Luke 11:1  
And it happened
as He was praying in a certain place,
when He ceased,
one of His disciples said to Him,
Lord, teach us to pray,
as John also taught His disciples.

    Calling on God as our father demonstrates a central facet of Christianity.  Christians have risen to a status of God's family members.
    Most people do not understand this, because they think in terms of all men being God's children.  And there is a sense in which all men are God's children.  He created us, we are His offspring.  But our relationship to God by creation has been altered by the Fall.  We are still His creation, but we no longer relate to Him as our spiritual source.  Man now chooses self / Satan / other aspects of creation   as our glory.
    When God chose a collected people for Himself, beginning with Abraham, they related to Him as a people through symbols and teaching devices.  They could have a real relationship with God, just like Abraham, "the friend of God", but they would not have it merely by the symbols and illustrations.  This is what Paul meant when he said:

Galatians 4:1  - 3  But I say, Over so long a time the heir is an infant, he being lord of all, does not differ from a slave,  but is under guardians and housemasters until the term set before by the father.  So we also, when we were infants, we were under the elements of the world, being enslaved.

    The heir was Israel.  Until Christ came, Israel was an 'infant'.  Individuals in Israel could relate to God as children no less than you or I, but the nation as a whole was under tutors.  The tutors were "elements of the world", meaning all the physical processes God used to teach Israel.  This included both the clean & unclean laws as well as animal sacrifices.  As soon as the REALITY to which these pointed had come, the tutors were longer needed:

Galatians 4:4, 5  But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, having come into being out of a woman, having come under Law,  that He might redeem the ones under Law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.

    The Law as a covenant, as a total system would naturally make way for its successor, Christ.  But many were unwilling to give up the covenant or certain outdated aspects of it.  They were therefore unable to come into God's family.  God had already sent His own Son in order to make us sons.  If they preferred the symbols of Christ to Christ Himself- well, how foolish is that!

Galatians 3:1  O senseless Galatians, who has bewitched you; to whom, as before your very eyes, Jesus Christ has been portrayed, crucified among you ?

    Many are just as bewitched today.  Elements of Christianity are given a status rivalling Christ Himself.  These elements might be baptism, communion, worship, even the Church.  Men foolishly seek Christ through mediators, but Christ is already THE mediator.  No others can be tolerated (1 Tim. 2:5).  Christ has given us means to seek Him, but there is always the tendency to make means into mediators.

    Lord Jesus, how easily I crawl back to elements, symbols, in preference to You.  The means to You so easily obstruct me, including prayer; but this, of course, is because of my idolatry and lack of faith.  I make the means more important than You rather than gratefully using the means to reach You.
    Teach me repentance.  Let the spirit of adoption bring me to You Yourself.  Help me to recognize the tutors that have been discarded.  Help me to make right use of means with which You have blessed Your Church.

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Matthew 6:9   
Our Father
who is in the Heavens,
cause Your Name
to be set apart.

    God's name is more than the words "God", "Jesus", "Jehovah", etc.  His name includes any portrayal by which He depicts Himself.  However, if we set His name apart, the word "Jesus" will no doubt be on our tongue frequently:

Acts 4:12  And there is salvation in no other One; for there is no other name under Heaven given among men by which we must be saved.

    Jesus calls us to identify with Him publicly:

Mark 8:38  Therefore whoever shall be ashamed of Me and of My Words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man shall also be ashamed of him when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels.

    Notice the two necessary objects of our conversation:  Jesus and the Bible.  To be ashamed of Him is simply not to speak of Him.  "Oh, but I'm not ashamed of Him.  I just don't happen to talk about Him."  Hmm, maybe we're missing something here.  How else can we define being ashamed of Him?  We don't bring Him up in others' company.
    Obviously, it can feel artificial to insert Jesus into certain conversations or at certain points.  Our real challenge is to overcome this artificiality by speaking of Jesus frequently.  Again, if He is a natural part of our lives, this can be done naturally and gracefully.  However, it must be done.

Psalm 40:10  I have not concealed Your righteousness in My heart; I speak Your faithfulness and Your salvation. I have not hidden Your loving-kindness and Your truth from the great assembly.

    If we can't talk about Jesus with other Christians, with whom can we?  But having trained our tongues to speak of Him, we can do so in any setting:

Psalm 96:10  Say among the nations, Jehovah reigns; and, The world shall be established, it shall not be moved; He shall judge the peoples in uprightness.

    Lord Jesus, I recognize Your name as the saving power.  My tongue, however, needs to be empowered to speak of You.  I fear I do not know You well enough to speak of You, to represent You.  Help me to share what I know.  Help me to share my ignorance also, what I haven't learned yet, right along with it.  You are already testifying; the Spirit and creation are already testifying.  Help me realize that my testimony is not the all-important one; only that is it is all-important that I give it.


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Matthew 6:10  
May
Your kingdom
come

    When we pray for God's kingdom to come, there is a time in the farther future we pray towards:

1 Corinthians 15:24 - 26  then is the end, when He [Christ] delivers the kingdom to God, even the Father; when He makes to cease all rule and all authority and power, for it is right for Him to reign until He has put all the enemies under His feet.  The last enemy made to cease is death.

    Before that concluding act, Christ must appear from the heavens where He ascended, Acts 1:11.  He will gather His people and destroy the Antichrist (simultaneous events according to 1 Thessalonians 2:1-3, 8).
    Then what will He do?
    Someone's answer to that question largely depends on his interpretation of Revelation 20.  This is the great 'millennium' passage.  "Millennium" means "1,000 years" and could be so translated right from the passage:

Revelation 20:1, 2  Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, having the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand.  And he seized the dragon, that serpent of old, who is the Devil and Satan, he who deceives the whole world, and he bound him for a thousand years [or for a millennium]

    The most prevalent view throughout Church history is that this 1,000 years is figurative and that we have been in it since Christ's ascension.  However, this sense is rather strained when we consider:

1 Peter 5:8  Be sensible, watch, because your adversary the Devil walks about as a roaring lion seeking someone he may devour

    Peter not only indicates that the Devil is not presently bound, he actually pictures him as moving freely about.  But look at Revelation 20:

Revelation 20:3  and he cast him into the bottomless pit, and locked and sealed it over him, so that he should deceive the nations no more until the thousand years were finished. But after these things he must be released for a short time.

    How could the Devil be both "walking about" and "locked and sealed"?  The figurative view answers that he is on a leash, but as an old farmer is said to have retorted to a lecture on that subject:  "Mighty long leash."  
    So Revelation 20 seems to defy sensible figurative interpretation.  A literal interpretation is borne out by comparison to Peter's relevant passage.  Therefore, when we pray for God's future kingdom to come, we are praying for Christ to personally come and establish a real, visible kingdom on earth, locking Satan away for a time.  Envisioning this makes a difference in the way we view the world and its goings-on.

    Lord Jesus, may Your kingdom come.  May You put Satan away, first temporarily, then finally.  Let me show my colors today, that I am for You.  The world lives in practical denial of Your future victory.  They wave Satan's banner, in effect.  I know that I may practically wave that banner with them if I live mindless of Your final conquest.  Strengthen Your rule in me now by my faith in Your millennial rule.  Buoy me with the hope of Your personal appearing.


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Matthew 6:10  
May Your will be done,
as in heaven,
so also on the earth.


    The eighth declaration of the Ten Words forbids misuse of property:

Exodus 20:15   You shall not steal.

    In this commandment, God reveals that He has endowed men with property.  This belongs to me; that belongs to you.  In this commandment, I am not allowed access to what is yours without your permission.
    The spirit of theft can be manifested very subtly.  When I am using something of yours and am not as careful with it as I would be with my own possessions, I prove myself a lawbreaker at heart.  If I truly honored the fact that God endowed you with goods, I would not be less protective of your property than I am with my own.
    Things other than physical property can be stolen.  If I am working for an employer and am expected to perform certain functions, I steal when I accept payment not having fully fulfilled my duty.
    The main thing MAN has stolen is God's prerogative.  We all walk about as thieves on a planetary scale.  We do not consult God concerning how we walk upon His earth.  We have broken ties with Him, though we are His creation.  This is the main theft that must be forgiven; this is the main related harm in us that must be healed.
    When we pray for God's will to be done, we pray that we will not steal.  We must pray for watchful eyes to catch ourselves pilfering.

    Great God, all belongs to You.  You have been very generous.  You have given us this wide world to live in; You have adorned it with all beauty and pleasantness.  Why can't we honor boundary lines You have drawn on Your stuff?  Why can't we treat another person's things as we wish ours to be treated?
    Heal me of my burglary in all its forms.


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Matthew 6:11  
Give us today
our necessary bread.

    We are to ask for our "necessary bread," or our "bread of necessity," every day.  Our portion that is physically necessary is something we can figure out.  When we take in too much, it tells on us, at least eventually.  But how much is our spiritual portion?  In that arena we should be more concerned that we are taking in too little rather than too much.
    The answer to how much we need spiritually does not lie in an exact amount, because we can't measure spiritual quantities precisely anyway; rather it lies in where our mind, our soul, fixes its concentration:

Psalm 16:5  Jehovah is the portion of my inheritance, and of my cup; You shall uphold my lot.

    Jehovah is supposed to be where (on whom) our mind is set.  It is from Him that we receive our spiritual portion.  More precisely, He is our spiritual portion.
    Notice two benefits which the psalmist says God fulfills as His portion:
 1)  his inheritance or his allotment; God is actually what the psalmist inherits;
 2)  his cup; meaning that what the psalmist is actually taking in presently is God.  God is the portion that he drinks in his cup of daily life.
    The psalmist was obviously very satisfied with God.  He saw God as a generous benefactor whose oversight left him with no real worries.  Furthermore, he knew that God would "uphold his lot."  "Lot" here is the word for the casting of lots.  The Israelites settled where the casting of lots determined (Num 26:55).  The psalmist, having just recognized God as his true portion, is saying that God would make sure that he got to keep the best possession allotted- God Himself.
    We can do no better than understanding this confession and making it our own.

    O God, how I wish to claim You as my own!  And why should I fear to do so?  You have offered Yourself to all who will call upon You.  Only unbelief can keep me from obtaining You as my reward; either that or the desire for rewards other than You.  O merciful Lord, cleanse me of my idolatries.  You are obviously best;  let me take You as my own.

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Matthew 6:12  
And forgive us
our debts,
 as we also forgive
our debtors.

   The doctrine of repentance is a very important part of our forgiveness.  We fail to understand forgiveness if we are mistaken about repentance (including the mistake of leaving it out).
    The New Testament has a wonderful Greek word for repentance and a significant word to partially contrast with it.  The Greek word for repentance is metanoia.  It is a compound word whose verb form means "to think differently", and whose noun form might be literally rendered "mind/thinking afterwards."  Its idea is that our mental state was one way, then, with repentance, it is another.  The new way of thinking is specifically contrasted with the old; we don't think that old way any more.  Our whole thought process is altered now; we therefore can't help looking at things differently.
    The word which is partly distinguished from repentance is metamellomai.  This word means "to be concerned afterwards."  The best one-word translation of metamellomai  is "regret."  Now this word is not the complete opposite of repentance.  The term metamellomai can be used to describe conversion as sorrow over the past, but it can also be used to describe sorrow that comes short of real conversion.  Paul lays out the distinction very graphically:

2 Corinthians 7:10  Because a God-oriented grief works repentance [metanoia] unto salvation, not to be regretted [metamellomai*]; but the grief of the world works death.

    In other words, real repentance does not leave regret in its wake.  It abandons a lifestyle which it recognizes as harmful and adopts a better thought process in its place.  The most famous case of regret in the Bible is Judas:

Matthew 27:3  Then Judas, the one betraying Him, seeing that He was condemned, feeling regret [metamellomai], returned the thirty silver coins to the chief priests and elders

    Unfortunately, the King James Version translates "repented" here, keeping us from seeing the contrast between repentance and regret.  Judas obviously did not repent, he did not turn from his sin; he was only concerned about the bad consequences, like a child regretting a spanking but not his bad behavior.  If he had repented, he would have gone back and confessed his sin and made amends, not killed himself (by the way, this is a good overall insight on the 'sour grapes' type suicide).
    We must make sure that we repent, have a complete change of mind about sin, agreeing with God's definition of sin, admitting it in our own case, and feeling the shame, sorrow, and hatred that are appropriate to it.

    Lord, thank You for granting me repentance.  Let me prove that I have it by its continued fruit in my life.  Let me turn completely from sin, thinking about it as You do, that it is evil and destructive.  Help me to truly own up to all my sinfulness and my sins daily.

*  Paul actually has ametamelatos for the whole phrase "not to be regretted", with a for "not" and metamelatos as a form of metamellomai for "to be regretted".

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Matthew 6:13  
And do not lead us
into temptation,
but deliver us
from evil.

    "Deliver me" is definitely a cry for rescue.  But the Lord rescues us to stand us upright, to teach us to walk in righteousness.  He does not intend for us to simply hide out from evil.  Therefore, "deliver me" is also a cry for strength.  It carries the idea that a good defense involves having a good offense.  We are, in fact, delivered from evil by walking in fixed uprightness.  Walking in matured goodness is walking away from evil.
    There is a note of caution in the sixth request.  It is a realization that my worst enemy is strapped to me- that would be me.  But in asking for deliverance, the sixth request also carries a note of assurance:

Psalm 119:45   And I will walk in a wide space, for I seek Your Commands.

    We are delivered from lawlessness into obedience.  When focused on God's commands, we secure our pathway.  Our obedience to God is liberating.  We do not have to fear God's way betraying us.  As long as we travel it, it will do us good.  Only we can betray it.  But giving myself to God's commands will even overcome my penchant for betrayal.  That is liberation indeed.  That is deliverance from evil indeed.
    Lord, deliver me from evil.  Set me on even ground.  Grant me to walk like a real man.  Grant me to see the freedom in obedience, that I may prefer it.


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Luke 11:1  
And it happened
as He was praying in a certain place,
when He ceased,
one of His disciples said to Him,
Lord, teach us to pray,
as John also taught His disciples.

    There was something about human history that was waiting for Christ.
    God had given signs and symbols to the nation Israel who thus became His representatives to all nations.  But the signs and symbols were forecasts of a reality that was to come:

Galatians 4:4  But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, being born of a woman, being born under the law

    Having dealt justly and mercifully with all nations in the preparatory era, God 'made His move.'  That which all had anticipated finally arrived.  God Himself arrived on the scene clothed in flesh.  Now there would be a MAN who could address man's problem.  He couldn't be man alone, because we had doomed ourselves to inadequacy.  He couldn't be an angel, because it was not a creature we had essentially offended, it was the Creator.
    The Son came to us.  Now we can be sons:

Galatians 4:5  so that He might redeem those under the law, so that we might receive the adoption.  And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, "Abba, Father!"

    And so Jesus instructs us to call God "our Father" in prayer.  We have been adopted.  We're not just saying that God made mankind, nor merely that he formed us as individuals.  We're saying He has brought us over from orphaned to in-family.  Actually, He transplanted us from Satan's family to His own.
    If our prayers are to agree with God's Spirit, we must have a strong sense of God's paternity (He's our father).  If the Spirit is there, our hearts are "crying out" to God as Dad.

    O Father, I fear that I have stifled the Spirit's testimony.  How little my heart cries to You needily, lovingly, as my Father!  I know the fact of Your fatherhood, but where is the happiness, the gratitude, the continual security in my heart, knowing that You have set up watch over me, that You will allow me no harm?
    I can say that I feel unworthy of Your care, but I know it is only a lack of faith and therefore a denial of whom You have declared Yourself to be.  Lord, increase my faith.  I resolve to meditate more on Your fatherhood that I might be bolstered.


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Matthew 6:9   
Our Father
who is in the Heavens,
cause Your Name
to be set apart.

    We pray for God's name to be set apart.  His name will be set apart if we teach the knowledge of Him to others.  When we make God known according to His own testimony, He is always glorified:

Isaiah 55:10, 11  "For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.

