lead as not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”
It should be understood that while God has never promised to keep us from temptation, He has promised to preserve us in and through temptation. (See 1 Cor 10:13).
Acknowledgement: “For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever.”
Yours, Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the majesty and the splendor for everything in heaven and earth is you. Yours, Lord, is the kingdom; you are exalted as head over all. (See David’s great prayer in 1 Chr 29:10-19, where he actually anticipates the final part of Jesus’ model prayer.)
The Lord’s Prayer
Our Father, which art in heaven,
Hallowed be thy Name.
Thy Kingdom come.
Thy will be done in earth, As it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
As we forgive them that trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
But deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom, The power, and the glory, For ever and ever.
Amen.
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