Our Father Prayer

Our Father Prayer

 

In our Father prayer, which we know as the Lord's prayer, it is tremendously satisfying to learn from God Himself; to learn with what words and what manner, He would have us pray to Him, so that we would not pray in vain.

 

Our king prepares the petition, which he allows to be presented to Himself. This means without question that He is determined to grant the request.

 

The spirit and attitude we are to have for this prayer is: "Lord, teach us how to pray!" We need to be divinely instructed by the Holy Spirit, because there is the danger of our simply repeating the prayer blindly.

 

 

Our Father

 

In calling Him "Father”, we express a relationship we have all known and felt surrounding us even from our infancy.  Our Father Prayer draws us closer to Him.

 

In calling him Father, we are surrendering ourselves to God and God's family. We are denying humanism, self-sufficiency, and all other gods. We are surrendering ourselves to the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ. We are acknowledging the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ to be our own Father.

The word Father, placed here at the beginning of this our Father prayer, includes two grand ideas, which should serve as a foundation to all our petitions:

1.  The first idea is that of tender and respectful love that we should feel for God.  It should be similar to how happy children relate to their earthly father.

 

2.  The second idea is that of the strong confidence in God's love for us; it is similar to what fathers have for their children.

 

 

Our Father which art in heaven

The phrase, our Father who art in heaven seems used to express:

1.  His OMNIPRESENCE. The heaven of heavens cannot contain thee. 1 Kings 8:27: that is, Thou fillest immensity.

 

2.  His MAJESTY and DOMINION over his creatures. Art thou not God in heaven, and rulest thou not over all the kingdoms of the heathen? 2 Chronicles 20:6.

 

3.  His POWER and MIGHT. Art thou not God in heaven, and in thy hand is there not power and might, so that no creature is able to withstand thee! 2 Chronicles 20:6. Our God is in heaven, and hath done whatsoever he pleased. Psalm 115:3.

 

4.  His OMNISCIENCE. The Lord's throne is in heaven, his eyes behold, his eyelids try the children of men. Psalm 11:4. The Lord looketh down from heaven, he beholdeth all the sons of men. Psalm 33:13-15.

 

5.  His infinite PURITY and HOLINESS. Look down from thy holy habitation, etc. Deuteronomy 26:15. Thou art the high and lofty One, who inhabiteth eternity, whose name is holy. Isaiah 57:15.

 

In calling Him "Father”, we express a relationship we have all known and felt surrounding us even from our infancy.

 

However,  in calling Him our Father "who art in heaven," we contrast Him with the fathers we all have here on earth, and so raise our souls to that "heaven" where He dwells, and that Majesty and Glory which are there.

 

 

Hallowed—

 

The word means a thing separated from the earth, or from earthly purposes and employments. It means to be held in reverence and regarded and treated as holy.

The word sanctified, or hallowed, in Scripture, is frequently used for the consecration of a thing or person to a holy use or office.

To hallow is older English for 'to make holy', so in modern English instead of saying 'hallowed be your name', we would say 'May your name be made holy'.

 

The Our Father prayer is such a well-loved and often-used prayer, that to change its wording to bring it up-to-date with the norms of modern English would involve changing the words that many hold very dear. This is why the Our Father prayer is still full of older English: 'thee', 'thou' and 'art'.

 

 

Thy name

That is, GOD himself, with all the attributes of his Divine nature—his power, wisdom, justice, mercy, etc.

We hallow God's name in the following ways:

1.  With our lips, when all our conversation is holy, and we speak of those things that are meant to minister grace to the hearers.

 

2.  In our thoughts, when we suppress every rising evil, and have our tempers regulated by his grace and Spirit.

 

3.  In our lives, when we begin, continue, and end our works to his glory. If we have an eye to God in all we perform, then every act that we commonly employment will be an act of religious worship.

 

4.  In our families, when we endeavor to bring our children up in the discipline and admonition or the Lord and instruct them in the way of righteousness.

 

5.  In a particular calling or business, when we separate the falsity, deception, and lying, commonly practiced, from it, and buying, selling and doing business in the sight of the holy and just God.

 

God's name means "Himself as revealed and manifested."

 

Everywhere in Scripture God defines and marks off the faith, love, reverence and obedience He will have from men by revealing to us what He is. 

 

He does this both to shut out false conceptions of Him, and to make all our devotion take the shape and hue of His own teaching.

 

We need to pay much attention to this instruction from God.

 

 

Thy kingdom come—

God has promised that the kingdom of Christ shall be exalted above all kingdoms. Daniel 7:14-27. That it shall overcome all others, and be at last the universal empire. Isaiah 9:7.

The kingdom of God is that moral and spiritual kingdom which the God of grace is setting up in this fallen world.  True believers in Jesus Christ are the subjects and His Son Jesus is the glorious Head.

 

 

Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven

This petition is properly added to the preceding; for when the kingdom of righteousness, peace, and joy, in the Holy Spirit, is established in the heart, there is then an ample provision made for the fulfillment of the Divine will.

The will of God is infinitely good, wise, and holy; to have it fulfilled in and among men is to have infinite goodness, wisdom, and holiness diffused throughout the universe; and earth made the counterpart of heaven.

It is often very hard to honestly pray for God's will to be done. Jesus' agony in the garden of Gethsemane is an illustration of how difficult it can be to do the will of God.

God's will may not always be our will. Often when we pray, we pray for what we want, or for what we think we want. What we want for ourselves may not always be the best thing in the long run — for ourselves or for others.

God's will may well be different from ours. It is very difficult to let go and pray for God's will to be done. His will may well involve loss and grief for us in the short term. It is very hard to trust God with the people and the things that we hold most dear, but trust we must.

