Prayer – For God’s Sake

The following is from Jon…

Matthew 6:9-13
9Pray then like this: “Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be your name. 10Your kingdom come, Your will be done, On earth as it is in heaven. 11Give us this day our daily bread, 12And forgive us our debts, As we also have forgiven our debtors. 13And lead us not into temptation, But deliver us from evil.

We are all familiar with the Lords pray, but do we really know what it’s in the Bible for? It’s there because Jesus was asked how we should pray, so He gave us this prayer as a good example on how our prayer should be, hence the, “Pray then like this”.

Breaking down the Lords pray verse by verse;
Verse 9: …Our Father in heaven,…
Explanation: This is the part of the prayer where we are to greet God however you feel comfortable while still being reverent to Him. Personally I like to greet God like this in my prayers… “Hey God how you doing today?”.
Verse 9: …Hallowed be Your name.
Explanation: This part of the pray is where we are to praise, glorify, and honor God as well as thank him for the wonderful and not so wonderful things in our life and the lives of those around us. Now I’m sure you all are wondering why we should thank God if something not so wonderful happens in our lives like being made fun of or our grandparents dying or even an unsaved person dying. Well, the answer to that is rather simple but at the same time hard to accept at times. We are to praise God for everything that happens in our lives because nothing is outside of His will and everything that happens, happens to bring more honor and glory to His name and kingdom.

Verse 10: Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Explanation: One thing that I really want to stress in this part of the prayer is the “Your will be done”. Too many times have I heard prayers and even prayed myself like this “God, please heal my friend for he is sick and doesn’t know You yet and if he dies he will surely go to hell.” And then we simply move on to our next item to pray about, how selfish of us to pray like this! Now, I’m not saying it’s wrong to ask God for things like this, because we should! But the most important part of that prayer is missing, if we were to follow the example of Jesus’ prayer, the very next thing in that prayer should be something like this “But God, I know that you have a plan that I do not understand, and as much as I want my friend to be healed and saved from hell, please let Your will be done with this…” In everything we ask of God we are to ask that God’s will be done, not ours!

Verse 11: Give us this day our daily bread,
Explanation: This is where we simply ask for the necessities of life, such as food, water, clothes, and a roof over our heads. But there is one more thing that needs to be fed daily; can you guess what it is? Our Spirit needs to be fed daily. If you’ve ever seen the “Christian Spiritual Chart” it’s pretty much a chart that has a baby on the very left, next to it is a teen, next to the teen is an adult, and next to the adult is a warrior. This is a good example of how much that person’s Spirit got fed by the Bible. If we read the Bible daily, our Spirit will grow strong like the warrior/adult and when hard times come we will be able to stand our ground. But if we read the bible now and maybe once a week, our Spirit will be as a baby so that when hard times come we will be defeated in seconds and fall to sin. So, here is what this prayer is also talking about. We are to ask God that he would help remind us and give us time to read our Bibles, and that He would to speak to us through His word so that we may understand and apply to our life what He is saying to us.

Verse 12: And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
Explanation: This is very simple; ask for God to forgive you for your sins on a daily basis. And ask for courage to forgive those who do wrong against you. In verse 15 it goes on to say that if we forgive others’ debts against us He will forgive our debts, but if we do not forgive others’ debts He will not forgive ours.

Verse 13: And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
Explanation: This is pretty much where we are to ask that God would help us to not sin and to stay away from things that would grieve His heart.

You don’t have to pray in this exact order every day; it is, however, a good example / outline of how we should pray. When you pray, remember these things: Prayer is all about God and bringing more honor, glory, power, and praise to His name, and furthering His kingdom. It’s not just about us and what we want, it’s all about Him and how we can love and serve Him better.