Matthew 6:9-13
The Lord’s Prayer is one of the best loved and most spoken prayers on the planet. It is THE prayer that Jesus taught to His disciples and the prayer he teaches to us as the pattern for all of His followers to use. As His followers, may we continuously strive to pray more like Jesus. Let’s look at what it means to pray like Jesus:
- PATTERN Matthew 6:9 This, then, is how you should pray. (NIV)
While I point out 7 aspects to the Lord’s Prayer, the first one simply affirms that this is Jesus’ prayer pattern for us to follow. The average Christian spends 59 seconds per day in prayer. The Lord’s Prayer encourages us to stretch that out a bit.
- PRAISE Matthew 6:9 Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed by thy name.
Hallowed means we recognize God as holy and distinct from us. He is mighty, full of power, wisdom, justice and mercy. As we praise the almighty for who He is our prayer needs to be that we will become more like Him which means we need to grow in holiness.
There is no greater way we can praise the Lord than to live the life he has called us to live; the life of love. Praise him with your life, with your heart and with your love. Praise him by living like him. Praise Him by thinking and being holy like him. Ask Jesus how you can best worship and praise him by loving others as he did.
Micah 6:8 He has shown you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.
1)Act justly—act rightly (righteously) toward others.
2)Love mercy—show compassion and mercy to others.
3)Walk humbly—be free from arrogance and pride as we live and relate to others.
- PLEAD Matthew 6:10 Your Kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
- Thy Kingdom come—pray for the ways and order of His Kingdom to happen here as they are fully obeyed in Heaven.
- Thy will be done—pray that God’s Will occurs. Here we are aligning our will with God’s will, we are submitting ourselves to Him and asking that His will triumphs.
Let us all pray: “God, may your ways and your will be done on earth as they are done in heaven and may it start with ME! That must be what we plead and what we pray. God may I live the way you want me to live, may your will be fulfilled and accomplished in me and through me. YOUR Kingdom come, not my kingdom or the kingdom of this world and may your will be done on this earth as it is done in heaven where everything is good and godly and right and loving and perfect.”
- PETITION Matthew 6:11 Give us today our daily bread.
This part of the prayer teaches us to ask God for our daily needs. It also teaches us how to think about life. We must live in daily dependence on Christ. We need Him, are dependent on Him. This doesn’t mean we don’t step out and work hard. It means we are in constant relationship with our Savior every day and throughout the day.
- PENITENCE Matthew 6:12 Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
Different versions of this prayer use different words here. Sometimes trespasses, debts, sins – it all means the same thing: ways in which we have failed God and others. Regardless of our failings, we need to ask the Lord for His forgiveness and He will forgive.
This is an important prayer to pray but it is also an important way to live. I’m a sinner saved by grace. His mercy and forgiveness are overwhelmingly powerful. My sins are not final and my flub ups don’t have to be fatal. I can find forgiveness if I ask. To me this speaks of not only asking for His forgiveness but living with a soft heart.
And we must also forgive others just as we have been forgiven. Eliminating the toxin of unforgiveness from our life is crucial to spiritual health.
- PURITY Matthew 6:13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.
This part of the Lord’s Prayer is where we pray for ourselves and others to not to be in a place where temptation might overwhelm us. And when tempted to overcome temptation. Temptation is not a sin, but yielding to it is..
- PROCLAMATION Matthew 6:13 For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever and ever. Amen.
The prayer finishes with a closing doxology, that is, a hymn of praise to God. For me this is a declaration of faith. I believe it is powerfully faith building and inspiring to start our prayers with praise and end it with praise or a proclamation of how GREAT our God is.