2 Pray Then Like This
Pray Then Like This
Pray then like this.” Thus Jesus introduced the Lord’s Prayer in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 6:9-13). Clearly, then, the prayer is given us to be a pattern for our thoughts in prayer as well as a set verbal form. What does the pattern contain? Here is a bird’s-eye view.
The address to God (invocation) with which the prayer opens is full of meaning. It must have startled the disciples, for in Judaism calling God “Father” was something one did not do. Jesus directs us, however, to do it—in other words, to seek access and welcome to God’s presence on the ground that we are children in his family, and he looks on us with a father’s love. Then with this we are to link the thought that our Father is “in heaven”—in other words, that he is God, sovereign and self-existent, the God who is both there and in charge. Fatherly love on the one hand, and transcendent greatness on the other, are two qualities in God which the rest of the prayer assumes at every point.
Then come three God-centered petitions, voicing together the attitude required by what Jesus called “the great and first commandment—you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart . . .” (Matthew 22:38, 37).
The first petition is that God’s name should be hallowed. “Name” in the Bible means “person,” and the hallowing of God’s name means the acknowledging of God as holy through reverence for all his revelation and responsive worship and obedience.
The second petition is that God’s kingdom should come. God’s “kingdom” means the public display of his ruling power in salvation, and the prayer for his kingdom to come is a plea that his lordship might be seen and submitted to, and his saving grace experienced, all the world over, till Christ returns and all things are made new.
The third petition asks that God’s will may be done—that is, that all his commands and purposes may be perfectly fulfilled.
God First, Then Man
Three man-centered petitions follow. By putting them after requests for the exalting of God, the prayer reminds us that we are to ask for the meeting of our particular personal needs as a means toour Father’s glory, and not in any spirit of trying to bend God’s will to our own. We are told to ask for provision of bread, pardon of sins, and protection from temptation and the tempter (“evil” means “the evil one”). All our needs are in principle covered here—all need for material things; all need for spiritual renewing and restoring; all need for guidance and help.
The “praise ending” ascribes to God the kingdom (that is, it hails him as God on the throne), the power (that is, it adores him as the God able to do all that we ask), and the glory (that is, it declares “we praise thee, O God” here and now). Though early, the manuscripts make it clear that it is not from Christ’s own lips—but there is no denying that it fits!
God Leads The Conversation
When we talk to parents and friends about our anxieties and problems, looking to them for help, they often have to take over leadership in the conversation in order to give it a meaningful shape which our own higgledy-piggledy minds have denied it. We all know what it is to have been pouring out our troubles in full flood and to be pulled up by “Wait a minute; let’s get this straight. Now tell me again about so-and-so . . . Now tell me how you felt about it . . . Then what’s the problem?” Thus they sort us out.
We need to see that the Lord’s Prayer is offering us model answers to the series of questions God puts to us to shape our conversation with him. Thus: “Who do you take me for, and what am I to you?” (Our Father in heaven.) “That being so, what is it that you really want most?” (The hallowing of your name; the coming of your kingdom;to see your will known and done.) “So what are you asking for right now, as a means to that end?” (Provision, pardon, protection.) Then the “praise ending” answers the question, “How can you be so bold and confident in asking for these things?” (Because we know you can do itand when you do it, it will bring you glory!) Spiritually, this set of questions sorts us out in a most salutary way.
Sometimes when we pray we feel there is nobody there to listen, and are tempted to think that our feelings tell us the truth. What finally dispels this temptation, under God, is a fresh realization (Spirit-given, for sure) that God is actually questioning us in the way described, requiring us to tell him honestly how we think of him and what we want from him and why.
That this is so is part of the teaching of the Lord’s Prayer, which from this standpoint is like a child’s picture containing a hidden object. At first you look and don’t see the object; then it hits you, and every time you look at the picture after that it seems to jump out at you. The hidden object in this case is the God who asks the questions to which the Lord’s Prayer, clause by clause, is the proper set of answers. And it is only when you see this that you can use the pattern prayer in the way that its Author and Teacher intended.
Further Bible Study
A model prayer:
John 17
Questions for Thought and Discussion
On what basis should we seek access to God’s presence? Do you think you have such access yourself? What are your reasons for saying yes or no?
What does the Lord’s Prayer have to do with loving God with all our heart?
Illustrate ways in which the Lord’s Prayer might be needed to reshape prayers that we might make.