    Think about this amazing verse.  It is not saying that Scriptures will cause everyone to believe, is it?  It is often quoted to prove how God's Word brings men to faith.  This is a true and glorious application of the verse, but it is only half of the verse's truth.  
    If God's Word accomplishes ALL He desires, then it is working in unbelievers too.  If an unbeliever dies in His unbelief, did God's Word work in Him?  According to the verse it did.  What then, did the Scriptures cause His unbelief or aid it?  No, the Scriptures, along with the Holy Spirit, creation, and the man's own conscience urged Him to repent.  But he did not repent.
    What, then, did Scriptures accomplish in him?

2 Corinthians 2:15, 16  For we are the fragrance of Christ to God among those being saved, and among those perishing.  To some we are the fragrance of death leading to death, but to others the fragrance of life leading to life. And who is sufficient for these things?

    Death leading to death, what does that mean?  It means that the news of the Gospel is hated, confirming the man's spiritual death and leading to his eternal death.  That's what the Truth does.  It proves men are in the spiritual condition God describes.  Does this glorify God?  Yes, it does.
    So when we pray for God's name to be set apart, we are praying for His Word's affect on both types of listeners.  Scriptures always succeed, either verifying death or bringing forth new life.

    O God, Your Word is powerful.  By it, You brought the vast universe into being.  By it, You gave this dead man life.  By it, You also confirm unrepentant men in their sin.  May I be content with this outcome and leave saving and judging in Your capable hands.  Praise to You for Your all-powerful Word.


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Matthew 6:10  
May
Your kingdom
come


    Praying for God's future empire means praying for the Millennium; not the Millennium only, but also its associated events.  Revelation 20 gives the picture of the closing of the curtain on our present era:

Revelation 20:4  And I saw thrones, and they sat on them, and judgment was given to them, and the souls of those who had been beheaded on account of the testimony of Jesus, and on account of the word of God, and those who had not worshipped the Beast or his image, and they did not receive the mark on their forehead or on their hand. And they came to life and reigned with Christ for the thousand years [or the Millennium].

    We have already seen that Revelation 20:3 has a very strained interpretation figuratively, but a very easy one literally.  Therefore, we would also see Christ's reign here as literal, personal.  Hence, Christ the king will actually rule over this earth in person.  THAT makes a difference in how we pray if we bear it in mind.
    Christ will visibly be set up as king over all the earth.  His first coming, then, will have closure.  Passages on Christ ruling over His enemies will have their fulfillment:

Psalm 72:8  He shall also have the rule from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth.

    However, there seems to be a more noteworthy aspect of Christ's rule in the Millennium, and that is that it is a sort of PROBATIONARY period for mankind:

Revelation 20:7, 8  And when the thousand years have expired, Satan will be loosed out of his prison.  And he will go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle. The number of them is as the sand of the sea.

    Since Satan will be able to deceive the nations after the Millennium, Christ will not be ruling a 'perfect world' during the 1,000 years; men will still be fallen.  He will rule the world perfectly, but the majority of the newly populated earth will remain unbelievers.  This will finally answer the question:  wouldn't man's good nature come to the surface if he had no worries or conflicts?  The answer will be:  man doesn't have a good nature.  Give him a perfect environment with a perfect leader and he will still hate God and love evil.
    Therefore, when we pray toward the future, asking for God's dominion to be established, we pray for God's continued testing of mankind.  We see that God has dealt with mankind in various ways during various periods.  He is teaching us something during every period, not least of all the period concluding our present age.

    Father, I know You are testing mankind even now.  You have held out Your invitation to peace, sending a Savior, not a Judge.  But that Savior will one day put on His Judge's mantle.  Help me to warn men to accept His peace terms while there is time.  Help me to fully accept Your terms of peace, charging my own heart to submit to Christ's peace, acknowledging His lordship fully and happily.


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Matthew 6:10  
May Your will be done,
as in heaven,
so also on the earth.


    The ninth of the Ten Words is this:

Exodus 20:16  You shall not testify a witness of falsehood against your neighbor.

    This precept is framed in courtroom terms.  The terminology could have been much simpler:  "You shall not lie", but our present phraseology was chosen.  Does this limit the command to the courtroom?  No, rather, it expands the courtroom to the whole world, if you will.  It is saying that we must be as careful about what we testify in all places as if we were in court.  In fact, we are all in court; we are just waiting to be called by the supreme judge to answer for all our behavior, not least of which will be our use of our tongues.
    There is an interesting ramification on this command in the Deuteronomy recounting of it:

Deuteronomy 5:20  And you shall not bear vain witness against your neighbor.

    The only two differences in Hebrew are the addition of the word "and" at the beginning (so with the seventh and eighth commands) and a different word for "false".  The Exodus "false" means untrue.  The Deuteronomy "false" is most often translated by some form of "vanity".  It is used in the third command forbidding taking God's name "in vain."
    In the ban on vain witness, we are being warned to carefully state the truth, to give a notably accurate report.  We should not speak empty words; our words must represent reality.
    However, the main use of our tongues is to promote life.  We are not being made into video recorders that simply note everything and report accordingly.  How and when we testify is part of our honesty.  Consider:

Proverbs 14:25  A true witness delivers souls, but a deceitful witness speaks lies.

    Several proverbs comment on the ninth commandment.  This one seems to exonerate the Hebrew midwives (Exodus 1) and Rahab the harlot (Joshua 2).   They gave misinformation to save innocent life.  They "delivered souls" and were thus "true witnesses" according to this proverb.  If they felt tied to accurate information no matter what, the Hebrew spies and many Hebrew babies would have died.  Nor did they compromise their characters and sin in order to preserve life.  They did exactly what God calls for in the ninth command.  A testimony promoting murder would have been the worst kind of "empty witness".  It would have groundlessly emptied humans of their very lives.
    Don't worry.  You'll almost surely never have to give misinformation in order to bear true witness.  Your true witness and mine will, doubtless, only be 100% accurate information all our lives.  The midwives and Rahab probably never again had to give misinformation in order to bear true witness.  Their problem and ours is mainly causing damage by our deceit and misinformation.

    O Lord, You are the Truth.  Let me trust Your definition of it.  
    Help me to see myself in a courtroom with You as judge and all my words on trial.
    Thank You that the Truth will never ultimately harm me.


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Matthew 6:11  
Give us today
our necessary bread.

    I need my portion of sustenance daily, both physically and spiritually.  Spiritually, I must remember that, though there are many facets to seeking God, many disciplines I must master and elements I must include, they are all subservient to the one helping I must put on my plate:

Psalm 142:5  I cried to You, O Jehovah; I said, You are my refuge, my portion in the land of the living.

    Consider that wording.  Here I am in the land of the living.  Living, breathing people are all around me.  I need interaction with them and cooperation with them as a human.  But there is one whose fellowship is much more important.  I recognize Him as my real allotment.  It's as though I'm Adam, and among all the animals I have not found a suitable companion.  Not even my Eve can fulfill the need which God fulfills.
    How many of us can claim this claim of the psalmist?-  God is the one we really need: not that we accept the fact of it, but that we feel it emotionally.
    The psalmist makes a similar claim elsewhere:

Psalm 73:26  My flesh and my heart end; God is the rock of my heart and my portion forever.

    Again the psalmist compares God to flesh, bone, and soul, this time his own.  His confession is very helpful.  Everything about me (flesh, the material, and heart, the immaterial) "comes to an end" (so the Hebrew).  Thinking of that, it makes little sense to put my trust there, in me.  Who else can be my portion but God?

    O Lord, I want to lead my thoughts towards claiming You as my portion.  What is better than You on earth?  Let me enjoy every means of interacting with You, O God.  Let me truly count them as dining with You and upon You.  So let my prayer be sweet to me and a pleasing fragrance to You.  So let Your Word stir my soul and draw me to You.


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Matthew 6:12  
And forgive us
our debts,
 as we also forgive
our debtors.

    Repentance, turning from our sin, is an understood part of forgiveness Biblically.  Paul draws a distinction between the Greek word for repentance, metanoia,  and the word for regret, metamellomai:

2 Corinthians 7:10  Because a God-oriented grief works repentance [metanoia] unto salvation, not to be regretted [metamellomai]; but the grief of the world works death.
    The main contrast of the verse is between God-oriented grief (or "grief according to God") and the grief of the world.  Unbelievers definitely have grief over some of their sins.  They may even identify those sins correctly Biblically.  They might even turn from the sins for a while or in some manner because of their grief; but eventually the grief of the world falls short of God-oriented grief:
 1)  It does not turn an unbeliever from sin in general; it does not cause him to repent of his overall godlessness;
 2)  It does not replace his overall sin with the overall motive of glorifying God.
    In temporary conversion, as in the parable of the soils, the unbeliever can even imitate overall reformation and turning to God, but, again, eventually, they will show that those did not take permanent hold of his soul.
    Notice that Christian repentance does involve sorrow.  We have not repented over sin if we have not sorrowed over it.  The important superiority of God-produced sorrow over worldly sorrow is that the former actually delivers us from sin ("unto salvation")- not just from the consequence of sin, but from its grasp.  This in turn means that sin has no more authority to command us.  It still has the power to shout at us or whisper to us even from within ourselves, but it is no longer our master.  And our power to throw down our chains and grab the whip from our old master's hand lies largely in our power to sorrow suitably.

    Lord God, what I was is a source of sorrow to me, for I was a rebel.  I was a rebel, yet You are good.  What business did I have objecting to Your control over all things, Your commands to me and all the sons of men?
    Worse, why do I still have such trouble submitting to Your gracious lordship?  What is it in me that's always drifting into my own way?  I know it is sin, but it remains a mystery- the depth and breadth of its influence.  Thank You that righteousness and Your Spirit may more and more be my main influence as I sorrow over my sins and sinfulness.

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Matthew 6:13  
And do not lead us
into temptation,
but deliver us
from evil.

   "Deliver me" is a cry that asks Jesus to act according to His given name:

Matthew 1:21  And she will bear a son, and you shall call His name Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins.

    "Jesus" means "salvation" or "Jehovah saves."  Jesus has become a savior, meaning that He saves.*  A synonym for save is deliver.  Jesus delivers, so He is also a deliverer.  When we say, "deliver me from evil," we are asking Jesus to do His chosen work.
    We need delivering our whole lives.  We will never be out of sin's reach here.  We need Jesus to do His delivering work every day, all day.  And Jesus is glad to do this for all who call on Him, for all who want deliverance from sin.
    If we know Jesus at all, we know Him as deliverer.  We cannot pretend to know Him only as friend, for instance.  His friendship toward us is mainly defined in his use of merciful righteousness to pull us out of a pit.  He is a friend in that He helps us up.  He is a friend in that cleanses us of sin.  
    Those who know Jesus best know Him as deliverer, for with them there is no pretense.  They do not pretend that they have gotten rid of sin now that they know Jesus.  Some people may seem to know Jesus well who act familiar with Him, but if they have tried to progress past the cry for deliverance from sin, they have only progressed into pretense.
    How well do you know Jesus?  Do you call on Him at all?  Do you call on Him as Deliverer?
    Delight yourself in Him, and call on Him to save you mightily.

    Jesus, Deliverer, You came to save me from my sins.  You did not come to merely forgive me of my sins.  You came to save me from them.  I was in sin's grip.  Only You could release me.  Only you can release me in any given instance.  Grant me abandon in my soul to call out to You from the heart, to call and never cease.

*  Jesus is Lord by nature, Savior by choice.

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Luke 11:1  
And it happened
as He was praying in a certain place,
when He ceased,
one of His disciples said to Him,
Lord, teach us to pray,
as John also taught His disciples.

    Our response to God as father is an intense one:

Galatians 4:6  And because you are sons, God sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba! Father!

    The Greek word for "crying" originally represented the croaking of a raven and by extension a harsh scream.  It is no mild whisper.  Of course there are peaceful expressions we communicate to God, but there is also an intense exclamation we send up to Him.  It is merely logical that we would respond passionately to one who has brought us into His family at great expense, rescuing us from ruin.
    If you are not in the habit of strongly crying "Father!" in your prayers, it is not that difficult to interject.  The subject matter is simple.  He has birthed us spiritually; we are His children and treasure.

    Father!  You have given me birth.  I bring this prayer because I am alive.  I was dead in my trespasses.  You have resurrected me.  Praise be to You!  Let me treasure my sonship as much as I ought to.


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Matthew 6:9   
Our Father
who is in the Heavens,
cause Your Name
to be set apart.

    When we ask for God's name to be set apart, to be honored, we ask that we would think upon (set apart in our thoughts) who God is.
    So who is God?  I want to think on His name, His self-description, so how is He described?
    Let's begin at the beginning.  That is, who is God before He is anything else?  Well, at least in relation to us, He is self-sufficient.  Before God had made anything, the most important thing about Him that we as creatures can know is that He was perfectly fine by Himself.  He didn't need anyone or anything else.  That's what self-sufficient means.
    Now God was not self-sufficient as we might picture a man being self-sufficient.  We would probably picture a self-sufficient man as someone isolating himself, toughing it out, trying to make to on his own.  God's self-sufficiency is completely different.
    God's self-sufficiency was not in reference to anything else, because there was nothing else.  God's self-sufficiency particularly meant two things:
 1)  He was content on His own; He had the highest form of companionship there will ever be- the Father delighting in the Son, the Son communing with the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit reveling in the Father; and vice-versa on all three counts;
 2)  He did not need to create in order to further fulfill Himself.  He had no compulsion of any kind for anything or anyone outside Himself.*

    In this description, we have already confronted one of the great myths men believe about God.  When asked why God made us, the usual answer is, "He was lonely."  If this sounds too condescending, we might say, "He wanted fellowship," but both answers amount to the same idea.  They are both a denial of God's self-sufficiency.
    If You are looking for God's purpose in creating, You need a Scripture such as the following:

Revelation 4:11  Our Lord and God, You are worthy to receive glory and honor and power, because You have created all things, and because of Your will they exist and were created.

    The Greek word for "will" is thelama, which means determination, choice.  Because of God's choice we were created.  Now all we have to determine is whether that choice was free or compelled.  If the answer is not self-evident, a Scripture such as the following will inform us:

Isaiah 40:13  Who has directed the Spirit of Jehovah, and what man taught Him counsel?

    As we can see, man does not influence God's decisions, particularly His decrees concerning all He would create.  He only consulted Himself.  And did He have any burning need for a creature like us?  We'd like to think so, but Scripture and a sane self-evaluation tell us it is not so.  God is truly and fully self-sufficient.  All His interactions with us have been freely chosen, for He needs nothing:

Acts 17:25  nor is served with men's hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives life and breath and all things to all.

    O Self-sufficient one, all life rests in You.  All existence depends upon You.  How could we make You like ourselves, a being in need?  And yet our idolatry knows even greater audacity.  Lord, I confess my audacity in thinking that You need me.
    Yet You have bound Yourself to me.  You are not detached, even though You do not need me.  The glory of Your mercy and love are seen in how You have freely brought me to Yourself and laid Yourself on the line to be my sufficiency.  O wonderful Lord of glory, receive my praise!

*  Most especially, as far as we're concerned, He did not need man.


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Matthew 6:10  
May
Your kingdom
come

    When we pray for God to set up His dominion, we necessarily ask that He will dismantle all competing dominions.  We have the final termination of the Enemy's authority recorded in Revelation 20:

Rev 20:7 - 10  And when the thousand years have expired, Satan will be loosed out of his prison.
  And he will go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle. The number of them is as the sand of the sea.
  And they went up over the breadth of the earth and circled around the camp of the saints, and the beloved city. And fire came down from God out of Heaven and devoured them.
  And the Devil who deceived them was cast into the Lake of Fire and Brimstone, where the Beast and the False Prophet were . And he will be tormented day and night forever and ever.

    All major types of interpretation of Revelation agree that Satan's punishment here is literal.  He will suffer eternally in flames.*  Hence, when we pray for God's kingdom to come into its own, we are also praying for the eventual punishment of all who have opposed His kingdom without repentance.
    Notice that another future enemy of Christ is already in the Lake of Fire when Satan arrives there.  The Beast, which is Revelation's name for the Antichrist ("Beast" signifying his practical absence of God- consciousness; he will not acknowledge God).  Remember that there are many antichrists now:

1 John 2:18  Little children, it is the last hour; and just as you have heard that the Antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have appeared; from this we know that it is the last hour.

