For many of us, when we think of the Lord’s Prayer, we remember the words of rote memorization of a specific passage of Scripture. This may be by virtue of a Sunday School class or a catechism lesson or a recitation that was included in the weekly worship service. In any case, the words of the prayer are indelibly imprinted on our minds as well as our hearts.
However, what we may know so well may not be understood so well at all, let alone applied as it was originally intended. The prayer itself is found in two places in the Gospels, Matthew 6 and Luke 11. In Luke 11, Jesus furnishes the prayer to His disciples, giving some context to its origination. In this passage, the entirety of the text as found in Matthew 6 is not shared concurrently. However, Luke does tell the reader that Jesus, responding to His disciples’ requests to teach them how to pray, provides the words of the prayer.
We can conclude from Luke then that the Lord’s Prayer was intended to be a template of how to pray to the Father, not simply a prayer of repetition uttered without meaning or purpose (rf. Matthew 6:7). Thus, we are to look at the content of the prayer and then structure our prayers accordingly. For this exercise, we are directed to the complete prayer as found in Matthew 6:9-13.
When Jesus set forth His model prayer, recognition of God the Father and the supremacy of His will came first and foremost. He made this clear by His initial declarative statements, “Our Father which art in heaven. Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.” (KJV) In our humanness we tend to go immediately to God with what matters most to us—our needs, problems, circumstances, stresses, etc. Jesus declares to us that God, His glory and ultimate will carry far more weight in terms of importance than do our concerns. Thus, the primary focus of our prayer life should be the Lord and what He wants to do in this world. If we maintain this perspective in prayer, eventually the rest of our life, mind and action will catch up to the real game at hand.
Once we have correctly aligned our prayers with the Lord and His will above our own, we will begin to ask Him for the things that we need, but only on a daily basis. Notice Jesus’ template once again: “Give us this day our daily bread.” He has promised to provide for all of our needs “according to His riches in glory” (rf. Philippians 4:19). He has also stated that worrying about tomorrow will not add anything to your life today, not even height to your stature (rf. Matthew 6:25-34). He wants His followers to know that His provision is daily in perspective and delivery. After all, no one is guaranteed tomorrow. So, tomorrow is not worth being worried over.
If there is any action upon which our prayers are contingent, it is in the forgiveness of others. “And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.” So important is this provision of forgiveness, He makes it clear by the use of a small two-letter term, “as”. In other words, God will forgive me “as” I forgive those who have something against me or those for whom I have aught against. Therefore, my prayers to Him and their acceptance by Him totally rely upon my willingness and follow-through to forgive others. Otherwise, my prayers are but empty ritual, accomplishing absolutely nothing with God.
“And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” There is the imperative recognition of two distinctives about God the Father. He is all-righteous in His character and action. Everything that He has done, does and will do, both by direct volition and by allowance will be good in His sight and righteous by His standards. Nor will He ever lead one of His sheep down a path into temptation and harm. God is not the author or the originator of evil. He will use evil and its effects to accomplish His righteous ends as well as allowing His followers to endure temptation, testing and trials to build their faith and trust in Him. The Lord will ultimately, however, deliver His people from all of their difficulties (rf. Psalm 34:19). This aspect of the prayer is but an understanding of this dynamic of the character of God.
The last part of Jesus’ template, surely a very important part, is our submissive attitude. When Jesus states, “For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.”, He is declaring an unreserved recognition of God’s complete sovereignty over all things, that His power, dominion and glory are more important than anything in this world. We, therefore, are called by Christ to lay down the things that we deem as essential at the feet of the Father in favor of God and what He wants to accomplish, especially in view of how He wants to use us and our lives. The “Amen” is but the punctuation, which means all of the above “is true” to us, not just in concept, but in reality.
With the previous now presented, are you willing to follow Jesus’ template and conform your prayer life to His? The reason the disciples wanted to learn how to pray according to Jesus was because they had seen the power of God operational in His life and desired the same in their own lives. Jesus’ response to them stated that this way of praying makes this happen by bringing our prayers in line with His will. What will it take for God’s people to move from self-centered prayers to mountain-moving, world-changing praying once again? It’s all a matter of the template that we use.
