The Lord’s Prayer

Our Father, who art in heaven,

hallowed be thy Name,

thy kingdom come,

thy will be done,

on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our tresspasses,

as we forgive those

who trespass against us.

And lead us not into temptation,

but deliver us from evil.

For thine is the kingdom,

and the power, and the glory,

for ever and ever.

Amen.

Recently, I have been literally confronted with The Lord’s Prayer at every turn it seems.  It has been placed in front of me and part of two separate bible studies in the past week.  So, I have had cause to re-visit this formulaic prayer to try and discern what it is I am to glean from it.

In a liturgical church you have many chances in which to recite this prayer, and I believe that because of that, we may tend to take the meaning for granted.  What we should try to do is to pray this prayer with all our might, rather than simply recite it.  It is filled with beautiful messages of hope, peace, and most importantly grace, and it should never be overlooked if at all possible.

The first couple of words truly set the stage.  “Our Father�?  It really says it all right there.  It doesn’t say “Their Father�? nor does it say “Someone’s Father�?SPAN>  it says �?B>Our Father.�?SPAN>  The Hebrew word “Abba�?comes to mind.  This is the affectionate term for father that we teach our kids.  Abba literally translated means ‘daddy�? and that is exactly how we need to envision our relationship with God.  We need to not only imagine, but to truly believe that we are climbing up into His lap, putting our head on His chest and talking to Him as only a child could do with his father.  Christ’s death resulted in the veil of the temple being torn in two, which granted each believer the right to do this.

Next we hear a location.  We hear “Who art in Heaven�?/SPAN>

The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it; the world and all who live in it {are the Lord’s}  (Psalm 24:1)  It all belongs to Him, but it is clear that His dwelling place, and our future dwelling, is heaven.  Jesus was clear enough in John 14:1-3 when He said:

 1"Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God^[a]; trust also in me. 2In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. 3And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.�?/SPAN>

So what we have is the beginning of a conversation with The God of the universe that has called us His children.  We are literally speaking one on one with our creator, the author of our lives and our salvation.  If it doesn’t sound humbling, then we are not thinking clearly.  We need to be clear also, that we need not be so humbled we forget that He loves us to commune with Him.  It is our privilege and a joy for Him.

Following that we read, “hallowed be thy Name.�?SPAN>  Again, we need to understand with whom we are speaking.  Jews considered His name so hallowed that they would only write a few letters of it, and they only did that on special occasions.  They would put YHWH, which we so cavalierly transformed to Jehovah, or Yahweh.  We now have substituted the word LORD or God in its place.  This is not just any name; it is The Name of power.  It is a name that heals, provides, conquers, protects and changes lives.  It is not a name to be uttered lightly, and we need to understand that when we call upon Him we can expect things to happen.  When He is involved, things happen.

We Christians all look toward the future for a special event to occur-  God’s kingdom fulfilled on earth.  So when we pray this prayer we say, “thy kingdom come�?in an effort to say that we know what is coming.  What exactly do we mean when we say “thy kingdom come?�?SPAN>  We are saying that the inevitable will happen, and God will establish His kingdom, but we should also be saying that the inevitable has happened and God is already establishing His kingdom.  We are all working for God’s kingdom right now.  The Holy Spirit has enabled each one of us to do work that furthers God’s kingdom, and by saying “thy kingdom come�?we are acknowledging that we want to be a part of the building team, as well as one of the residents.  We, as Christians, have the unique ability to send our efforts forward.  Our rewards in heaven, which we will cast at the feet of Jesus, will be for our work we did on earth for God’s kingdom.  That is kingdom living, and as faithful stewards of God’s provision it is not only our privilege, but our responsibility.

Next we pray what Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane on the night of His Passion.  We say, “thy will be done.�?SPAN>  It is so easy to gloss over this small line.  We may feel that we cannot do anything but the will of God, and when we consider God’s Perfect Will, we would be right.  However, within God’s Perfect Will, His Divine Plan, we each operate within God’s Permissive Will.  This allows us to make decisions for ourselves with regard to our lives.  This allows us to sin, to turn right when we should have turned left, and it allows us to involve ourselves in activities that may or may not be God’s will for our lives.  When we say, “thy will be done,�?what we are saying is that we desire for God to point us in the direction He thinks we should go.  Here, we are praying that we use all our will to hear what God’s will is.  Sometimes we cannot hear because our will tends to be so loud that we cannot get around it.  When we pray this, we need to be earnestly searching for God’s will to be done.

The next line says, “on earth as it is in heaven.�?SPAN>  Right now, we exist is a corrupted, fallen world.  Heaven is pure and unblemished.  When we ask for God’s kingdom and will to be done “on earth as it is in heaven,�?we are asking for only that which is good and righteous to be part of our lives.  We are saying that we do not want to be part of the disease, but we want to be part of the cure.  We are saying that whatever we do, we would like for God to direct it for His kingdom and will, not ours or the world’s, and that which will do neither needs to be stopped or removed from us.

