August 21, 2018

Praying through ‘The Lord’s Prayer’ – Our Father

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Last week, as church we prayed through the Lords prayer step by step from Matthew 6. Here’s how we were able break down each verse and then pray through it.

‘Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.’

Glorify our God, meditating on His greatness.

  • Our God who reigns in infinite power and wisdom, who exists from all eternity, the great, wonderful and righteous king is ‘our Father!’
  • He is omnipotent (all powerful), omniscient (all knowing), omnipresent (all present), faithful, merciful, the beginning and end of every person that will ever live.
  • Our God is holy, and He is jealous for our undivided affection.
  • He is high, and also dwells with the lowly. He is a king, and he is a father. He is far above us, and yet ready to come to us.
  • Pray that God would make his name supremely known and valuable in the minds and hearts of people.
  • Pray that Gods name would be ‘Hallowed’ i.e His name would be feared in each of our lives, that we would not fear man but always revere Him.
  • Pray that our heavenly Father would cause our hearts to trust, obey, fear and glorify Him alone.

‘Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.’ 

  • Gods kingdom to be established here on earth, gathering the redeemed from every tribe, tongue, people and nation.
  • The earth to be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea (Habakkuk 2:14).
  • God our Father to bring His kingdom in a greater measure today, beginning in our own hearts and pouring out to our home, community, city, nation, and to the ends of the earth.
  • May the rule of Christ be extended into every area of our lives. May we seek to live under the kingly protection and provision and guidance of God.
  • As we walk with God, may He work on our hearts, our affections, our desires to know what is His good and perfect will.
  • May the Lord cause us to obey His will. Help us to do His will with fervency and undivided devotion. Let Him mold us and make us respond to the needs of the world and be part of bringing Heaven to earth.

‘Give us this day our daily bread’

  • We ask our Heavenly Father for bread that teaches us honesty. We do not ask for the bread out of other people’s mouths, nor the bread of deceit (Pr 20:17), nor the bread of idleness (Pr 31:27) but the bread honestly gained. We ask for our ‘daily bread’ which teaches us not to worry about tomorrow but constantly to depend upon the divine Providence of God.
  • We come to God in a spirit of humble dependence, asking Him to provide what we need and to sustain us that we might accomplish what He has called us to do, trusting that He will provide.
  • We pray that God would give us ‘this day’ which teaches us to renew the desire of our souls toward God, as the wants of our bodies are renewed.
  • May our natural desires be subject to spiritual desires; fruit-bearing desires, gospel-spreading, God-centered desires.
  • As we delight in the Lord, in hallowing His name, seeking His kingdom and doing His will, we’ll pray that all our natural desires will be transformed into God-related desires.

‘Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.’

  • Our debt includes secret sins as well as public ones, deliberate sins as well as sins committed in ignorance. And when all our sins are added together, they place us in God’s eternal debt.
  • We come to God as sinners in need to be forgiven everyday. We know we don’t deserve it, we ask for mercy. We ask God to draw us into the freedom of His love, the love He gave when His Son died in our place.
  • We thank God because He is our loving Father who offers full and free forgiveness.
  • May the Lord cause us to forgive from the heart which is the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22). We have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer we who live, but Christ who lives in us. We are a new creation and the mark of our newness is not yet perfection but a persistent inclination to forgive.
  • May we continue to forgive because Christ through His grace, mercy and compassion has forgiven us.

‘Lead is not into temptation but deliver us from evil’

  • As we face endless choices between belief and unbelief, obedience and disobedience, we pray that God would hold us back from stepping into temptations.
  • We pray for Gods grace to help us stand strong when we face temptations or find ourselves in situations where our faith is tried and tested. We trust in the Lord (not ourselves) for deliverance; to keep us back from the entanglements of over powering temptations, to guard us from the enemy and all his works, to grant us to walk in holiness before Him all our days.
  • Let’s pray that we remain watchful and discerning, saturated with the word of God, gripped with the goal set ahead of us and committed in doing Gods will thereby not yielding to the enemy’s enticements.
  • “Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are – yet was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.” Hebrews 4:14-16

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