    Therefore, we pray for the destruction of these antichrists as well, all those whom the Lord will not bring to repentance.
    We might feel that the only appropriate way to pray for God's enemies' destruction is indirectly, by praying for God's empire to overcome.  However, Psalms, which contains our main body of actual prayer examples, is full of direct prayers for the downfall of God's enemies:

Psalm 79:6   Pour out Your wrath on the nations who have not known You, and on the kingdoms who have not called on Your name.

    So the future, especially the Day of Judgment, however distant it may be, is a very practical aspect of our prayers.  We are praying toward how things will turn out.  All men will be affected by how things turn out, including God's enemies.  Prayers for the future, then, offered properly, do affect us today.

    Lord, You will subdue all Your enemies.  I acknowledge that they deserve Your wrath.  I know that their sins should anger me (as my own sins should)- anger and sadden.  I also know that Your judgment is Your business with them; I am just an onlooker.  But I behold You in Your works.  You are indeed a God to be feared.  Help me to bear this well in mind, fearing You today.

*  The flames will be suited to the place, the Lake of Fire, which will be able to hold spiritual beings forever.  For the flames to be real, they do not have to be the result of burning combustible materials from the present world.


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Matthew 6:10  
May Your will be done,
as in heaven,
so also on the earth.


    May God's will be done on earth.  God's will is expressed is His commands.  The Ten Words are mostly commands which formed the core of the Old Covenant (the first Word probably includes "I am Jehovah your God," a statement rather than a command).  All ten decrees have transferred their binding relevance to Christians in the New Covenant.*
    The tenth assertion is certainly validated in the New Testament.  In its original form, it commands:

Exodus 20:17  Do not desire your neighbor's house. Do not desire your neighbor's wife, his male or female slave, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.

    The Deuteronomy restatement of this command is a little different:

Deuteronomy 5:21  Do not desire your neighbor's wife or long for your neighbor's house, his field, his male or female slave, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.

    The first thing we must realize in this command is that the Hebrew word usually translated "covet" does not carry an automatically bad connotation.  The Deuteronomy version uses two different words for "desire," the first being the same word which occurs twice in the Exodus version.  Both Hebrew words are used for the good desires of the godly or even of God's own good desires.  The good or evil of the desire must be deduced from the context.
    What defines a bad desire in the Tenth Word is the line God draws around each man's possessions, or perhaps we should say around his house (since his wife is 'his' but not like his property).  We are not allowed to long for what belongs to another.
    Are we allowed to admire what someone else has?  Certainly.  May we acknowledge the superiority of his possessions?  Yes.  But a Christian must be content when he views his own goods in comparison with others'.  God has apportioned to each man what he has; so we should view it.
    May we seek for more than we have?  Yes, but it should not be from a sense of competition with our neighbor.  But it is fine to realize the good use I could make of an item similar to one my neighbor has.  Until I  can afford the item, though, I should not long for his.

    O Lord, You have blessed men with what is in their possessions.  Unless I take possession of contentedness, I will wrongly long for something that is my neighbor's.  Lord, I would confess Your sovereignty in what has been apportioned me.  I would confess Your goodness in the same.  Help me, likewise, to delight in Your good gifts to my neighbor.

*  The Sabbath has entered the realm of spiritual reality, where God's covenant people are commanded to rest in Christ's finished labors.  The command is still binding, the offense against it is still a capital one,** but it is no longer in the realm of symbol, but has entered the very Heavens, where God also took His original rest to end Creation week.
**  Breaking the New Covenant Sabbath is a capital offense in that it denies the finished Rest of Christ's salvation, thus declaring the lawbreaker's spiritual death.


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Matthew 6:11  
Give us today
our necessary bread.

    We are to think of God as our "portion" in life.  We previously considered Psalm 16:5, 73:26, and 142:5.  Very similar is another Psalm statement:

Psalm 119:57  You are my portion, O Jehovah; I have said that I would keep Your Words.

    Here we see the necessary tie-in between God and His words.  We have no portion of God unless He speaks to us.  In human relations, we can only connect with people with whom we communicate.  So it is with God.  God cannot be a vague impression to us.  He must talk with us, and this He does by Scriptures.  We also would not expect the inventor of language to be ambiguous in His speech; we expect Him to be the best communicator in the Universe.  So let us approach the Bible.
    But here is the essential complement to God being our portion:

Deuteronomy 32:9  For Jehovah's portion is His people; Jacob is the lot of His inheritance.

    Oh my!  It is worth reading all the other verses concerning our portion just to read this one.  Just as God should be a Christian's portion, so a Christian IS God's portion!  Again, oh my!  I can see that I should claim God, but how is it that He should claim me?
    Unfortunately, one brainchild of our generation is the notion that God somehow needs us- needs man, even if only emotionally.  We fulfill Him in some way, or so we think.  That is, when mankind sinned, God simply HAD to find a way to get us back; we were just too precious to lose.  Friends, this idea turns the gospel inside out.  Salvation is by grace only if there was nothing in us to make us desirable to God.
    We must learn about God's free will.*  He freely chose to save His people.  This means He was under no compulsion of any kind.
   Having said this, when He freely brings us back to Himself, He bonds with us personally and permanently, with all His heart.  He does not distance Himself from us in any way.  As saved people, now we are precious to Him.  We are His portion, just as He is ours.  That's romance language, isn't it?  That's why He calls us His bride.
    This is the spirit in which we should consider the testimony:

Jeremiah 30:22  And you shall be My people, and I will be your God.

    O God, can man be Your portion?  Can sinful man become the possession You choose as Your own- not one possession among many, but the very bride of Your bosom?  Teach me so to see- as Your redeemed one- my very self, and I will rejoice.

*  Perhaps it is a wrong notion about man's free will that made us pervert the idea of God's free will.


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Matthew 6:12  
And forgive us
our debts,
 as we also forgive
our debtors.

    In the passage where Paul comes closest to defining repentance (2 Cor. 7:10, which we looked at in the last two considerations of the fifth request), he adds more about the feelings and actions that accompany repentance:

2 Corinthians 7:11  For behold this same thing, you being grieved according to God, how much it fully worked earnestness in you, but also defense, but also indignation, but also fear, but also desire, but also zeal, but also vengeance!  In everything you commended yourselves to be clear in the matter.

    What a roll of qualities!
    One thing is evident in this list.  Godly sorrow should take full control of us.  It should therefore bring out many attendant emotions and actions:
 1)  Earnestness, literally "quickness" to attend to the problem at hand, sin;
 2)  Defense, literally "to give an account"; to admit wrong (thus defending the wrong) and so to reconsider all details in the correct light;
 3)  Indignation, literally, "much grief" over my sin;
 4)  Fear, especially for the offense given to God, but also the subsequent harm brought to me and others;
 5)  Desire, literally, "to intensely crave" restoration of what sin had stolen or damaged;
 6)  Zeal, literally, "heat"; that is, hot to right the wrongs and establish righteous direction;
 7)  Vengeance, literally, "carry out justice"; sorry over sin committed and concerned that all things be rectified.

    There is our checklist.  Let us see if our repentance measures up.

    O Lord, I see that repentance is largely positive, seeking to establish righteousness anew, even in the wake of sorrow over sin's damage.  Grant me this seven-fold list of repentance's daughters.


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Matthew 6:13  
And do not lead us
into temptation,
but deliver us
from evil.

    Crying out, "Deliver me" implores Jesus to act according to His mission as Messiah.  It is also a cry that asks Him to act according to His love:

Revelation 1:5   and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth. To him who loves us, and has washed us from our sins in his blood

    When we call on Jesus to deliver us from our sin, we rightfully do so with a sense of shame.  Our sin is no proper source of pride.  It is therefore easy to picture Jesus distant from our cry, perhaps not annoyed, but thinking, "Again?  So soon?"  It is hard to envision a favorable attitude on His part.
    And Jesus may indeed be upset with us for sinning, but He loves us no less.  Well, we must remind ourselves that He still loves us.  It is His love as much as anything else that will actually lift us OUT of the pit of sin we are caught in.  Our shame plays its part in our repentance, but it cannot do all the work.  Of course, no part of our attitude in itself delivers us from any sin.  We are only talking about the way in which our frame of mind puts us in our Deliverer's saving hands.
    It is as though we come to Jesus with our heads down, and, as He receives us, He touches our chin and lifts our heads up.  Our head is down in shame, His love lifts us up.  Without looking up, we cannot receive the power to walk in holiness.  There is a connection between looking at Christ and becoming like Him:

1 John 3:2, 3  Beloved, now we are the children of God, and it was not yet revealed what we shall be. But we know that if He is revealed, we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him as He is.
  And everyone having this hope on Him purifies himself even as that One is pure.

    The power that transforms us into pure holiness when we are finally are with Christ is the pure sight of Him!  John follows that up by saying that its is looking at Him now ("having this hope") that makes us as pure as we can be here.

    Jesus, Your love never fails.  And it is YOUR love; it doesn't depend on me.  But I know that if You love me, I will love You, too.  May my love for You be rich and strong as I think upon Your delivering love for me.


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Luke 11:1  
And it happened
as He was praying in a certain place,
when He ceased,
one of His disciples said to Him,
Lord, teach us to pray,
as John also taught His disciples.


    There is a natural strangeness about prayer.  When we find prayer to be unfamiliar territory, we have discovered something of its true nature:

Romans 8:26  Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with inexpressible groanings.

    If we are intimidated by prayer, we are joining good company.  The apostle Paul apparently had a sense of inadequacy for the task.  However, that did not discourage him.  It simply reminded him:
 1)  of the present gap between Heaven and earth; and
 2)  of the distance between our knowledge and what God knows.
    Our human state in a fallen world is one of "weakness," as he calls it.  It is a Greek word mainly used of sickness but also used of our general frailty.  In the spiritual realm, we are like sick men moping about.  Not that that matters to God in itself.  The mightiest object in creation is paltry to Him.  He is delighted with our acknowledged frailty:

Psalm 103:13, 14  As the pity of a father over his sons, so Jehovah pities those who fear Him.
  For He knows how we are made, remembering that we are dust.

    Our weakness is merely an occasion for Him to care for His little ones.
    Anyone who wants to feel completely comfortable in prayer will probably never grow accustomed to prayer.  They will probably always be frustrated by the strangeness inherent in it.  Paul was willing to leave some things unresolved.  He would pray as well as he could, but he realized that the Holy Spirit had to step in and patch up the package we have wrapped up for God:

Romans 8:26  Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with inexpressible groanings.*

  He sees the soiled wrapping paper (we thought it was brand new), the mess we've made of taping it up (we thought it was so tidy), the value of the toy we're sending (we thought it was fine wares from an expensive gift shop).  He takes it and presents exactly what we would have hoped- in spite of our bungling effort.  That's good enough to keep me praying.

    O God, thank Your for the Spirit's ministry.  Help me then to take comfort despite my pitiful little prayers.  I know that You can do much with little.  You always have, praise be to Your gracious name.

*  Notice that the Spirit intercedes "for" us, not "in" us.  He does the latter as well, but, more importantly, He actually stands in where our inability has made a muddled prayer.


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Matthew 6:9   
Our Father
who is in the Heavens,
cause Your Name
to be set apart.

    God is self-sufficient.  That is part of His name, His self-description.  He needs nothing outside Himself.  He created for His own glory, not to fulfill an empty place in Himself.
    This brings us to the next aspect of God's name, that is His creation.  What God made also describes Him:

Psalm 19:1  The heavens are recounting the glory of God, and the expanse proclaiming His handiwork.

    In a general way, we can see several things about God through what He has made:
1)  His great wisdom; how intricately living things are woven together, for instance;
2)  His incomprehensible power; how He can make an atom hold together and do the same for a galaxy;
3)  His beauty;  God's imprint is on creation in that His personal splendor has been impressed in many ways on what He has  made;
4)  His order, really an aspect of God's wisdom; how necessarily the composition of each plant or animal follows a certain pattern of design, each part dependent on or building on another.

    How foolish to think that any of these ingredients could be attributed to chance.
    There is no doubt that more about God could be seen in creation if we were more aware.  Paul indicates that God's divine nature is definitely knowable through the creation:

Romans 1:20  From the creation of the world His invisible attributes, that is, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what He has made. As a result, people are without excuse.

    No atheist will have any excuse on Judgment Day.  Creation clearly portrays God.  His name is known through it.  Each man has interacted with God personally via the world He made.
    A Christian should exult in his God at each wondrous sight, sound, smell, sensation, and thought of this glorious world.

    O Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder ...  Thank You, Lord, for such an inspiring creation.  You have done remarkable things.  If Your works do indeed portray You, as You testify, You are an extraordinary being (bowing to understatement).  May all I am and everything else You made elicit my cry in testimony of Your greatness.


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Matthew 6:10  
May
Your kingdom
come

    There is a day coming when God will give His final verdict over all mankind and will allot to each man his endless destiny:

Revelation 20:11  And I saw a Great White Throne, and the One sitting on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled; and a place was not found for them.  And I saw the dead, the small and the great, standing before God. And books were opened. And another Book was opened, which is the Book of Life. And the dead were judged out of the things written in the books, according to their works.

    This is the one passage in Revelation where all three millennial views (amil, premil, and postmil) mainly converge .  All agree that this is a real depiction of the Final Judgment occurring at the end of this age.  When we pray for God's kingdom to come, therefore, we are praying toward this final ending.  We are praying, in effect, "Lord, bring all men to account."
    What this accounting will be, we know:

Revelation 20:15  And if anyone was not found having been written in the Book of Life, he was thrown into the Lake of Fire.
    Therefore, when we pray for God's kingdom to come in its final manifestation, we are praying for the 'brig', the Lake of Fire, to receive its unhappy occupants.  This spirit pervades the Psalms, which contain the greater part of our prayer blueprint:

Psalm 96:12, 13  Let the field be joyful, and all that is in it; then shall all the trees of the forest rejoice before Jehovah; for He comes, for He comes to judge the earth; He shall judge the world with righteousness, and the people with His truth.

    See also Psalm 98:9; 96:10; 67:4; 9:8; 50:6; 75:7; 58:10; 68:2, etc.  The psalmists saw, as all godly men have seen, the necessity of God's judgment.  God is good, and evil cannot share dominion with Him.  For His kingdom to fully come, God must put away the wicked.  This He has promised to do.

    O God and judge of all mankind, may Your day of judgment come.  The creation longs for this finality.  The wicked man now dwelling in pleasure is a paradox, for this is not his real recompense.  But You are patient for Your elects' sakes.  You called me out of my wicked life and thoughts.  Transform me thoroughly that I might not be in league with those who mock You.


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Matthew 6:10  
May Your will be done,
as in heaven,
so also on the earth.


    The Tenth Word, part of the Law written on the Christian's heart, tells us not to desire what is our neighbor's.  We may properly wish for a similar item, but we must not wish that his item was ours.
    Does the Tenth Word comment on how much we desire something?  Is wanting something too much a violation of the Tenth Word?  This connotation is often drawn from the words "You shall not covet," giving "covet" a negative implication.  Properly, the Tenth Word only forbids desires for something my neighbor has; however, it does speak about our wrong desires.  In this light, might we extend it to excess desire for possessions, including even my own possessions?  Paul seems to take this view:

Colossians 3:5  Then put to death your members which are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil lust, and covetousness, which is idolatry
    Paul is saying that covetousness, by making the creature more important than the Creator, renders us idolaters.  This would seem to speak of any wrong desire, not just desire for what is my neighbor's.  Can I desire something of my own too much?  It would seem so- that improper desire itself makes me a violator of the Tenth Word.
    Notice what else Paul has done.  He has seen a connection between the end of the Ten Words and their beginning.  The Ten Words apparently come full circle.  When I violate the last Word, I am also violating the First or Second Word (depending on how they are divided).  I am disobeying "No other gods" and "No molded images" if I covet.  How we perceive possessions, our own and our neighbor's, demonstrates whether or not we honor God from the heart.

    O Lord, keep me from wrong desires.  I know that I can only correct wrong desires by putting right desires first in my heart.  I must desire You above all else.  This only makes sense.  Any real value in a created thing comes from You who made its attraction.  If the creature is attractive, how much more the Creator who designed it?  Help me to attach all created things to You, where they properly belong, and so perceive and treat them correctly.