Next we begin a series of requests after we have made known that we understand who God really is.  We have said that He is our Father, but He is also the divine creator of everything, and that nothing other than His will is worthy to be sought after.  So we say, “Give us this day our daily bread.�?SPAN>  Bread occurs so many times in scripture, and numerous times in regard to Jesus.  In His temptation, the devil tells Jesus to make the stones bread because He had fasted forty days.  Jesus says that men shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.  So the bread we ask for here may certainly be a request and a gratitude for God’s provision for our physical feeding, but I think it goes much deeper than that.

In the sixth chapter of John (verses 25-59), Jesus refers to Himself as “The Bread�?at least seven times.  This is the bread that comes down from heaven, and once eaten the person never hungers again.  This truly is our daily bread.  The bread that rules and governs our lives from the time we believe and confess.  When we pray “Give us this day our daily bread,�?SPAN>  we are asking that God continue to fill us with life so that we can in turn take this ‘bread�?out to others that still hunger.  I cannot remember who said it, but they defined Christianity as “One beggar showing another beggar where to get fed.�?SPAN>  And this line from The Lord’s Prayer proves it.

The next line forces us to become very honest with ourselves.  We say, “And forgive us our trespasses.�?SPAN>  In order to be able to say this, we have to first acknowledge that we have trespasses.  We have to admit that we have sinned and that we need forgiveness from God.  1 John 1:8 says that if we say that we are without sin, then we are deceived and the truth is not in us.  So understanding that we have sinned and also understanding the consequence to sin, we then understand the need to be forgiven of that transgression.  So we ask God to “…forgive us our trespasses,�?but there is a catch�?/SPAN>

The next line finishes that thought that Jesus had nearly 2000 years ago.  He finished by saying, “as we forgive those who trespass against us.�?SPAN>  God is willing to forgive our trespasses as long as we are willing to forgive those that sin against us.  If we hold onto unforgiveness, then we can expect that God will let us hold onto our sin as well.  This is called, “drinking a poison in the hope that the other person will die�?SPAN>  and is disastrous to a child of God.  This will destroy your witness, ruin your relationships, block your blessings, and nullify your actions.  Only by forgiving others can we be made whole enough to accept God’s total forgiveness for us.  So prior to coming to God for prayer, we need to make sure that we are holding no hatred or resentment within us.  If we are, we need to admit that it needs to be removed.  Interestingly, we may need to ask God for help in doing so.

Next, we begin a series of pleas for a good life.  First we say, “And lead us not into temptation.�?SPAN>  Temptation is no fun.  It is scary and dangerous for a Christian.  However, there is no escape from it because we are bombarded with it every day.  We are sheep among wolves, and the devil knows that enough temptation will wear down even the most seasoned Christian.  I am convinced that every person has a limit at which they will give in.  Some limits are huge, and some are small.  For many of us, a traffic jam might be the limit that pushes us over the edge.  We need to understand that God will allow us to suffer temptation, but He will not lead us there.  That is a job for the devil.  In Psalm 23, we hear several images that illustrate a Shepherd with His flock.  Shepherds had one tool they used every day.  It was the crook.  One end had a hook, and the other was a straight staff.  When a sheep began to wander off, or was in danger, the shepherd might grab him with the hook and pull him back.  Conversely when the sheep repeatedly wandered away as the flock moved, the shepherd might use the staff end to discipline him.  At this point in The Lord’s Prayer, we are asking God to guide us as The Good Shepherd and to keep us from that which would harm us.

Next we hear, “but deliver us from evil.�?SPAN>  If we continue with the shepherd image, we know that as the sheep traveled along obediently with the shepherd, eventually he would lead them to wherever they needed to go that day.  As we continue to count on God to keep us from temptation and to guide us through our lives we can be assured that He will ultimately deliver us from evil.  What Jesus did guarantees this for us.  As we pray “but deliver us from evil.�?we are saying that we are counting on God bringing us into His abiding love and ultimately into His presence.

The books of Matthew and Luke stop here, but the early churches took the prayer a little farther, and I believe the addition to be a beautiful and worthy ending to this prayer.

We begin to wrap up the prayer by praising God and giving further acknowledgement to whom we are speaking.  By doing so, we glorify Him and take our minds from our own needs back to His will for our lives.  We say, “For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory,�?SPAN>  in an effort to say, we know who made everything and who is in control of everything.  We are also showing our respect by saying that whatever is accomplished by us is really accomplished by Him for His glory and not our own.  We understand that the only power is the power that belongs to God Almighty and that whatever we have has been given to us by Him and Him alone.  And we also further acknowledge that His kingdom is ultimately that which will cover this earth and this universe.

And then we close by giving a time frame for His control.  We say that He is in control “for ever and ever.�?SPAN>  Not for a short while.  Not several thousand years.  Not a long time ago, but from the beginning of time to the end of time �?“for ever and ever"

Amen.