The Lord's Prayer

When we pray, we are actually speaking to God, and Jesus has given us a wonderful prayer as a model. It is rich in its teaching and brilliant in its significance. God has given us the right to address Him. Jesus had a unique relationship with God. We are co-heirs with Jesus and He encourages us to approach God with tremendous freedom. He assured us that, “Your Father knows what you need before you ask.”

As you pray this prayer, or play it on the pipes for call to worship or at a wedding, think of the words throughout. Prayer is sacred, because we are speaking to God. We come before the Lord in prayer, and it’s from our heart. We should think of our Almighty God as our gracious Heavenly Father. In prayer, God is to be exalted as our Heavenly Father. Nevertheless, He lives here, amongst us. It is fitting and appropriate to reverence and honor God as most holy, when we pray. Our prayer was fashioned by Jesus, so that God will be hallowed. Jesus taught us to say, “Our Father, which art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven.”

We are about half way through The Lord’s Prayer before we even begin to ask God for anything, and we haven’t said a thing about ourselves. We haven’t admitted our sinfulness to God, but have asked, “Give us this day, our daily bread, and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” At this point in The Lord’s Prayer, we have actually aligned ourselves with God and His principals for us. Conscious of our many faults, we realize the necessity of admitting our transgressions and asking forgiveness, so we can speak to God unhindered. We’ve asked for sustenance and simultaneously have asked for forgiveness, knowing that in His fairness, God would only consider our prayers for sustenance once we have asked His forgiveness from those to whom we have been indebted.

Praying the first part of the prayer, helps us to know how to pray in the second part. The first part acknowledges to whom we are speaking, and it is most certainly to God, the Creator and Sustainer of the Universe. Certainly, we can’t live in variance to His will and still ask Him for something, We certainly can’t ask God to forgive us if we can’t forgive those who have sinned against us. This next part of the prayer, is to ask God to prevent us from getting into a situation where we will falter, but be delivered from the Evil One. “Lead us not into temptation,” is to ask God’s help in making us less tempted to act in discordance with His will. “But deliver us from evil, for Thine is the Kingdom, the Power and the Glory, Forever, and Ever, Amen.” Here, we have admitted our need for willpower to avoid evil. Once we are able to avoid things that are evil, we can be depended upon to make our principals correspond with those descriptive of Heaven.

We must always keep in mind that God is a loving God and that He will listen intently to our prayers, not reluctantly, but with willingness. God listens if we come before Him with genuine love in our heart; that we remember what Jesus said when He gave us the most important commandment of all. It is, “to love your Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind, and to love your neighbour as yourself. He gave us this wonderful gift; “The Lord’s Prayer.”

Prayer is not just for the purpose of asking God for things, but to reverence Him, admit our transgressions and ask forgiveness. It should help us to maintain a relationship with Him that would facilitate communication and assurance that God will listen to our prayers. James, who was Jesus’ brother, told us that the fervent prayers of a righteous person would accomplish much. Jesus said we should pray believing, and our prayers would be answered. Still, we must have faith that the prayer is reasonable.

Two of my favourite hymns are, “Teach Me to Pray,” and “The Lord’s Prayer.” After playing them as a medley, I love to play, “Singing I Go,” as it is most appropriate. After the two hymns are played for call to worship, the third is an excellent way to exit from the sanctuary.