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Matthew 6:11  
Give us today
our necessary bread.

    God being our portion means that He is our chosen allotment.  It also means that we partake of Him.  The Lord's Supper specifically portrays our partaking of God.  That same supper also speaks of our partaking of one another.  Consider Paul's forceful rebuke of the Corinthians:

1 Corinthians 11:20  Therefore when you assemble in the same place, it is not to eat the Lord's Supper.

    What a shock to the Corinthians, for they certainly were observing the ceremony known in the other churches as the Lord's Supper!  It's just that theirs no longer resembled the real thing enough to call it the Lord's Supper.  Their gatherings would have to be called the Selfish Supper:

1 Corinthians 11:21  For in your supping each one takes his own dinner first; and one is hungry, and another drunken.

    In the 'pot luck' proceeding, some were treating it like a personal picnic rather than a shared meal.  They ate their own food before others could have access to it, or certain families shared their dishes to the exclusion of others.  Ah, isn't human nature wonderful!  A mere meal turns us into a herd of wild beasts, each jostling for his portion.  The result was that certain people got very little, either because they had very little to start with or because what they rightfully added to the communal table was also hogged up by selfish individuals.
    At this point, remember that 1 Corinthians is the book addressing more problems than any other church.  Some were very serious (such as ongoing incest, chapter 5); yet this is the problem that apparently received the most severe sentence from God:

1 Corinthians 11:29, 30  For he who eats and drinks unworthily eats and drinks condemnation to himself, not discerning the Lord's body.  For this cause many among you are weak and sickly, and many sleep.

    God had visited many of the Corinthians with sickness and death because of rude table manners!  But it was Communion table manners that made it crucial.*  Their mockery of the body of Christ- symbolized in the bread- had made the Lord's Table a very dangerous activity for them:

1 Corinthians 11:22  For do you not have houses in which to eat and drink?  Or do you despise the assembly of God, and shame those who do not have?  What shall I say to you?  Shall I praise you for this?  I do not praise you!

    The solution was very simple:

1 Corinthians 11:33  Therefore, my brothers, when you come together to eat, wait for one another.

    Don't just dive in.  Set out all the food.  Treat the occasion like the fellowship of the body of Christ.  Wait for one another, eat together, participate in the meal jointly and so in one another, rightly portraying Christ's body.

    Lord, I think about the body of people for whom You died.  I know that I must treat each one of them thoughtfully for Your sake.  Show me the ways in which my selfishness puts them in the rear of the line in any manner, obvious or subtle.  I naturally think of my own needs first, but I see that I can anger You in doing so.  Forgive and cleanse me, O merciful one.

*  Note that the early church apparently followed Christ's pattern of observing Communion along with a meal.  Why don't we observe the Biblical mode of the Lord's Supper?  We don't even speak in terms of the mode of Communion as we do with baptism.


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Matthew 6:12  
And forgive us
our debts,
 as we also forgive
our debtors.

    How great a difference there is between the right kind of sorrow and the wrong kind!

2 Corinthians 7:10  For the sorrow according to God produces repentance to salvation, free from regret, but the sorrow of the world produces death.

    One kind of sorrow saves us from our sin; the other produces death, eternal death.
    How can worldly sorrow produce death?  First, what is death?  Death is separation.  The death causing all other kinds of death is separation from God- sin.  Worldly sorrow, then, produces death in that it keeps us separated from God.  
    How does worldly sorrow keep us separated from God?  Well, look at the verse again.  What does God-produced sorrow have that worldly doesn't?  Repentance.  Worldly sorrow can feel bad about a misdeed.  Worldly sorrow can make resolutions to do better.  Worldly sorrow can even promise God reformation.  But worldly sorrow cannot repent.  What is repentance?  Again, it is "change in way of thinking."  Worldly sorrow cannot reprogram its thinking.  It can regret sin's consequences, but it cannot really see sin for what it is to avoid it.
    What is sin?  Sin is transgression of the Law.  Sin is rebellion against God.  Sin is an offense which only the blood of Christ can cleanse.  Worldly sorrow cannot orient itself to this definition of sin.  So worldly sorrow can never have wholesale change.  Worldly sorrow can move around its furniture, but it will never move into a new house.  The Christian is living in the new house.  He can experience wholesale change, because He knows what he is repenting from; such is our teaching from on high.

    O Lord, thank You for the wonder of repentance.  Thank You for the right kind of sorrow.  Help me to sorrow over sin with all my heart.  


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Matthew 6:13  
And do not lead us
into temptation,
but deliver us
from evil.


   We pray, "O Christ, deliver me," and we are asking Him to act according to His mission and according to His love.  There is a way in which Christ's love plays a rather official part in our rescue:

Song of Songs 2:4  He brought me to the house of wine, And his banner over me is love.

    The primary application of the Song of Solomon (or Song of Songs, 1:1) is to human romantic love.  But every human marriage has a connection to the original of which it is a copy:

Ephesians 5:31, 32  "For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh."  This is a great mystery, but I speak in reference to Christ and to the church.

    All human marriage is a copy of Christ's marriage to the Church, planned before the world began.  So the Song of Solomon, all about romantic love, contains many fitting images of Christ's love for His people.  The image above has Christ bringing His Church into His banquet hall, which is ultimately fulfilled when we are with Him:

Revelation 19:9  Then he said to me, "Write: 'Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb!' " And he said to me, "These are the true words of God."

    But of special interest in the Song of Solomon passage is the woman's response.  She said that her beloved's banner of her was love.  A banner gives us a vivid picture of the exact power love had over her.  The dominance of love was like an army's banner victoriously waving over the territory of herself.  She was like a conquered dominion.  She had surrendered her authority.  But she had not been conquered by force itself, but only by the power that love commanded.
    We are held to Christ by the same power.  He delivers us because He loves us.  That love becomes a binding power in our souls.  We cast ourselves into His keeping AND SO He continues His delivering work.  If we only look at His delivering work as His chosen profession, we will lack adhesive power needed to fasten us to Him.  The real flag He plants in our souls portraying His conquest IS His love.  Until we perceive His love, there will be no real conquest.

    Lord Jesus, help me to believe Your love for me.  My unbelief doubts every part of Your saving work, but perhaps especially Your love.  I can see You embracing Your role as deliverer for Your Father's glory, but it is hard for me to confess an actual sin and imagine You embracing me nonetheless.  I know that Your love is just part of Your glorious self, so help me to receive it as I receive You.  Empower me by Your Spirit to rejoice in Your love.


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Luke 11:1  
And it happened
as He was praying in a certain place,
when He ceased,
one of His disciples said to Him,
Lord, teach us to pray,
as John also taught His disciples.

    In regard to our prayers, the Holy Spirit is like a mailman who must also play the repairman.  He takes the 'package' of our prayer and repairs it on its way to Heaven:

Romans 8:26  And likewise the Spirit also joins in to help our weaknesses.  For we do not know what we should pray as we ought, but the Spirit Himself intercedes on our behalf with groanings that cannot be uttered.

    Notice that the groanings are on our behalf, before the Father, not within us.  The Spirit has a ministry of groanings within us as well, but that is not the ministry mentioned here.  The Spirit's intercession ranks in priority as does Christ's intercession for us.  Christ also is doing things within us, but it is what He is doing for us before the Father that actually renders us acceptable.
    Hence, when we have prayed our best prayer, one in which the Holy Spirit was working within us- bringing Scriptures to mind, making the prayer very much like a conversation between us and God, inclining our hearts with deep feelings of yearning and agreement with all He has breathed in us- He will still have to mend the prayer in bringing it before the Father.
    If this offends us, we have not understood the grace of God in the gospel.  If we feel like, "Well, I guess my prayers will just never be good enough.  Why try?", then we apparently thought that grace was only necessary for justification, not sanctification.*  Rather, we should be ecstatic that the Holy Spirit will transcribe our 'unfinished' symphony into a work of moving magnificence.
    Furthermore, we are wrong if we feel that God in any way despises our inadequate prayers:

Psalm 51:17  The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.

    God is able to differentiate between the 'absolute' value of our prayers and the 'relative' value of them.  The relative value of our prayers lies in their humility.  When our spirits are bowed low before God, His grace is at work.  His grace receives us fully.  He is accepting us and our prayers.  More than that, He is truly delighting in them:

Proverbs 15:8  The sacrifice of the wicked is a hateful thing to Jehovah, but the prayer of the upright is His delight.

    O God, help me to delight in prayer as You do.  Help me to expect a certain level of uneasiness within, for that is only an experience of the fact that my prayer, in itself, is from earth, trying to become fitting for the courts of Heaven.  Thank You for the Spirit's ministry of intercession for my prayers, even this prayer.  May this abandon me all the more to striving for excellence in prayer, especially that I may excel in yearning for You and that I may excel in humility concerning what I have to offer.  Thank You for Your delight in Your people and their prayers.

*  I.e., for our initial acceptance, not our daily lives.


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Matthew 6:9   
Our Father
who is in the Heavens,
cause Your Name
to be set apart.

    God's NAME is His self-description.  He describes Himself generally in creation and specifically in His Word.  We are to extol God's name in our thoughts and in our hearts.  
    God's description in relation to us is, first, the Self-sufficient One; He is in need of nothing outside Himself.  Secondly, He is known though what He has made- His creation.  Now let us consider God's WISDOM as a particular trait by which He is known.
    God's wisdom is His INSIGHT.  "Insight" means inner sight.  God's sees into things.  There is no aspect of any creature or activity that escapes His complete understanding.  What we would call a human with this understanding would be the complete scientist.  His scientific expertise would extend to every discipline- biology, astronomy, physics, psychology (study of the human soul), sociology:  you name it, He would know it.
    Now for a man with this kind of knowledge, we would expect answers to our problems.  We would expect him to wisely hook up some system to fix all the problems of the world.  And God could do this if He wanted.  He, through wisdom, could do what the ultimate magician could do with the wave of a wand.  He could fix everything.
    But this is where God's wisdom radically departs from our track.  We could only see the greatest insight being used to do 'the greatest good.'  God sees the 'greatest good' from a much higher perspective.
    If all of man's problems were fixed today, would everything be OK?  If everybody had enough food, money, shelter- all the resources for earthly life- would strife come to an end?  We'd like to think so.  But any time you boil this down to a microcosm- any particular human or group of humans having everything they need- do their problems go away?  Where does envy come from?  Does having everything you need fix that?  No, then envy just becomes more personal and intense.  Why does person A love person B more than they love me?  Unless everyone around me was made into a robot to serve my fancies alone, I would always be subject to envy.  But then I wouldn't be satisfied with robotic responses either, would I?
    So we see that there is a much greater need which must be served.  It is an inner need, a problem inside of us.  We do not count it as great since the world's outward needs consume our attention.  But God sees the inner.  His wisdom is great enough to take it into account.
    Furthermore, God's wisdom lets men face the consequences of their envies and other inner delinquencies.
    Further still, God's wisdom HAS considered a true fix to the real problem.  God will fix men's hearts through Christ:

1 Corinthians 1:30  But from Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption

    Those who prefer their own wisdom to Christ will be left to complain about the word's problems, ignoring their own inner fathomless mines of toxic matter.

    God, thank You for Your wisdom- real wisdom.  Let me come to You for the real answer.  Let me point men to You against all other supposed solutions.


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Matthew 6:10  
May
Your kingdom
come

    God's kingdom will come.  Something of its description is given to us in various places in Scripture.  Revelation 20 describes the Judgment of unbelievers, a vital part in the establishment of God's kingdom.  Then Revelation 21 and 22 describe the New Jerusalem.  This is how the Bible ends.  Some take this description figuratively, which seems fitting in many ways (such as calling the city itself Christ's bride).  There are some aspects which still seem literal, though, like the depiction of the Lake of Fire:

Revelation 21:8  But the cowardly, and unbelieving, and sinners, and abominable, and murderers, and fornicators, and drug users, and idolaters, and all who are false shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.

    Again, this fire and brimstone do not have to be from our present world to be literal.  They will be a fire and brimstone suited to the torment of spirits or spiritual bodies, both human and angelic.
    There is a whole new heaven and earth described:

Revelation 21:1  And I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. And there was no more sea.

    Some interpret this as not a literal earth and heavens, but simply a new order created within our present earth and heavens.  Most of them say that the new order has already been or is being established.  The part about "no more sea", however, adds a geographical aspect that seems to defy figurative interpretation.  The accepted interpretation for centuries has been a literal one- that God will destroy the present universe and create a whole new one.
    A surprising aspect of this new creation is that nations appear to continue alongside the New Jerusalem:

Revelation 21:24 - 26  And the nations shall walk in its light, and the kings of the earth shall bring to it the glory and honor of the nations into it.  And its gates shall by no means be closed by day, for night shall not exist there.  And they shall bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it, so that they may enter.

    Since Jesus indicated that marriage would be obsolete in Heaven, we might have thought that nations would be too.  Won't there just be one nation, God's nation?  One figurative view says that this describes the present age and the dominance of the Church over the world.  The literalist simply has to insist on nations existing in eternity.
    There does seem to be one aspect of these descriptions that is yet future:

Revelation 22:3  And there shall be no more curse, but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it, and His servants will minister to Him.

    The curse God placed upon the ground continues today.  The earth generally yields its abundance only by the sweat of our brows.  It is hard to imagine "no more curse" only figuratively.  That would seem to imply that God would only have to remove a curse from us spiritually to fulfill His word, that His curse upon the ground is irrelevant.

    Lord, thank You for Christ becoming a curse for me, that my spiritual curse can be removed.  Thank You also for a promise for the renewal of the earth, when every kind of curse is removed and all things are new.  Help us to derive comfort from Your word and its promises and descriptions of the future.  Help us to interpret those words rightly, knowing that they have a definite meaning You have given them.


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Matthew 6:10  
May Your will be done,
as in heaven,
so also on the earth.


    The final 'word' (Hebrew dabar, word, matter, declaration) of the Ten Declarations- "Don't covet"- shows us the spirituality of the Law.  That is, the Law is essentially concerned with our spirits, not just our outward actions.  When God forbad wrong desires, He plainly declared four things:
 1)  He sees our inward intentions;
 2)  He evaluates them as good or evil;
 3)  we can become aware of our own inward intentions from God's perspective, meaning that we can see our wrong desires as God sees them (though not as completely as He can, obviously).  We can come into agreement with God's assessment.  "Yes, I am wrongly desiring that, my neighbor's belonging.  I should not be."  Finally,
 4)  God then means us to change from our improper attitude to an upright one.

    God also made a specific connection between one wrong desire and a previous command:

Deuteronomy 5:21  Do not desire your neighbor's wife or long for your neighbor's house, his field, his male or female slave, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.  

    Here God was making a particular comment on the seventh Word:

Deuteronomy 5:18  And you shall not commit adultery.

    Therefore, when Jesus later commented on the seventh Word, He was only stating what the Jews should have already known:

Matthew 5:28  but I--I say to you, that every one who is looking on a woman to desire her, did already commit adultery with her in his heart.

    It was only by deliberate ignorance that the Israelites could have overlooked this obvious connection.
    It would seem that the same kind of connection exists by extension to other commands:

Matthew 5:21  You have heard that it was said to the ancients, "You shall not kill" --and, "Whoever shall kill shall be liable to the judgment."  but I--I say to you, that every one who is angry at his brother without cause, shall be in danger of the judgment, and whoever may say to his brother, Empty fellow! shall be in danger of the sanhedrim, and whoever may say, Rebel! shall be in danger of the gehenna of the fire.

    In other words, a wrong inward attitude constitutes a violation of any command.  After all, how can we rightly restrict a command to outward actions alone?  God obviously sees and evaluates the heart.  God expressly associated coveting with adultery.  Our obedience is judged from our hearts as well as our acts.

    O God, thank You for the spirituality of Your Law.  Thank You for considering the whole man, because that means that You intend to change the whole man into what he should be.  Make me whole, Lord Jesus.  Touch me and heal my spirit where it has wrong desires and attitudes.  That is, grant me a right spirit to do battle with the wrong spirit that will remain with me to the death.