 

Praying for God's kingdom to come may make unexpected demands on us. God may well choose to use us as instruments of his kingdom building. He may choose to use our hands and hearts to bring the kingdom of heaven about on earth.

God can use anyone to answer prayer. He can even use the person who is doing the praying. Therefore, when I pray our Father prayer, "Thy kingdom come", I am inviting God to use me as an instrument, to use me to help bring about that kingdom, where everyone will live in the joy of God's love.

 

Some have asked if “Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven” will ever be? I don’t believe that is the correct question.

 

It is not a question of “If” or “Can” or “Will it ever be” It is wholly a question of whether we will be obedient and pray forth what God had directed, to breath forth this beautiful petition directed by God for His will to be done here on earth just as it is in heaven.

 

 

Give us this day our daily bread

We must ask only that which is essential to our support; God has promised neither luxuries nor superfluities. This simple our Father prayer petition is a prayer asking for the daily necessities of life, for the food for the day ahead.

When Jesus taught this our Father prayer, he probably meant that we should ask for the basic necessities of life from God. Even if we work for our daily bread, as most people do, it still comes to us as a gift from God.

It is good to foster a healthy dependence on God. Our Father prayer of asking for our daily bread reminds us not to store up and amass wealth for what we need for tomorrow, or next year, but to live simply, trusting that He really will supply us with all our needs.

Of course this doesn't mean that we pray our Father prayer and then sit back and relax, waiting for God to deliver everything to our door! But it does mean that we can trust Him to see that our basic needs are met.

 

 

Forgive Us Our Trespasses As We Forgive Those Who Trespass Against Us

 

Nowadays we tend to use the word 'trespass' to mean walking over someone else's land without their permission. Originally, though, the word had a sense of infringing not only land, but also the rights and dignity of another. To trespass against someone was to injure them or do them an injustice.

 

When we ask God to forgive us as we forgive others, what are we saying?

 

Are we really saying that God should only forgive our sins so long as we forgive the sins done to us by other people?

 

What about all those we just find it impossible to forgive?

 

If we cannot forgive someone, does that mean that God will not forgive us?

 

This seems to be what this petition of the Our Father prayer does say, and as if to underline the point, Jesus says directly after the Our Father prayer, "If you forgive others 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." (Matthew 6:14-15)

 

Although it can be very difficult to forgive others, sometimes it is even harder to forgive ourselves. How many of us are struggling with terrible burdens of guilt and shame, tormenting ourselves with how bad we really are?

 It is sometimes all too easy to hurt those we love, to make mistakes, to say too much, to say too little, to not have noticed, or to not have said goodbye. The world is full of people painfully trying to come to terms with their part in what has happened.

 

However much we may want to, we cannot turn back the clock. Instead, we are just left with our own painful memories, replaying the past again and again in our minds, wishing that somehow we could go back and change the way it was.

 

But in the end, what we really need is to forgive ourselves, to let ourselves be healed.

 

 

Lead Us Not Into Temptation

 

Those of us who honestly seek, and have the assurance of, forgiveness for a past sin, will strive to avoid committing it for the future. But we will be conscious that when we would do good, evil is present with us.

The process of temptation is often as follows:

1.  A simple evil thought.

 

2.  A strong imagination, or impression made on the imagination, by the thing to which we are tempted.

 

3.  Consent of our will to perform it. Thus, lust is conceived, sin is finished, and death brought forth. James 1:15.

 

When we are tempted, we are always tempted by something that appears to us to be a good thing.

 

We are not tempted by badness, but we may be tempted to do something bad in order to get something good out of it.

 

For example, if Joey wants to have a new stereo, there is nothing wrong with that; wanting a stereo is a perfectly reasonable desire. But if he goes about mugging old people in the street to get his stereo, then clearly there is something wrong. His desire for the stereo is a good thing, but he has succumbed to the temptation to mug old people rather than to try to save up the money himself.

 

At the heart of our temptations are good things, but the problem is that often we may become obsessed with having that one good thing and ignore all the bad consequences that would follow if we tried to get it.  That is what consistency in our Father prayer will help us avoid.

 

 

But Deliver Us From Evil

 

The word 'deliver' in Greek is a very urgent and dramatic one: it suggests being snatched away from a place of danger. When we ask God to deliver us from evil, the image is of a very desperate plea for a rescue mission to save us.

 

The world is full of suffering and pain. It is also full of people succumbing to temptation and making choices which inflict pain and suffering on others.

 

When we ask in our Father prayer to be spared temptation, we are asking that we might not contribute to the misery in the world.

 

When we ask in our Father prayer to be delivered from evil, we are asking not to be on the receiving end of it.

 

Our Father prayer for being delivered from evil it is about being delivered from any sort of harm and distress. We are asking to be saved from whatever it is that troubles us, or cause us distress and pain.

 

We believe in a God of resurrection and life. Our hope lies in the fact that, however bad a mess we make of everything, at least we know that God can put it right again. We believe in a God of resurrection, a God of healing and peace who can transform our world and make it complete again.  That is our Father prayer.

 

 

For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever.  

 

By the kingdom, we may understand that mentioned Matthew 6:10, and explained Matthew 3:2.

By power, we may understand that energy by which the kingdom is governed and maintained.

By glory, we understand the honor that shall redound to God in consequence of the maintenance of the kingdom of grace, in the salvation of men.

 

 

Amen

This word is Hebrew, and signifies faithful or true. Some suppose the word is formed from the initial letters of ‏adoni melech neetnan, My Lord, the faithful King.

The word Amen itself implies a confident resting of the soul in God, with the fullest assurance that all these petitions in our Father prayer shall be fulfilled for every one who prays according to the directions given by our blessed Lord.

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