The Lord’s Prayer

“Here’s what I want you to do: Find a quiet, secluded place so you won’t be tempted to role-play before God. Just be there as simply and honestly as you can manage. The focus will shift from you to God, and you will begin to sense his grace. “The world is full of so-called prayer warriors who are prayer-ignorant. They’re full of formulas and programs and advice, peddling techniques for getting what you want from God. Don’t fall for that nonsense. This is your Father you are dealing with, and he knows better than you what you need. With a God like this loving you, you can pray very simply. Like this: Our Father in heaven, Reveal who you are. Mat 6:6-9

I have always been very inspired by the Lord’s Prayer. Unfortunately, the world is full of so-called prayer warriors who don’t understand prayer. They promote formulas, programs and advice, peddling techniques for getting what you want from God. Don’t fall for such nonsense. The main point of prayer is that we are spending time and communing with God.

In The Lords Prayer (Matthew 6:9-13), Jesus teaches us an example of prayer that is simple, yet powerful. He warns us not to make prayer overly complicated or cluttered. We are also not to pray empty prayers, chanting the same thing over and over. Plus Jesus clearly calls it hypocritical when one prays publicly just to be seen and heard by others.

Many times our image of our Heavenly Father needs to be renewed because we have lost our absolute conviction of how much he loves us. Here’s what I suggest you do: Find a quiet, secluded place so you won’t be tempted to role-play before God. Just be there as simply, honestly and openly as you can manage. The focus will shift from you to God, and you will begin to sense his grace.

You will find you are in the presence of and praying to your Heavenly Father. He knows your circumstance and needs better than you do. Secure in His presence and love, you can begin your prayer very simply like this: “Our Father in heaven, reveal Who you are” (Matthew 6:6-9).

By saying “OUR Father,” Jesus includes you and me as His brothers and sisters. I love that. As we pray through Jesus’ model of a simple, heartfelt prayer we see several specific things we can request of God.

We ask for His Kingdom to come, thus honoring Him for Who He is. In other words, we are asking for the fullness of His Kingdom to come into our lives. His Kingdom brings righteousness, peace, joy, power, etc.

We pray that His will and His purposes will be done in our lives as it is in Heaven.

We address our needs by asking God to give us this day our daily bread. God wants to provide for us. When we have a need, we go to Him first, acknowledging Him as our source.

We ask for forgiveness of our debts as we also forgive others. There is a cycle of forgiveness; He forgives us, and in turn we forgive others. And He continues to forgive us.

We ask God to lead us away from temptation; we are unable to avoid and overcome temptation on our own because sin has dominion this world.

We ask God to be delivered from evil because the world that we live in is full of evil; we pray specifically to be delivered from the evil one or Satan.

It is always a good thing to acknowledge and appreciate the supremacy of the Father by declaring “Yours is the Kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen” at the end of your prayer (1 Chronicles 29:11–13).

As you pray in the pattern of The Lord’s Prayer, in the Father’s presence, and with the Father’s intent, it will become evermore alive and meaningful to you. God did not intend prayer to be complicated or eloquent. He desires only a sincere and heartfelt connection with His own.

Will you choose to approach God through the simple and powerful pattern of prayer that Jesus has provided? Now, that’s the choice-driven life!

Today’s Bible Reading:

Obadiah; Jer 40-42; 1 Pet 5; Ps 147

Subscribe to our FREE Updates as soon as they are published and receive our FREE Report; Click Here