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Matthew 6:11  
Give us today
our necessary bread.

   There is no such thing as a lone Christian.  Any professing Christian who isolates himself is walking specifically contrary to God's will:

Proverbs 18:1  One who isolates himself pursues selfish desires; he rebels against all sound judgment.

    Yet the 'island' Christian thinks himself advanced in wisdom beyond the rest.  He has left all the fools to their inane games.  The book of Acts, though, records the normal functioning of the body of Christ:

Act 2:46  And continuing steadfastly with one mind day by day in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they shared food in gladness and simplicity of heart

    "Ah yes," says the isolated Christian, "if only I had good fellowship like that, I would return to the flock."  But the early church was no Camelot of Christianity.  They argued about the distribution of charity goods in Acts 6, for instance.  It's just that they handled the problems; they didn't run from them.
    "Breaking bread" seems to be a phrase describing the Lord's supper.  The early church apparently observed the Lord's Table after Jesus' pattern, having a joint meal at the same time.  
    A meal is a natural means of fellowship.  God designed it that way.  That's why He calls Communion "The Lord's Supper" (1 Cor. 11:20).  Those who partake of it sit at table with God and one another.  There is a definite horizontal aspect as well as the vertical one.  
    When we ask for our bread day by day, we are including a request for fellowship, for food is a means of fellowship in the body of Christ.

    Lord Jesus, thank You for your Table.  Thank you for the table You call us all to sit at.  Help me to see past the shortcomings of other Christians.  Help me to see that my irritations are signs of something wrong in me, whether there is something wrong with my neighbor or not.  Allow me to see and pursue the healing You intend for Your gathered body.


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Matthew 6:12  
And forgive us
our debts,
 as we also forgive
our debtors.

   When we ask for forgiveness of our sins, are we asking forgiveness for what we have done or for who we are?  Asking forgiveness for what we have done is dealing with our sins.  Forgiveness for who we are deals with our sinfulness.  Our sins are our acts of sin; another name for our sinfulness is our sin nature, or, Biblically, the old man or the flesh.
    So which are we asking forgiveness for?  John addresses this:

1 John 1:8, 10  If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us...  
  If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His Word is not in us.

    Saying we have no sin means no sin in our nature- that's our sin nature, our sinfulness.  Saying we have not sinned means done no acts of sin- those are our sins.  Hence, John tells us that we need forgiveness for both- our acts of sin and our sin nature.  He couches the two propositions around our access to forgiveness from both:

1 John 1:9  If we are confessing our sins, He is faithful and righteous that He shall forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

    God will cleanse us from all unrighteousness:  the sinfulness that is in me like my excretory system is in me, and the sins that flow from me like perspiration constantly (and mainly imperceptibly) filters from me.

    O God, forgiving Father, thank You for Your faithfulness.  You are good to Your word and deed.  You have promised forgiveness; You will deliver.  Your have accomplished redemption; You will carry it forth in me.  Cleanse me of all my sin, inner and outer.  I commit acts of sin because I am a sinner.  My sinfulness causes my sins.  I need total forgiveness.  Thank You that this is what You supply for me in Christ.


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Matthew 6:13  
And do not lead us
into temptation,
but deliver us
from evil.

     God "leading" people "into temptation" is a subject that receives a great deal of coverage in the Bible, probably much to our surprise.  We do not immediately perceive its meaning in the Model Prayer, and we most likely can think of no instances of its occurrence in Scriptures.  
    Perhaps the earliest occasion where God testifies to His involvement in a person's temptation is in the second book of the Bible:

Exodus 4:21  And Jehovah said to Moses, When you go to return into Egypt, see that you do all those wonders which I have put in your hand before Pharaoh; but I will harden his heart, that he shall not let the people go.
    Now the first thing we must ask is whether God actually did something directly to Pharaoh's heart.  It sounds like He did, but we remind ourselves of our basic principle in this arena:

James 1:13  Let no one being tempted say, I am tempted from God. For God is not tempted by evil, and He tempts no one.

    That makes it sound like God takes no direct action on the human heart to induce it to sin.  So we immediately ask:  Is there some way God could harden Pharaoh's heart without directly causing it to sin?
    A very necessary question to interject is this:  Did God have to ADD anything to Pharaoh's heart to harden it?  Did He insert some sort of spiritual cement to Pharaoh's spirit to make it inflexible?  OR was Pharaoh's heart already hard at this point, so that whatever God did, it was not an essential change?
    From Pharaoh's words and actions up to this point, we would certainly conclude that his heart was very hardened against God.  So perhaps all God had to do to harden Pharaoh's heart was to leave it alone.  All He had to do to effectively harden Pharaoh's heart was to withhold any softening agents from it.  (Who else could soften Pharaoh's heart besides God?)  If God, then, chose to deny Pharaoh any softening, He would, in effect, be hardening Him.
    Notice that God does take direct credit for hardening Pharaoh.  He does not apologize for it.  But that doesn't mean that He caused Pharaoh to sin.  No, all He had to do was to let Pharaoh sin, for Pharaoh was already doing a wonderful job of that.
    So God did not interfere with the normal operations of Pharaoh's heart to harden it.

    Now we must ask something further:  Could God get so tired of my antics, that He would harden my heart as a Christian?
    Why not?  Why would I be exempt?  Does God have permission to withhold softening capacity from me?  Certainly.  In fact, He testifies to that effect:

Ephesians 4:30  And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed to the day of redemption.

    An offended Holy Spirit would very likely avail us less of His softening in our spirits.  If I grieve Him, I invite hardening in my heart.

    O Lord, I would not like to find that it had been written of my life, "and God hardened his heart."  Yet I know that I have invited Your hardening many times.  I have scorned the means of my sanctification over and over.  How could the Holy Spirit not have been grieved?
    Yet I count on Your mercy.  I must believe that I am not presumptuous to call on You, as long as I truly want the hardness taken away.  
    Lord, do not lead me into temptation.  Do not allow me to walk into my hall of darkness, shutting out Your light.  UNCOVER my stubbornness to my eyes; uncover my pride; reveal my greed; uncover my fear.  EXPOSE all my wickedness so that I will not be subject to it, and so deliver me from the evil.


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Luke 11:1  
And it happened
as He was praying in a certain place,
when He ceased,
one of His disciples said to Him,
Lord, teach us to pray,
as John also taught His disciples.

    We have considered the Holy Spirit's work on behalf of our prayers:

Romans 8:26  And in like manner the Spirit joins also its help to our weakness; for we do not know what we should pray for as is fitting, but the Spirit- that one makes intercession with groanings which cannot be uttered.

   This is the most important thing the Holy Spirit does to our prayers, because it is God making us acceptable to God.  A less important but just as essential ministry of the Spirit to our prayers is His 'tutorial' assistance, His work within us while we pray:

Jude 1:20, 21  But you, beloved, building yourselves up upon your holiest faith, praying in the Holy Spirit,  keep yourselves in the love of God, eagerly awaiting the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to everlasting life.

    The main activity of this admonition is keeping ourselves in God's love.  The other three pursuits are appended to it.  The one we are concerned with is praying in the Holy Spirit.  To pray IN the Holy Spirit is to pray within His influence.  To do this, two things are necessary:
 1)  We must know the words the Holy Spirit has breathed for us, the Scriptures; and
 2)  We must learn to lean upon the Holy Spirit to teach us to respond to what He has said.
    Both of these together, then, become a conversation which is prayer.
    Praying "in" the Holy Spirit is like entering the tent of the Spirit for His instruction.  All we have to do is come to prayer with the Bible open in our hand or open in our heart, ready to return speech.  The Holy Spirit will help us.  He formed the first set of words, and He will help form ours in response.
    The first help we may get is awkward spluttering; that is, finding ourselves unable to voice anything worthwhile.  Good.  We see what we naturally have to offer.  After all, it is our own voices in which the Spirit will teach us to speak, not the voice of some confident, silver-tongued orator.  Neither will the Holy Spirit normally come upon us and simply 'give' us a fulfilling, magnificent prayer.  Some people expect tongues to do this for them.  If so, they may never pray "in the Holy Spirit" their whole lives.  Prayer devoid of intelligent thought is not prayer:

1 Corinthians 14:15  What then is it? I will pray with the spirit, and I will also pray with the mind; I will sing with the spirit, and I will also sing with the mind.

    To pray a simply mental prayer is deficient too.  The Holy Spirit must have access to our hearts, to our whole beings.  He trains us so that we learn how to yearn intelligently for God, before God.

    O Father, help me to trust in You in prayer, that You will guide me by the Holy Spirit to direct my prayer to You aright.


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Matthew 6:9   
Our Father
who is in the Heavens,
cause Your Name
to be set apart.

    We pray that God's name- His description of Himself- be set apart, that we would honor it from the heart.  We have considered God's definition in three categories so far:  His self-sufficiency, His creation, and His wisdom are three of His fundamental attributes by which we should know Him.
    We said that God's wisdom is His insight.  Wisdom, then, is an attribute that man may share, for man, too can have insight.*
    Man as a sinner has been in COMPETITION with God in the area of wisdom from the beginning.  In fact, this was the very attribute of God that we wanted to 'steal' from Him to succeed in our dispute:

Genesis 3:4-6  And the serpent said to the woman, You shall not surely die,
  for God knows that in the day you eat of it, then your eyes shall be opened, and you shall be as God, knowing good and evil.
  And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasing to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make wise, she took of its fruit, and ate.  She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate.

    Eve took the fruit specifically to become wise like God.  Whatever insight God had allotted us was not enough.  Suspicion and envy had taken root, and Eve was doomed.  Adam was doomed by partaking with her, even though he know that the fruit would grant no such wisdom (1 Timothy 2:14).
    In this light one apt description of a Christian is someone who puts the fruit back on the tree of determining good and evil.  Christians once again accept the fact that only God can know certain things well enough.  Only He can see far enough to tell us the right path.
    In the meantime, mankind's wisdom competes with God's:

1 Corinthians 1:21  For since, in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom did not know God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save those who believe.

    Wow, what a verse!  God's wisdom had already anticipated man with his own determination of good and evil in his belly.  He let man's hoarded wisdom be his own calamity.  It is our wisdom that now keeps us separated from God.
    A Christian, then, is someone repentant over his worldly wisdom and who submits once again to God's wisdom as superior.

    O God, only wise God, forgive me of my counterfeit wisdom.  Grant me to prefer Your wisdom at every turn, at every step.  Transform my thinking.

*  A characteristic that man can have in common with God is called one of God's communicable attributes- it can be passed on to us, though not in the same measure as God's.  God's self-sufficiency and power to create the world are incommunicable attributes; man cannot adopt these qualities.


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Matthew 6:10  
May
Your kingdom
come

    I am a domain.  All men are domains.  We are places where someone else rules.  We come into this world under the dominion of one who hates God's dominion:

Ephesians 2:2, 3  in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the ruler of the authority of the air, the spirit now working in the sons of disobedience, among whom we also all conducted ourselves in times past in the desires of our flesh, doing the things willed of the flesh and of the understanding, and were by nature the children of wrath, even as the rest.

    "Sons of disobedience" means we were born to disobedience.  We were born to it spiritually when Adam disobeyed God, before we were ever conceived.  We are "children of wrath"- children who come into being deserving God's eternal anger against our rebellious spirits, deserving it as much as Satan.
    We are domain.  We are property.  If God leaves us to ourselves, we are merely breeding grounds for every kind of wickedness.
    SomeTHING and someONE has dominion over every man every moment.
    The something is either righteousness or unrighteousness.
    The someone is either God or the devil.
    Those who are ruled by Satan cannot see eye to eye with Scriptures properly interpreted:

2 Timothy 2:24-26  And a servant of the Lord ought not to fight, but to be gentle to all, skillful at teaching, forbearing, in meekness instructing those that oppose, if God perhaps may give them repentance, to a full knowledge of the truth, and they regain their senses and escape out of the snare of the devil, having been captured alive by him to do his will.

    Therefore, the sign of a converted man is one who is careful to hold only what Scriptures plainly teach.  That is the mark that we have become God's domain.  Our opinions and our lifestyles have been submitted to the truth.  We merely live the Bible.
    One test of this is also given above, that we do not wrangle about the truth.  In bowing to its sovereign power, we recognize that it alone can change men.
    Besides our gentleness, the other mark of submission to the Scriptures is in our thorough acquaintance with the Bible.  Notice that the servant of the Lord is "skillful at teaching."  He is someone capable of "instructing."  He does not just say, "that's not important," when he is really just uninformed on the matter.
    Those who have become God's domain are those who are most mindful of their former domain.  Those who cannot testify of the cruel chains of sin have never been released from them.  A believer is gentle to others because he still hears the cries of sin in his own breast, seeking to intimidate him into assent.
    By the same token, someone freed by the gospel is very sympathetic in preaching the gospel, knowing that it is the only power that can bring men from sin's hard dominion over to the kind yoke Christ straps on us.


    O God, my only hope is to be under Your flag.  Claim me for Your own.  Let me bear the marks of those who know You.  Let me repent where those colors do not show clear on my banner.


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Matthew 6:10  
May Your will be done,
as in heaven,
so also on the earth.


    We have considered the "Ten Words" of the Old Covenant as foundational for the New Covenant.  Our covenant is altogether new but the objective God has for our behavior is exactly the same.  The summary of the Ten Words and all of Moses' Law was always LOVE.  That still summarizes what God desires of us, but now there is a new and better covenant by which He achieves it.
    Rules, another name for commands.  Let us ask again, what is the place of rules in the Christian's life?
    Most Christians in our day would answer that a Christian does not live by rules.  God is our Father; living as His children goes beyond rules.  And it is true, if all we go by is rules, we have not really progressed past the Old Covenant.
    But all who truly knew God during the Old Covenant had progressed past its 'letter of the Law' as well.  Abraham, Moses, David- they all related to God as Father just as we do.  The question is:  can we (or they) relate to God as Father without rules?
    Paul spoke of why Christ had come in the flesh:

Romans 8:4   so that the righteous demand of the Law might be fulfilled in us, those not walking according to flesh, but according to Spirit.

    The Spirit-controlled walk is a walk of Law-keeping.  We do not keep the Law to earn salvation; we keep it because we are saved.  Obviously, the Law works for us if this is our mind.  Most Christians today are afraid that the Law can only work against them.  They thereby adopt an unchristian spirit.  A Christian spirit says this:

Romans 7:25  I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord!  So then I myself with the mind truly serve the Law of God, and with the flesh the law of sin.

    But a Christian understands the problem Paul discloses in Romans 7.  We live in a state a perplexity:

Romans 7:19  For what good I desire, I do not do. But the evil I do not desire, this I do.

    Paul was a "blameless" man (1 Cor. 4:4), so we know that the evil he fell into was not noticeable by others, nor even evil thoughts he relished.  His evil would have been merely the enticement in his soul to sin.  His desire to do good, such as praying, was always hampered by distracting thoughts, for instance.  Every Christian is able to identify with Paul's bewilderment.

Romans 7:23  but I see another law in my members having warred against the law of my mind, and taking me captive by the law of sin being in my members.

    Paul saw a law at work within himself.  He saw that His struggle with it was inescapable.  He saw sin as a RULE that wanted to govern him.  That's how a Christian should view rules.  There is a contrary set of rules within me.  If I do not have God's rules to guide me, the Rule of Sin will certainly direct me.
    O Father, thank You for Your Law.  Help me to set my mind to serve it.  Help me to see the law of sin in my body.  Help me to see that without great attention to righteousness, the sway of unrighteousness will naturally carry me along.


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Matthew 6:11  
Give us today
our necessary bread.

    We pay for our food.  We recognize it as a gift from God, but we still pay money for it.  This shows that there is human interaction involved in our daily provisions.  The human interaction, though, goes beyond the trade of money or goods for food:

2 Thessalonians 3:8  we did not eat anyone's bread free of charge; instead, we labored and toiled, working night and day, so that we would not be a burden to any of you.

    Paul and his companions did not accept free food from the Corinthians.  Realize that they had a right to be fed by the congregations to whom they ministered:

1 Corinthians 9:14, 15  Thus also the Lord commanded those who proclaim the gospel to live from the gospel.  But I used none of these things, nor have I written these things that it should become thus for me; for it is better for me rather to die than that anyone should make my boasting void.

