Lords Prayer

Jesus used the Lord’s Prayer when He taught His disciples to pray. This prayer has become a ritual for many, something you just pray without much mental effort to many. Earlier, I experienced this. I prayed the Lord’s Prayer for good conscience’s sake. If I forgot to pray one day, I prayed the Lord’s Prayer as a quick way out. I do not think that Jesus meant His followers to pray the Lord’s Prayer literal without thinking about the words, or ritual. I believe He emphasized some important principles for praying.
The structure and content of this prayer is worth paying attention to. It can really revolutionize your prayer life!

Before beginning the actual prayer Jesus start by giving His disciples some tips about how not to pray.

Matt 6:7-8
7And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. 8Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

This scripture deserve consideration. I have caught myself thinking that God will hear me if I only pray long enough. But He listens before we pray, He is aware of our thoughts. He wishes us to tell Him our desires, so that He can act and fulfill them.
This liberates us from trying to induce long and impressive and well-spoken prayers. God longs for short, straight to the point prayers. I do not think it is bad praying for an extended period of time, as God has told us to be enduring in prayer, but I think He wants us to be effective. You are able to pray for more if you do not pray for the same thing all the time. Another result of praying repeatedly over the same issue is boredom. No wonder that many prayer meetings are terribly boring.

Matt 6:9
9"This, then, is how you should pray: " `Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name,

The Lord’s Prayer starts by adoring God. The focus of our prayers should always begin by worshipping our God. When we choose to worship Jesus we hallow His name. One advice from me to you is to begin with some worship songs about God’s greatness and power. Play a CD if you do not fancy singing. If we begin our prayers with problems, they overwhelm us (and we might even start to worship them). Instead, if we begin by focusing on the almighty God, we realize that He is greater that our problems. This is a repeated, well-used principle throughout the Bible, whenever people pray. (For example Acts 4:23-71, and in many of the Psalms). One important thing: Then one you worship, you empower. When you worship God you will enable him to release His power.

Matt 6:10
10your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

This is the most powerful sentence in this prayer. Do you realize what would happen if God’s will was done generally and widely? No one would have been sick, no suffering or evil of any kind and there would be world peace. This is what Jesus told us to pray for. This is not praying for personal things but interceding for others. I experience it as a powerful prayer that I use a lot when I pray for nations. I pray: “Let your kingdom come upon this place, let your will be done here just like it would if this was the Heaven.” One of my favorite intercession songs is: Let your glory fall. Especially the line “Let your glory fall on this place, let it go forth from hear to the Nations.”
The evil and his servants, the demons, dislike this prayer a lot, because they want to guard the evil kingdom. There are two kingdoms: The kingdom of Darkness and the God’s kingdom, which is Heaven. We are called to bring Heaven down to earth. We can our self be the answers to this prayer by bringing God’s kingdom to a dark world without hope.

Matth 6:11
11Give us today our daily bread.

This is the personal needs we may have. Many find “our daily bread” very little concrete. For many western world people it my seem strange to pray for this. We have no need to pray for it. We are so privileged that we have everything we need for survival. But there is many out there who don’t have this and for them this prayer is really concrete.
Food is human’s most important need, but God wants us to approach Him with less important needs as well. So everyone can pray this prayer too.

Matth 6:12
12Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.

This verse is about leaving sin and forgiving those who have done anything unrightfully against us. In order to be forgiven our sins we must be willing to forgive those who have sinned against us. I have mentioned a couple of times the importance to deal with sin in order to receive answers to our prayers. We have to ask God to forgive us before we can receive forgiveness.

Matth 6:13a
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one

Here we touch upon spiritual warfare. Jesus does not mean that God is the one who leads us into temptation, but this is a prayer of protection. We encounter temptations daily. These often come in a subtle way almost unnoticeable before they catch our thoughts. To pray for protection is important. We must constantly be on guard, not letting temptations enter our minds. It is not a sin to be tempted. Jesus was also tempted. But to give in to the temptations is sin. Temptations are the entrance to fall. However, you are able to resist it, especially if you choose to take the thought of temptation in to captivity immediately, instead of fooling around with them.

Matth 6:13b
for yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen

The end of the Lord’s prayer also includes a proclamation and focus of God’s nature and His almighty power.

What can the structure of this prayer teach us? It starts and ends by focusing on the powers of the one we pray to. Our own needs are in the middle. God’s desire is to have His kingdom among us.