Prayer
Week 03: Our Father
When Jesus taught his disciples to pray he actually gave them a prayer. This prayer is known as “the Lord’s Prayer” or “Our Father”. We believe that Jesus wasn’t just giving some example prayer, but that he was actually calling us to pray this way. In fact, apprentices of Jesus have used this prayer as model prayer for 2,000 years. This week we will use the Our Father as an outline for how to pray.
Matthew 6:9-13 — “This, then, is how you should pray: “‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.’
The practice for the week: Take some time to be alone with your Father in prayer. Before you start, know that he loves you and that you don’t need to say anything to impress him. He just wants to be with you. He is a good Father who wants to be with you and give good gifts (Matt. 7:11).
01 – Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. God is our loving Father. “Father” is a title of loving relationship. By teaching us to pray like this, Jesus invites us to relate to God the very same way he does. To hallow something is to set it apart as sacred or special. So, to hallow God’s name is to set him apart as sacred — or to worship him. Spend some time worshiping God. Again, you don’t have to say anything impressive. Just tell God you love him and how great he is. Worship God.
02 – On earth as it is in heaven. When Jesus invites us to pray like this he assumes that God’s will isn’t always done on earth. Jesus invites us to pray for a world to come into being, here and now, where God’s will is done. Jesus invites us to dream of a world where sin no longer reigns, sickness no longer destroys, and where death no longer has the last word. Jesus invites us to pray that the poor would be blessed, prisoners would be set free, the blind would see, and the oppressed would receive justice (Lk. 4:18) — because this is what God’s will on earth looks like. Pray God’s will would be done on earth.
03 – Give us daily bread. The language throughout this entire prayer is plural. We are to ask God to provide for us as well as every other person who may need God to provide for them. Things happen when we pray that wouldn’t have happened if we didn’t pray (Ex. 32:14; 2 Kings 20:5). So, ask God to provide.
04 – Forgive us. Jesus invites us to ask God to forgive our debts. Forgiving debts is something the Jewish people would do every seven years. They called it the year of jubilee. Slaves would be set free, debt would be forgiven, and the world would be reset. So if all your debts have been forgiven, you’d have no reason to hold anyone else in debt. Thank God for forgiving all your debts and ask him to help you forgive others.
05 – Deliver us. Jesus invites us to pray that God would deliver us from “The evil one” or Satan. The evil, temptation, and brokenness we experience comes not from God, but from The evil one. Ask God to deliver you from spiritual attack and temptation from the evil one.
Recommended reading: The Lord’s Prayer: A Guide to Praying Our Father by Wesley Hill