    Paul voluntarily declined from his right to provisions.  On this count he put himself on a regular, non-apostolic basis with the Corinthians, as he did with the Thessalonians.  He paid for his own food, either with money, goods (trading his tents), or labor.
    How did this make the Thessalonians and Corinthians feel?  Here was a direct representative of God laboring to pay his own way.  It should have made them feel how important it was to pay for their own food.  Not that any of them would have bypassed payment for food, but they probably never had thought that much about it much.  Now they could appreciate the personal interaction in paying for their provisions.  Paying for my food is one way of staying square with my neighbor.  In terms of debt, all I should owe my neighbor is love:

Romans 13:8  Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for he who loves another has fulfilled the Law.

    What Paul means here is that in owing my neighbor love, I'd better not be owing him anything else.  I'd better be paid up on every other account.  I'll always be paying off my 'debt' of love with which the Lord obligated me, but any other accounts need to stay at a zero balance.  Being square with my neighbor is, in fact, a large part of the love I owe him.

    O God, help me to see my connection to my neighbor.  Keep me from hoping for gifts instead of paying my way.  Let me define my honesty in seeing what I owe, and let me pay what I owe as I go.  Let me see that this is my obligation and that it allows me to be friendly in my interactions.  Teach me "neighbor" well.


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Matthew 6:12  
And forgive us
our debts,
 as we also forgive
our debtors.

    What is it to forgive?
    The Greek word used in the fifth request is ahfiyaymi,  a compound word meaning to "send forth."  It is a multiple-duty word, carrying several shades of meaning:

Matthew 4:20  And leaving the nets, they immediately followed Him.

Mathew 13:30  Allow both to grow together until the harvest...

Matthew 27:49  The rest said, Let Him alone, let us see whether Elijah will come to save Him.

    It is the common New Testament word for "forgive."  In regard to debts, the word basically means to release.  Remember that Jesus was using the regular word for monetary debts.  Our sins are indeed debts before God, and the debt must be "sent away" or "released" if we are going to be freed from payment.
    We are to bear in mind the means of our release, but we are also to remember that it is a RELEASE.  Without this understanding,
 1)  our conscience can have no rest; and
 2)  we cannot teach ourselves how to treat the offenses of others.

    The idea of release clarifies for us the separation God puts between us and sin.  God has made Himself our friend, and, seeing sin as our enemy, He does not allow it to stand against us:

Psalm 103:12  As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.

    Though sin remains within our members, as a prosecuting attorney it possesses no more arguments to separate us from God.  The case against us is closed.  Our consciences must therefore be at ease.  God has released us.
    By the same token, then, WE must also release others of their debts to us, debts again meaning offenses.  HEREIN lies the evidence of whether we have understood and believed that God has released us.  Those who have been released are under every kind of obligation to grant similar release.  
    We offended God; He released.  Others offend us; we must release.  
    If we do not release- let go of the offense from the heart- we prove that God's release has not made contact with us.  Whenever God's release becomes blurred or distant to our vision, we begin to lose the power to forgive.  Hence, our unforgiveness is a reminder to us to return to the cross for a look at what has happened to our sins.
    Many on Judgment Day will discover that their constant bitterness against others was a testimony screaming, "Still guilty!" concerning themselves.

    O God, release me.  My sins are a burden I cannot bear.  Release me from anger, then, for how can I be angry when You have befriended me?  Release me from grudges, for You have not remembered my sins against me.  Release me from animosity; You have declared Yourself to be FOR me, so how can I take up a stance AGAINST men?
    I am a judge with evil motives.  Cleanse me and cleanse me.  Wash me of my record of iniquity and rinse the filth out of my heart, O merciful One, that I may be known as one who knows You!


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Matthew 6:13  
And do not lead us
into temptation,
but deliver us
from evil.

    When God "leads into temptation," He does not act directly on our hearts.  He does not need to.  Our sin does all the hardening work required.  God still makes the choice to harden us, but He hardens by abandoning us to our own ways, not by changing our disposition.
    We looked at Pharaoh as probably the first specific Biblical example of someone God led into temptation.*  The fact that God caused nothing unusual in Pharaoh's heart is seen in the subsequent testimony:

Exodus 8:15  But Pharaoh saw that there was relief, and he hardened his heart, and did not listen to them, even as Jehovah had said.

    Therefore we see that Pharaoh did not have his own will robbed from him.  He made His own choice to harden his heart.**  God takes credit for the hardening, but not by CREATING hardness, only by allowing the existing hardness to operate unhindered.
    We can't help thinking of God limiting Pharaoh's options somehow; how else could He harden his heart?  But all God did was withhold the merciful working that ameliorates crooked hearts.  If we are concerned about the liberty of human free will, we should be complaining that God interferes to soften us!  That's the only real interference!  But mercy is such a vast, all-embracing work, we  see softening everywhere and come to take credit for our own softened hearts.  Ah, fools and arrogant!
    Will Pharaoh have any legitimate complaints on Judgment Day?  "God, I would have repented, but You hardened me."  No, he will have to take full credit for 100% of all his hardness of heart.  All God will have to take credit for is keeping His power of repentance to Himself.

    Considering how predictable Pharaoh was- that his heart would harden itself minus God's gracious influence- imagine the mess the world would be in if God were not softening people all the time on all kinds of issues.  O God, do not leave me to myself!

    Gracious Lord, do not harden my heart.  Extend Your merciful influence to me.  I know that real Christians have access to the power of Your transforming grace.  I am asking for that power to work deeply and fully in me now.  
    Thank You that You have held me back from foolishness and wickedness thousands of times, though I never thanked You for them.  I will never even really know all the rescues I've had until You show them to me in Glory.

*  Leading into temptation is a work always going on in all lives.  As we choose idols, we are abandoned to them.
**  There are different Hebrew words for "harden" used throughout this episode.  This one is used elsewhere of God hardening Pharaoh, too.


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Luke 11:1  
And it happened
as He was praying in a certain place,
when He ceased,
one of His disciples said to Him,
Lord, teach us to pray,
as John also taught His disciples.


     There is an inner balance we must attain in prayer.  It is a balance between our mind and our spirit.  The Corinthians had difficulty attaining this balance.  They had come to think that prayer from the spirit was sufficient:

1 Corinthians 14:14  For if I pray in a language, my spirit prays, but my understanding is unfruitful.

    A "language" was the Greek word glossa, which is the word for tongue.  It could mean language:

Revelation 5:9  And they sang a new song, saying, You are worthy to take the book and to open its seals, for You were slain and have redeemed us to God by Your blood out of every kindred and tongue and people and nation.

    "Every ... tongue" here means every language group on earth.  "Tongue" could also simply mean the organ of speech:

James 3:8  but no one of men is able to tame the tongue; it is an unrestrainable evil, full of death-dealing poison.

   The gift of tongues was the ability to speak in the language of another people without having to learn the language.  It was the gift which allowed the apostles to preach to a crowd of diverse nationalities on the day of Pentecost.  The Holy Spirit continued to give some Christians this gift, apparently for the same purpose:

1 Corinthians 14:22  So then tongues are for a sign, not to those who believe but to unbelievers; but prophesying is not for unbelievers but for those who believe.

    According to this, tongues was an evangelistic gift.  The Corinthians were misusing it by directing it to the church instead.  So Paul had to tell them that their use of the gift of tongues was improper.  Additionally, by praying in another language, those Corinthians were effectively shutting themselves off from their own prayers!  Their minds were not praying, because they didn't understand the language they spoke.  Thus, again, Paul's admonition:

1 Corinthians 14:15  What is the conclusion then? I will pray with the spirit, and I will also pray with the mind. I will sing with the spirit, and I will also sing with the mind.

    The Corinthians had to regain the proper balance in their prayers.  They had to make sure that their minds were engaged.  "Mind" is the Greek word nous, which means our faculty of thought and analysis.  We cannot leave out our minds in prayer.  Our prayers must make sense.  We are seeking sense in prayer, searching God's mind per the Scriptures.
    We live in an anti-intellectual day.  Unbelieving scholars tell us that language is an accident and therefore ultimately meaningless.  The Church has largely adopted this hoax; after all, it is easier to bypass study and simply relate to God on a gut level.  Paul said we do need the gut level, but we also need our mental filters to be fully engaged.

     O Lord, help me to pray in balance.  Help me to pray sensibly, but help me not to therefore pray with intellectual restraint.  I am seeking to come into agreement with the Spirit, rejoicing where He rejoices and weeping where He weeps.  Help me to understand my own prayers to the point that this may become so.


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Matthew 6:9   
Our Father
who is in the Heavens,
cause Your Name
to be set apart.

    God's Wisdom is an essential part of His name- who He is.  We therefore pray that we might revere His wisdom and prefer it, thus setting God's name apart.
    God's wisdom is His complete insight into all aspects of all things, including Himself.  God created man with the capacity for wisdom also, but there is a sense in which God is the only one with real wisdom:

Jude 1:24, 25  Now to Him being able to keep you without stumbling, and to set you before His glory without blemish, with unspeakable joy; to the only wise God, our Savior, be glory and majesty and might and authority, even now and forever. Amen.

    How can we say God alone is wise since we obviously not only can have wisdom but we must have it?

Proverbs 8:33  Hear instruction, and be wise, and do not refuse it.

    The answer is that, per the complete definition of wisdom, only God can have it; man cannot:

Ecclesiastes 7:23  All this I have tested by wisdom: I said, I will be wise; but it was far from me.

    Notice that Solomon says he tested his conclusions by wisdom; he must have therefore had access to wisdom.  But as far as BEING wise- that is, possessing wisdom- he realized he couldn't really get close.  Why not?  Because wisdom is SIGHT (it is insight; it 'sees in'; but it is still sight).  The wisest man can see, but how much can he ultimately take in?
    God can see all around and into everything all at once.  What little man can see at once is limited to his one view.  God can automatically compare all factors.  Man must make notes to compare factors, by which time factors may have changed.  Surely only God can be completely wise.
    The wisest man, then, will always be the one who acknowledges God's superior wisdom and accesses it.

    O Lord, thank You for Your wisdom.  Thank You that I don't have to take care of the world and the universe; You are quite capable of that.  Thank You for the wisdom You have given me access to.  Thank that it is real wisdom in that it is consistent with Your omniscient view.  Thank You that Your complete wisdom is not of a different variety, just a greater amount.  Let me treasure Your wisdom and Your words.


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Matthew 6:10  
May
Your kingdom
come

    It is very helpful to have direct instructions on what to pray.  The Model Prayer is an outline.  There are other Scriptures that give us requests to 'tuck in' to one or more of the six categories of our prototype.  One such request concerns Jerusalem:

Psalm 122:6  Pray for the peace of Jerusalem; those who love you shall prosper.

    It is true that Jerusalem can now be considered a spiritual entity.  As Paul said:

Romans 2:28, 29  For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in flesh;
  but he is a Jew that is one inwardly; and circumcision is of the heart, in spirit, not in the letter, whose praise is not of men but of God.

    A true Jew is Christian.  However, in the same book, Paul recognizes the special status of the Jew who is merely a Jew "outwardly":

Romans 9:3, 4  For I could wish that I myself to be accursed from Christ on behalf of my brothers, my countrymen according to the flesh,
  who are Israelites, of whom are the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the law-giving, and the worship, and the promises

    Paul was obviously talking about the physical, ethnic body of people called the Jews, the Hebrews, the Israelites.  They were in unbelief; Paul wished that they could be saved.  Did Paul pray for them as Psalm 122 above directs?

Romans 10:1  Brothers, the good pleasure of my heart and my supplication to God on behalf of Israel, is for their salvation.

    Praying for their salvation was praying for the Prince of Peace to enter there, so, yes, Paul obeyed Psalm 122:6, praying for ethnic Israel's peace.
    Furthermore, he apparently knew that ethnic Israel would rejoin her proper covenant, the New Covenant, presently being enjoyed mainly by Gentiles.  Paul addressed the Romans, mainly Gentiles, as a wild olive branch, compared to Israel, the natural olive branch.

Romans 11:24, 25  For if you were cut from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and grafted, contrary to nature, into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, the natural branches, be grafted back into their own olive tree.
  Lest you be wise in your own conceits, I want you to understand this mystery, brothers: a partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in.

    The key word here is "until."  Paul knew that a time was coming when Israel would no longer be hardened.  They will be hardened UNTIL God has brought all His Gentile children to Himself.  After that, He plans to unharden them.  
    We may therefore confidently pray for Israel's peace.  Their salvation is coming one day.

    O Jehovah, God of Israel, thank You that You have not cast off Your former people.  I fear, though, lest I, like them, be cut off through unbelief.  Strengthen my faith, including faith to pray for Jerusalem's peace.


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Matthew 6:10  
May Your will be done,
as in heaven,
so also on the earth.


      We ask for God's will- His commands- to be carried out on earth.  His commands are His rules.  We need rules because we already have an unwanted rule within us that will otherwise govern us by default; that rule is sin.
    Christians also need rules simply because they want to be ruled.  In terms of the Model Prayer, this is saying that the third request naturally follows and is connected to the second.  The second request asks for God's kingdom to come; this asks for God to rule.  Specifically, it asks God to rule me.  Well, is there any meaning in asking God to rule me if I have no rules to go by?  Enter the third request:  Let God's commands be obeyed.  After all, is a general impression sufficient to guide me?  Is a heart full of love adequate in itself to please God?
    Apparently not.  The New Testament has some 800 different commands for us.  These are rules.  They are MEANS we employ in order to be ruled by God.  They are specifics that our heart full of love employs to please God.  Many of these rules address our attitudes, so there is no fear that a real Christian will take God's rules as robotic programming.  The commands themselves address the heart, the spirit of things, the attitude.  A command to pastors provides a direct example:

1 Peter 5:2  shepherd the flock of God among you, overseeing not by compulsion, but rather willingly, not in fondness for dishonest gain, but rather eagerly

    Satan has played to our dislike of rules and given us what we think are Biblical reasons we shouldn't keep rules.  What a clever fellow he is.  What dupes we have been.

    O God, how am I so easily turned against rules, seeing that You are obviously a God of rules?  How can I so easily overlook that Your words are not wooden, nor one-dimensional, nor enslaving?  How can my defiance question Your words so categorically?
    Forgive me.  Help me to love Your rules, to love You.  Help me to see each and every rule as a means of my loving You.


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Matthew 6:11  
Give us today
our necessary bread.

   Jesus fellowshipped with His betrayer.  Both the fellowship and the betrayal were prophesied:

Psalm 41:9  Even a man in harmony with me, in whom I trusted , one  eating of my bread; this one has leveled his heel against me.

    And Jesus recounted the prophecy:

John 13:18  I do not speak concerning all of you. I know those whom I chose; but that the Scripture may be fulfilled, 'He who eats bread with Me has lifted up his heel against Me.'

    (We cannot bypass a notice of Jesus' attitude on predestination.  For Him, certain things had to come to pass simply because the Bible said so.  He defined Himself as Messiah on the same basis- Scripture's testimony.  Jesus was a man, and He was a man submitted to Scriptures.  How completely do I as a man yield to them by comparison?)
    Jesus sat at table with His betrayer.  Jesus knew it, but He did not withhold fellowship from him.  He knew that Judas' heart was far from Him, far from righteousness, far from true friendliness, yet He still treated him as friend.
    Many professing Christians have gotten up from sitting with Jesus because a traitor has been revealed.  A Judas (or band of Judases) hurt them, so they renounced the fellowship of Christians.
    Jesus warned us to expect offenses:

Matthew 18:7  Woe to the world because of offenses! For it is necessary that offenses come; but woe to that man by whom the offense comes!

    In the same sentence He tells us that all Judases will bear the brunt of their errors.  When we desert the body of Christ for a Judas, we become an offender like Judas.  We become a traitor for a traitor.

    O Lord, I am a traitor by nature, but You have touched me.  Heal me of my disloyalty.  Jesus, You knew Judas ahead of time, so You could have avoided Him if You wished.  But You bore with Him as our example.  Help me to bear with a Judas until You choose to deal with him.*  
    Expose each Judas, O my God, and deliver me from them.  Mostly, expose the Judas in me.

