The Lord’s Prayer

Matthew 6:9–13 (NAS)

   9  “Pray, then, in this way:

‘Our Father who is in heaven,

Hallowed be Your name.

10       ‘Your kingdom come.

Your will be done,

On earth as it is in heaven.

11       ‘Give us this day our daily bread.

12       ‘And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.

13       ‘And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil. [For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.]’

 

Last week we talked about having a quiet time before the Lord.  During that time we had a few things on the agenda:

·        Pray that God will open your eyes to what you are reading, after all, it is a spiritual book.

·        Pray for others as God puts them on your heart, keep a list.

·        Read the scriptures according to a plan.  This broadens your understanding of the Bible.

·        Write down a few sentences that describe what you have read.  This imprints the learning on your mind.

·        Thank God for the reading and pray back the concept that He has shown you.

·        Put what you read into practice if you are able during that day.

Let’s look specifically at Prayer for a moment.  Jesus gave us an example of a prayer.  Many people read this prayer and recite it word for word.  They do not see what Jesus said before he gave the prayer outline to the disciples.  Look at the Bible again,

Matthew 6:5–8 (NLT)

Teaching about Prayer and Fasting

⁵ “When you pray, don’t be like the hypocrites who love to pray publicly on street corners and in the synagogues where everyone can see them. I tell you the truth, that is all the reward they will ever get. ⁶ But when you pray, go away by yourself, shut the door behind you, and pray to your Father in private. Then your Father, who sees everything, will reward you.

⁷ “When you pray, don’t babble on and on as people of other religions do. They think their prayers are answered merely by repeating their words again and again. ⁸ Don’t be like them, for your Father knows exactly what you need even before you ask him!

Yup, I switched translations on you.  Look at what is said concerning prayer in a simpler language.  Hypocrites love to pray publically on street corners or in the synagogue (church) so that people can see them pray.  I’ve heard this a lot in my few years on the earth.  To start with, let’s look at the qualifier in this sentence, Hypocrites.  A Hypocrite is an actor or role-player.  The word is transliterated into English in almost every instance, the greek word in this case was “hupokrites”.  No wonder people do not understand what a hypocrite is, they are speaking Greek!  The Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament based on Semantic Domains made this comment “one who pretends to be other than he really is…” 

Jesus said that people who pray so that others can see and hear them have got all the reward they will ever get.  In other words, they are praying prayers that will bounce off the ceiling back at them.  He advised them to pray by going away by themselves into a room where only God can see you pray.  This is the essence of the quiet time.

How do we pray?  Where I was raised, we used form prayers that were written out for us.  We memorized the prayers and prayed them word for word thinking that we would garner favor with God for repeating them.  One of these prayers is the “Our Father” that we are looking at today.  Jesus said for people not to pray prayers repeating word for word because before long all you are doing is babbling nonsense.  I think that when Jesus gave us this prayer, it was an outline for how to pray.  In other words, step one you do this, step two you do this and so on.  Let’s look at it.

First though, I am going to throw another spin at you.  Translators of the Bible won’t touch certain passages because people are familiar with them.  They won’t touch words like “hypocrite”, “Hallowed”, “Trespasses” or “Lead us into temptation” because these words have become associated with the passage.  People who buy the Bible’s will not buy them if you mess with their favorite translations.  Let’s look at a bold way to translate the Lord’s Prayer:

Matthew 6:9–13 (NLT)

⁹ Pray like this:

Our Father in heaven,

may your name be kept holy.

¹⁰  May your Kingdom come soon.

May your will be done on earth,

as it is in heaven.

¹¹  Give us today the food we need,

¹²  and forgive us our sins,

as we have forgiven those who sin against us.

¹³  And don’t let us yield to temptation,

but rescue us from the evil one.

 

This sure looks different from the first prayer that we looked at.  Perhaps we should look at the outline now.  Verse 9 talks about PRAISE.  We address the Father and pray that our attitude of heart will keep His name holy in our lives.  The idea behind Holy is that it is set apart as clean.  When we claim the name “Christian” are we living lives that reflect a clean reflection of God in it? 

Verse 10: Prayer for GOD’S WILL to be accomplished on earth.  What does this look like?  Do we pray that God will be a positive motive force in the world?  I think that part of this is when we pray for other people.  The idea is to pray for God’s will in their lives.  Some may hold that this is praying for the rapture to take place.  I don’t see that here.  What I see is that God’s kingdom is made up of people.  People get saved, learn to love the Lord and teach others to love the Lord.  This is God’s will on earth.

Verse 11: Prayer for FOOD AND SUSTINANCE:  Pray that God will take care of our needs. 

Verse 12:  Prayer for FORGIVENESS:  We pray that God will forgive us for the things that we have done wrong toward others measured by the way that we forgive others for the wrongs that they have done toward us.  Think about that the next time that you criticize someone else…  How often do we talk about someone else running them down for something that they said or did? 

Verse 13:  Prayer for PROTECTION:  Satan and his demons are always wanting us to fall.  Often this fall is not because the “devil made me do it” but because we choose to do what we want to do.  James stated it well, “Temptation comes from our own desires, which entice us and drag us away.  These desires give birth to sinful actions.  And when sin is allowed to grow, it gives birth to death” (James 1:14-15, NLT).  The evil one knows our weaknesses and preys on these weaknesses.  When we give in to the temptation, we are giving in to the temptation to follow the direction of our own hearts.  Prayer for protection is to protect us from our natural tendencies and replace that with God’s attitudes for life.

Think about it like this.  The devil may suggest that we pull out a gun and kill people.  If we do not own a gun and do not wish to kill, the temptation is just a passing thought that is kind of weird.  If the devil tempts us to cut off a speeder who is tailgating other cars, we will probably give in because it strikes our sense of righteousness and courteous driving.  If we are tempted to do something to get back at someone else, we probably wanted to get back at them in the first place.  Which, by the way, means that we did not forgive them…

The quiet time contains all these elements of prayer in it.  I’m going to quit here. 

Father, as we consider Prayer, teach us to pray effectively.

In Him,

Joe Turner.

 

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