*  Which could be immediately if church discipline were proper to exercise.


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Matthew 6:12  
And forgive us
our debts,
 as we also forgive
our debtors.

    Accompanying the doctrine of forgiveness is the doctrine of justification.  Justification is the channel along which our forgiveness flows.  Some consider justification to be the very heartbeat of the gospel.  Considering Paul's treatment of it, this is a very defensible view.  What else does Paul explain and defend so urgently and at length?  
    The definition of justification is a bit tricky.  What does it mean?  In terms of 'cute' little definitions, you may have heard that justification is when God treats me 'just as if' I hadn't sinned.  This isn't bad at capturing one aspect of justification- the fact that it deals with us contrary to appearance; also, the fact that in justification our sins are erased:

Romans 4:5-7  But to the one not working, but believing on Him justifying the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.
  Even as also David says of the blessedness of the man to whom God counts righteousness apart from works:
  "Blessed are those whose lawlessnesses are forgiven, and whose sins are covered;

    Here we can see that our lawless deeds are forgiven in justification.  We also have here a synonymous phrase for justify- to count righteous.  This is superior to the 'just as if ' definition in that it takes the root word of justify- "just" or "righteous"- and makes it part of the definition.
    Perhaps we could revise the little aphorism to 'just as if ' I were righteous.  However, this seems to miss the fact that God isn't just pretending that we possess righteousness.  He actually puts righteousness on our accounts.  It is not 'as if ' righteousness were there.  God has put righteousness on the books for His people.
    So our better definition of "justify" is to "count righteous."  However, we will find that even this definition must be modified a bit to make room for all the ideas that justification must cover.  Consider James:

James 2:21  Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered Isaac his son on the altar?

    Many feel that James and Paul were at odds over the doctrine of justification, but this is not so in the least.  Paul agrees with James' definition, using the same man in example, only at his son's birth:

Romans 4:20-22  he [Abraham] did not waver at the promise of God in unbelief, but was empowered by faith, giving glory to God,
  and being fully convinced that what He had promised He was also able to do.
  And therefore "it was accounted to him for righteousness."

    Here Paul agrees that Abraham's personal exercise of faith was part of his justification.  It was not merely what God did for him, but what God did in him.  The two are not to be confused, nor can their priority be switched, but being justified does include our own act of faith, not merely the righteousness put on our account.
    What definition of justification would cover BOTH ideas, of being counted righteous and of being shown to be righteous?  Being declared righteous would seem to fill the requirement.

    Lord, thank You for declaring me righteous.  Thank You for my justification.  Thank You for being a God who is concerned with righteousness.  Just because I was a sinner You loved, You did not change the basis of my acceptance with You.  You have not skirted the need for righteousness, You have met it head on, and gloriously so.  You have upheld the glory of righteousness.  So may I, praising You for justification!


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Matthew 6:13  
And do not lead us
into temptation,
but deliver us
from evil.

   When God hardened Pharaoh's heart, He also told us why He did so:

Exodus 10:1   And Jehovah said to Moses, Go in to Pharaoh, for I have made his heart heavy and the heart of his servants, so that I may set these signs of Mine in their midst

    The phrase "so that" announces a purpose.  God made Pharaoh's heart heavy because He wanted a monument to His workings.  God is even more specific about His choice of Pharaoh from the beginning:

Exodus 9:16  And for this I have made you stand, to make you see My power, to declare My name in all the land.

    Paul later picked up on the great significance of this purpose statement.  This purpose statement plainly tells us God's motivation.  This motivation then tells us much about God:

Romans 9:17, 18  For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, "Even for this same purpose I have raised you up, that I might show My power in you, and that My name might be declared throughout all the earth."
  Therefore He has mercy on whom He will have mercy, and whom He will, He hardens.

    When God created beings who could interact with Him (men and angels), He intended Himself to be known by them.  The knowledge of God, of course, is the ultimate knowledge for a created being.  Anything else we can know is merely knowledge of fellow created beings.  
    God could only have had two purposes in this regard: to allow interaction or to keep Himself at a distance.  Choosing interaction (not that He even necessarily considered choosing the alternative), He tied all acts of men, good or bad, to Himself.  If men are bad, they are still going to know God.  They will know Him as Judge; so God has ordained it.
    In this God is not being egotistical in a human sense.  He is merely being responsible for what He has made.  His creation does depend on Him for its existence.  It would be a facade to allow us to live as though there were no God, no interaction with Him.  Furthermore, God is who He is.  What else can He reveal Himself as?  He hates sin, for instance.  When we sin, we will find out about His hatred of it.  Moreover, we will eventually find out how much He hates it Isa. 66:24), as well as how significant we and our actions are.  He will make His power known.

    O God, thank You for making Your power known in mercy as well as in judgment.  I recognize that Your glory is manifested in Your judgment as well as Your mercy.  Judgment is as much a part of Your character as mercy.  Help me to fully fear You in seeing Your judgments upon Pharaoh and all the wicked.  Help me to fear You for Your threatened judgments after this life even more.  You have made Yourself known.  Keep me from ignorance of You, O my God.  Save me from my natural and ever-imposing ignorance.


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Luke 11:1  
And it happened
as He was praying in a certain place,
when He ceased,
one of His disciples said to Him,
Lord, teach us to pray,
as John also taught His disciples.

    The doctrine of the Trinity is very important,* for one thing, because it ascribes personality to all three persons of the Trinity, including the Holy Spirit.  That is, the Holy Spirit is not merely a force or an influence, He is an intelligent being who interacts personally, just as Jesus does.  His function is different than the Father's or Son's, but it comes no less from a distinct person.
    We are interested most particularly in the Holy Spirit's personal activity in our prayers, for He is most involved in our prayers:

Eph 6:17, 18  and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints

    Praying "in" the Holy Spirit means that we 'enter' the Holy Spirit, if you will, in order to pray.  If the Holy Spirit was a location, we would have to come to that dwelling, open the door, and enter.  In order to 'enter' the Holy Spirit as a person, we must come into the sphere of His influence.  He must be given guiding control of our prayers.
    Does giving the Holy Spirit control of our prayers means that we 'step out' and simply let Him do it?  Not at all; our stepping 'in' means our total involvement.  The Spirit wants to teach US to pray, not to pray FOR us (though He does that too, as a separate ministry).  In the counterfeit spiritual realm, mediums seek to let the spirits speak through them (demons obliging when it is not a charade).  Though the Holy Spirit sometimes has a purpose for simply using us as an organ of His speech, He normally only seeks to teach us to speak wisely in prayer.
    There are several kinds of people who do not want this personal tutoring of the Holy Spirit for their prayers:
 1)  the lazy- they just want things done for them with no effort on their part;
 2)  the arrogant- those who want to say they have superior prayers because the Holy Spirit simply does it for them;
 3)  the self-sufficient- those who have taken prayer as a personal responsibility and do not want another's help, not even God's; and
 4)  the frightened- those who are unfamiliar with the Holy Spirit personally and who are afraid of making (or being unable to make) His acquaintance.

    These latter people should realize that the Holy Spirit is there to help them the moment they pray, whether or not they know how to call for Him.  If they ask God for help in praying, guess whom God is going to send for that help?  We can actually become proficient in prayer without realizing that the Holy Spirit was helping us all along.  But armed with the knowledge of His ministry, we should certainly ask for, seek, and credit His aid.

    O God, since You have revealed the Holy Spirit as my prayer tutor, I want to humbly anticipate His involvement.  Thank You for a personal guide to help me.  O Spirit, do not abandon me.  Teach me to pray.

*  The name "Trinity" is not important in itself, not coming from the Bible, but what better word to describe what the Bible presents?- Three persons (tri-) in one God (-unity).  It saves us having to say "the doctrine of the one God dwelling in three distinct persons" (or the like) every time we want to refer to it.


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Matthew 6:9   
Our Father
who is in the Heavens,
cause Your Name
to be set apart.

    God wants our PURPOSE to match our prayers.  That's why Jesus taught us six requests with which to petition God.  Each of them states a purpose we are supposed to set before us as an objective.
    We are to pray for God's name to be honored.  It should therefore be our purpose in life to honor God's name.
    One way we honor God's name is by learning more about who God is and how He operates.  We have considered God's self-sufficiency, His creation as a declaration of His name, and His wisdom.  It should be our purpose to know and relate to God better by knowledge of these attributes.  Now let us reflect on God's sovereignty as a trait of God that we should comprehend.
    God's sovereignty is His control over all things.  The idea of God's sovereignty flows very naturally from the ideas of His self-sufficiency, creation, and wisdom.  He is self-sufficient, needing nothing; all creation is in need of His control.  He created and by that same power, He sustains what He made.  He is wise, so His management of all He made is good and orderly.
    The Bible speaks very bluntly concerning God's sovereignty:

Daniel 4:34, 35  And at the end of days, I Nebuchadnezzar lifted up my eyes to Heaven, and my understanding returned to me, and I blessed the Most High, and I praised and honored Him who lives forever, whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and His rule is from generation to generation.
  And all the people of the earth are counted as nothing; and He does according to His will in the army of heaven, and among the people of the earth. And none can strike His hand, or say to Him, What are You doing?

    There is a very raw level in our relationship with God where we must acknowledge our natural distrust of His control.  We don't like the fact that He is in command.  It makes Him seem like a bully.  This is the attitude we adopted from Adam and Eve when we bought into the Serpent's suggestion:

Genesis 3:5  for God knows that in the day you eat of it, then your eyes shall be opened, and you shall be as God, knowing good and evil.

    WE wanted to be the ones whose insight surrounded and penetrated all things.  We therefore rebelled against God's sovereignty, seeking to make ourselves sovereign.  Christianity is, if nothing else, a realignment of proper sovereignty.   A Christian is one who asks God's forgiveness for having rebelled against His sovereignty.  We repent of our self-rule and declare God our king once more.  How well we do this measures our caliber as God's servants.

    O God, set Your name in its proper place before me.  I should honor Your sovereign control over all You have made, including me.  This should issue forth as contentment in my life.  It should also give me an obedient attitude, submitting to Your rule.  It should also encourage my hearty participation, for You have sovereignly delegated me a son, able to respond to Your fatherly oversight.  Help me to believe and love Your sovereignty, fully repenting of my independence.


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Matthew 6:10  
May
Your kingdom
come

    When we ask God to bring His kingdom in, what do we ask concerning Israel?  Are they 'old news'?  Just another nation amidst all the nations of the earth with no special status?
    There is a definite place in Scriptures to go for the answer.  In Romans chapters nine through eleven Paul answers the very question, "What happens to Israel?"
    The passage opens like this:

Romans 9:1-5   I tell the truth in Christ, I do not lie, my conscience bearing witness with me in the Holy Spirit,
  that my grief is great, and a never ceasing pain is in my heart,
  for I myself was wishing to be a curse from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to flesh,
  who are Israelites, whose are the adoption and the glory, and the covenants, and the Lawgiving, and the service, and the promises;
  whose are the fathers, and from whom is the Christ according to flesh, He being God over all, blessed forever. Amen.

    Paul was a Jew and had a great pain for his countrymen since they had been cast off from God.  Notice, though, that Paul speaks of the Jews as an existing body of people.  He says "whose ARE the adoption," etc., not "whose WERE the adoption," etc.  
    It is similar to when Jesus proved the resurrection to the Sadducees.  He merely quoted God telling Moses, "I AM the God of Abraham," versus, "I WAS the God of Abraham."  If God was presently the God of Abraham, then Abraham must have been alive; he must been resurrected.  Similarly, when Paul says, "from whom IS the Christ," he affirms Israel's continuing existence.
    Should we share Paul's sorrow over ethnic Israel, even though we are not their countrymen?  Yes:

Romans 11:13-15  For I speak to you Gentiles; inasmuch as I am indeed an apostle to the Gentiles, I glorify my ministry,
  if somehow I may provoke to jealousy my fellow Jews, and I may save some of them.
  For if their casting away means reconciliation for the world, what will their acceptance be, if not life from the dead?

    Paul, a Jew, was given as our Gentile apostle.  Notice that Paul speaks of a joyful resurrection of Israel- "life from the dead."  We are to expect this as a coming miracle from God.  Until then, we see them as "cast away."  This gives us sorrow, and it gives us a prayer request as well.

    O Jehovah, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and my God, too, bring Israel back.  Let ethnic Israel and spiritual Israel be joined in one again.  Thank You that this is Your intention.


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Matthew 6:10  
May Your will be done,
as in heaven,
so also on the earth.


    Jesus gave us the Model Prayer as an imperative.  In the Sermon on the Mount, He said, "Pray in this manner."  That is a command.  In Luke 11 He said, "When Your pray, say."  That is also a command.
    There are other commands about prayer in other places in Scriptures.

Luke 10:2  Therefore He said to them, Indeed, the harvest is much, but the laborers are few. Therefore, pray to the Lord of the harvest, that He send out workers into His harvest.

Psalm 122:6  Pray for the peace of Jerusalem; those who love you shall prosper.

    We considered these two supplications under the second request, as part of asking for God's kingdom to come.  Now let us consider a third prayer command:

Hebrews 13:3  Remember the prisoners as if having been bound with them, those who are ill treated, as you yourselves are in the body also.

    This, of course, is not a prayer request per se.  It only commands us to remember Christian prisoners.  There were many Christians in prison while the New Testament was being written.  Being told to remember them was a command to do more than pray for them, but it was certainly a command to have them on our thoughts.  "Remember them before God" would therefore be one necessary activity in order to obey the command.
    Was Paul (Hebrews' supposed author) telling us to remember just any Christians in prison? Well, whereas we wouldn't rule out praying for those who have become Christians while in prison or Christians who actually did something immoral to be imprisoned, Paul is telling us to pray for Christians imprisoned for their witness.  He had already spoken about persecution amongst his audience:

Hebrews 10:34  For also you suffered together in my bonds; and you accepted the seizure of your possessions with joy, knowing yourselves to have a better and abiding possession in Heaven.

    Paul was in prison at the time, and the Hebrews had obviously been under persecution too.  They knew many who had been locked away.  Paul was commanding them not to forget this.
    Do you think about Christian prisoners?  It's not that easy to do if you don't know anyone who has gone to prison for his faith.  There aren't too many in America presently.  There are very many in other countries.  American mainstream media doesn't draw attention to the broad problem of imprisoned Christians, but there are more today than ever before.  Subscribe to the Voice of the Martyrs newsletter (P.O. Box 443, Bartlesville, OK 74005, (918) 337-8015) or Christian Freedom International (P.O. Box 535, Front Royal, Virginia 22630, 1-800-323-CARE (2273) to stay informed.

    O God, you have told me to remember those who are locked away for You.  Help me to do so.  Bless them, O God.  Strengthen them inwardly so that they may not be discouraged.  Grant them hope in You.  Bless those ministering to them.  Bless my participation by prayer and whatever means You desire.


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Matthew 6:11  
Give us today
our necessary bread.

   Christ was apparently baptized by John to officially identify Himself with His people as Messiah.  He then was immediately tested rather than applauded for His 'promotion' (a pattern we should expect for our spiritual promotions).  When His fasting had worn Him thin, Satan sought to take Him down.  Enter the three temptations.
    The first temptation was for Jesus to make stones into bread:

Matthew 4:3  And approaching Him, the tempter said, "If You are the Son of God, speak so that these stones may become bread."

    Satan equated Christ's Godhood to raw power.  He knew that Christ had been fasting.  He offered Christ a shortcut to proof of His Messiahship.  Bypass the test and just prove who You are.  You know who You are; all You have to do is give a little demonstration.  End Your hunger and Your test at the same time.  
    Satan was offering the last Adam what he had offered the first, only in a different way.  Satan offered the first Adam to join him in reaching for more than God had allowed.  Now Satan was offering the last Adam to join him in simply taking what was His without any need for testing.  "You know You're worth more than this, just as I did," Satan was saying in effect.  "I just took what was rightfully mine; You should too."  Thus Satan would have made God's Son his follower.
    Of course, Jesus actually was worth more than this.  He had purposely humbled Himself to identify with us.  Satan was asking, "Is man to be served, or used?  Aren't You their superior?"  After all, Satan had used us to help achieve his ends.  If Christ's ends were more worthy, how much more should He put Himself first!
    Christ was doing without bread to prove Himself TRUE MAN where Adam had failed.  Adam had failed with every advantage available to him.  Christ had to be stripped down to raw man- no advantages.  The Representative of righteousness for man had to be Man bereft- only righteousness to aid Him.  That's the only way righteousness could be fairly won back for us.

    Bread is pretty important.  It was used to test our Messiah, our representative Man.  Jesus did without bread to prove Himself for our sakes, to be approved so that we could be approved.
    How often does mere bread prove us as traitors of our faithful Christ?


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Matthew 6:12  
And forgive us
our debts,
 as we also forgive
our debtors.

   Justification by faith is a crucial part of our Christian faith, a critical element in our own peace before God, and an important aspect of praying for forgiveness.  Paul relies heavily on the concept of justification to explain our salvation:

Rom 3:20 - 24  Therefore by works of the law no flesh shall be justified in His sight, for through the law comes the knowledge of sin.
  21  But now the righteousness of God apart from the law has been revealed, being witnessed to by the Law and the Prophets,
  22  even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and upon all those that believe. For there is no distinction;
  23  for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
  24  being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus

    No one will be "justified", or declared righteous, by his own keeping of God's commands, according to verse 20 above.
    Yet God's righteousness is pivotal, according to verse 21.  The need for righteousness does not go away just because we cannot meet it.
    The righteousness that God reveals is a righteousness upon His people, says verse 22.  He provides us with what we need, as He clothed Adam and Eve to replace their insufficient covering.
    Paul recaps his argument of the previous two chapters in verse 23, reminding us that both Jew and Gentile are in need of this righteousness.
    Finally, he tells us in verse 24 that both Jew and Gentile are DECLARED RIGHTEOUS "freely," as a gift, not in exchange for anything they do or have.

    Justification is central to the explanation of the Gospel.
   We must make it central in our own hearts and minds, then.  It is part of the helmet of salvation that protects us.

   O God, You have revealed Your righteousness.  What better thing could have been revealed?  Your love is nothing without Your righteousness (and vice versa).  Your attributes fit together as an infinitely beauteous tapestry.  You would only manifest Your love for me in keeping with Your righteousness.  Nor would You set Your love upon me except to make me righteous.
    Thank You for providing me a full garment of righteousness in Christ.  Thank You for accepting His righteousness on my behalf.  Thank You for my justification.


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Matthew 6:13  
And do not lead us
into temptation,
but deliver us
from evil.

   God leads men into temptation when He allows them further and further into the sticky regions of their soul's fly paper ( fly paper = sticky paper for catching flies).  When we ask not to be led into temptation, we are asking to be disentangled from our fly paper.  We're acknowledging that our souls are fly paper, and the gum is our sinful desire which will trap us to our death.  
    Those who do not ask to be kept from temptation have either an overblown sense of their own steadfastness or an underrated sense of their own sinfulness.
    The Bible mentions this latter category of men very often in terms of God giving them over to their foolishness.  We have seen Pharaoh as the first and perhaps prime example.  A more troubling example is Samson:

Judges 14:1-4  And Samson went down to Timnath and saw a woman in Timnath, of the daughters of the Philistines.
  And he came up and told his father and mother, and said, I have seen a woman in Timnath, of the daughters of the Philistines.  And now get her for me for a wife.
And his father and his mother said to him, Is there no woman among the daughters of your brothers, or among all my people, that you go to take a wife from the uncircumcised Philistines? And Samson said to his father, Get her for me, for she pleases me very much.
  And his father and his mother did not know that it was from Jehovah, that He was seeking an occasion against the Philistines. For at that time the Philistines were ruling over Israel.

    This is a troubling example because Samson was a child of God:

Hebrews 11:32  And what more shall I say? For the time would fail me to tell of Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephthah; also David, and Samuel and the prophets

    He is listed in the 'hall of faith' in Hebrews 11.  And yet we see that he was plainly lustful, willful, and did not honor his parents.  And he never improved morally.  If anything, he went downhill, later patronizing a harlot (Judges 16:1).
    Samson's sinfulness made him a prime candidate for being led into temptation, even though He was a believer.  The phrase "it was from Jehovah" (14:4 above) tells us that God had a plan for actually using Samson's sinful tendencies, just as He used Pharaoh's.  (Neither would Samson get a lighter sentence, but would pay for all his sins, as we all do, Col. 3:24, 25)
    By the time Samson wanted the Philistine lass, his selfish tendencies were well-developed, however they got there (being spoiled by his parents?).  God is not the least bit arbitrary.  When it says that the situation was "from Jehovah," it does not mean that God artificially manufactured the situation- just the opposite.  The situation was very much homegrown.  God just had the wisdom to use it to accomplish His ends.  In fact, He used Samson in a much nobler cause than Samson deserved.
    If the Lord 'gives in' to our lusts, it will probably not yield any heroic results as it did for Samson.  It will certainly lead to all the pain and heartache that Samson experienced.

   O Father, You are wise and You are fearsome.  I see that You will certainly work in my life one way or another.  You will use me for Your glory whether I sin or not.  You will weave my choices into my biography, and I will not like the tapestry my sins knit.  Thank You for inspiring caution in me.


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Luke 11:1  
And it happened
as He was praying in a certain place,
when He ceased,
one of His disciples said to Him,
Lord, teach us to pray,
as John also taught His disciples.


    The Holy Spirit is our personal tutor for prayer:

Jude 1:20  But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit

    Praying under the Spirit's influence means getting 'on the job training' in prayer.  The Spirit doesn't do the job for us, but rather guides us and strengthens us through the process.
    It is a major question, then, how the Spirit assists us in prayer.  What am I to expect in the procedure?  What am I to contribute to it?
    A fairly familiar verse can be suitably applied to answer these questions:

Proverbs 3:5, 6  Find refuge in Jehovah with all your heart, and do not lean to your own intelligence.  In all your ways know Him, and He will straighten your paths.

    This answers the questions about our interaction with the Spirit in prayer in several ways:

1)  "Find refuge" tells us that we are seeking refuge in God in prayer; that's what the Spirit is basically assisting us in doing; we are therefore in trouble, the Spirit guiding us to safe haven (What?  Me?  Trouble?);
 2)  "With all your heart" tells us that our whole heart must be given to the exercise; we should not be tentative for the very reason that we know we need the Spirit's help;
 3)  "Do not lean to your own intelligence" tells us that we are not trying to figure out the process by our own wits; we are intelligently trying to discover the mind of another- the mind of Christ.  The Holy Spirit is present to retrain our thinking as we ponder Scriptures;
 4)  "In all your ways" tells us to look at every area of our lives during prayer; each area needs to acknowledge God's sovereignty and wisdom; in each one we need to confess our own chaos;
 5)  "He will straighten" tells us that the Holy Spirit is there to put our feet on a straight path, off the crooked one we naturally travel.  His goal is to take our humility and turn it into wisdom (though humility is already wisdom begun).

    Prayer is the process of leaning away from myself and more on God.  He has spoken; I am listening.  He comes alongside, I rely on Him for framing my answers to His words.  This is prayer in the Spirit.

    O Father, You who send the Spirit, I need Him in prayer.  I need prayer because I need Your direction every moment.  I need Your direction because my own compass fails me.  Teach me to pray.  Teach me to lean on You in prayer.


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Matthew 6:9   
Our Father
who is in the Heavens,
cause Your Name
to be set apart.

   We have considered God's name- His Self-description- in terms of
 1)  His self-sufficiency;
 2)  His creation;
 3)  His wisdom; and
 4)  His sovereignty.
    One particular aspect of God's sovereignty we must consider is His sovereignty in salvation.  In our day, the prevailing theology says God is not sovereign in salvation, at least not in dispensing it.  In this theology, God would never MAKE anyone be saved- that is an axiom.  He can only make salvation available; man must accept it of his own accord.
    And it is true that God would never make someone be saved against his will.  Nor would he ever keep someone from being saved who wanted to be.  But both of these points beg a fundamental question:  WHO WANTS TO BE SAVED?  According to Romans 3 quoting Psalms, the answer is NOBODY:

Romans 3:11  There is none who understands; there is none who seeks God.

    In this light, the big question becomes WHEN does anyone ever begin seeking God?  All Scriptural answers to this question are consistent, one of them putting it this way:

Ezekiel 36:26  And I will also give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit within you. And I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give to you a heart of flesh.

    Someone comes to God WHEN God puts a new heart in him.  Simple.  This is the Biblical data and it answers the question of Who Wants to be Saved.  Answer:  Someone with a new heart supplied by God.  Did they ask for the new heart?  Go back to Romans 3:11, "None seeks God."  No, they would never ask for a new heart with an old heart.  The moment they asked for a new heart, that would be the evidence that they already had it.  Again,

Romans 8:7  Because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not submit to the law of God, nor indeed can it.

    Look at that ability word:  "can."  An unbeliever cannot submit to God.  The new heart has God's law written within and loves that Law.  The old heart id minus it and will never do so.  God must perform heart surgery.  This He chooses to do sovereignly.  He could not confer with us about it, for we would and could never agree with Him in our old heart.  We would never choose God without a new heart.  Again,

1 Corinthians 2:14  But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

    God in His mercy steps in on behalf of the elect:

Romans 9:16  So then it is not of him that wills, nor of him that runs, but of God who shows mercy.

    The old heart can only will sinful things.
    So God doesn't make someone believe; He implants a new heart that willingly believes.  He wouldn't refuse salvation to someone who wanted it; it's just that no unbeliever will ever want it on his own.

    O sovereign God, I call upon You as the maker and giver of the new heart.  Grant me to know Your name and honor it, O God to whom alone belongs mercy and salvation, to whom alone belongs the glory for saving stubborn ones like me!


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Matthew 6:10  
May
Your kingdom
come

   How important is it to make Israel part of our prayers, including her in our request for God's kingdom to come?
    It is very important.  Paul gives us a definite warning about miscalculatin Israel's place in God's plan.  He calls Israel the natural olive branch and Gentiles wild olive branches:

Romans 11:17-20  But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive tree, were grafted in among them, and became a partaker of the root and of the fatness of the olive tree,
  do not boast against the branches. But if you do boast, remember that you do not support the root, but the root supports you.
  You will say then, "Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in."
  Well said. By unbelief they were broken off, but you stand by faith. Do not be arrogant, but fear.
  For if God did not spare the natural branches, perhaps He may not spare you either.

    Abraham is seen as the root of this tree.  To him the promise of righteousness by faith was originally given:

Romans 11:16  Now if the firstfruits offered up are holy, so is the whole batch. And if the root is holy, so are the branches.

    The whole Jewish nation is holy because Abraham was set apart.  We Gentiles have been added to Abraham's family, though via the New Covenant:

Galatians 3:7  know, then, that those of faith, these are sons of Abraham.

    The word that comes to us as 'add-ons' to Abraham's 'inner Israel' (Rom. 9:6)is very important:

Romans 11:20, 21  Well said. By unbelief they were broken off, but you stand by faith. Do not be arrogant, but fear.
  For if God did not spare the natural branches, perhaps He may not spare you either.

    We Gentiles have no special boast before God.  Properly understood, neither did the Jews.  Abraham was saved by grace, not because he was anything exceptional.
    But the Jews were attached to God before we were.  Furthermore, we have come in their place.  This should give them special status in our eyes.  And Israel's fall from grace should give us a decided humility in prayer.

    O God, You are very great.  Your plans are worked out from generation to generation.  Shape my attitudes by what You have done and are doing with the Jews.  Grant me joy at the thought of Your returning them to their former standing, joining them with me again, joining me with them.


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Matthew 6:10  
May Your will be done,
as in heaven,
so also on the earth.


    The main, most basic advancement in praying "may Your will be done" is understanding what kind of WILL of God we are asking to be done.  Once we understand that we are asking for God's COMMANDS to be carried out, our whole prayer life in this area can naturally mature.
    Here is a confirmation of what kind of will we are praying for and further instruction therein:

Colossians 1:9  On account of this we also, since the day we heard, do not cease praying for you, and asking that you may be filled with the full knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding

    The "will of God" most Christians read into the model prayer is His secret will.  God's secret will includes His decrees for what will occur moment by moment throughout history.  History is an unfolding of God's secret will.  Here's the problem:  Why would we pray that God's secret will be done?  What's going to stop it anyway?  It's like praying that God would be God; He's going to that be whether I ask Him to or not.
    Interjection:  Is it any wonder that Christians are in the basement in the brains department?  We pray something that makes no sense, yet we don't miss a beat.  "Yes, if only God would continue to carry out His decrees for history, all will be well."
    Again (reviewing a long-ago devotion), the foremost hint that we are NOT praying for God's secret will is this:  We ask that it be done on earth like it is done in Heaven.  Hint, hint!  That means His will is NOT being done on earth!  Can that be His secret will, His decrees?  Of course not!  His decrees are being done every bit as much on earth as they are in Heaven!  
    Anyway, Paul shows above that God's will we pray for one another is His commands in that:
 1)  It is something we can come to "full knowledge" of, a state we cannot enter concerning God's secret will;
 2)  This will is something we can know "in all wisdom."  We can have thorough insight into it; we have no such insight into God's future decrees.
 3)  It is a knowledge we can be "filled" with, certainly true of commands, but not of secret decrees;
 4)  We may pray this knowledge for others, as Paul does.  We do not pray that others will know God's decrees.

    O God, I take up Paul's prayer on my own behalf.  Fill me with a thorough knowledge of Your beautiful will!  Give me all wisdom in it;  do not hold back a bit!  Where I have tasted and foolishly rejected, forgive and restore me by Your mercy!
    Put this prayer in my heart and on my tongue for the members of Your body, everyone I know.


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Matthew 6:11  
Give us today
our necessary bread.

    Christ authorized Himself as our Messiah by a test of fasting.  Then, in what we would certainly take as an unfair test for ourselves, Satan was allowed to come to Him at His weakest point to test Him further.  If we were at an end of our strength, we would probably question God for testing us thus.  But this is what Christ had to endure to recuperate what we had lost.  The first Adam had wilted under Satan's suggestions; the last Adam had to feel the same weight.
    Later Christ showed that the power of miraculous bread-making was indeed in His power.  When the people following Him were at an end of their strength, He chose to feed them and demonstrate His Godhood at the same time:

Luke 9:12, 13  But the day began to wear away, and coming up the Twelve said to Him, Send the crowd away so that they may go into the villages and farms all around, and lodge, and get food. For we are here in a deserted place.
  But He said to them, You give them something to eat ...

    At the same time, Jesus was testing His disciples, to show them how to trust Him for their resources and ministries.

Luke 9:13  ... And they said, "We have no more than five loaves of bread and two fish, unless we go and buy food for all these people."

    There is the key.  They brought Jesus their resources.  He had put the burden of feeding on them; they showed Him what they had.  They proved to Him that their rations were insufficient.  
    Cue miracle.  Jesus took what they had and turned it into a meal for 5,000 men and additional women and children.
    God does miracles when He deems best, but always for a purpose.  He is always teaching more than the miracle itself.
    There is much we can learn from this miracle about making the Fourth Request.  When we ask for bread (provisions), we are recognizing God as our provider.  When we do not have enough and we ask, we recognize God as miracle-worker.  Now most of the time God does not work an outright miracle (momentarily operating contrary to nature).  Most of the time He works a coincidence.  Someone just happens to give us what we lack.  God is still a work, but He works within the boundaries of nature; He doesn't create something out of thin air or cause items to duplicate themselves.  
    No matter; God is our provider whether through a regular paycheck, a special coincidence, or an outright miracle.  None of these means is inherently superior to the other as an avenue of God's provision.  Our thanks should always be as sincere and deep.

    God, I know that Your Word's definition of a miracle would not fit my paycheck, but You are still its provider.  That is what counts.  It is easier to my eyes to see Your hand in a miracle, because there  are no human hands involved.  When my boss hands me a paycheck, I see a human hand.  Let me not conceal Your hand to my eyes thereby.
    Thank You for my food, for all my earthly provisions.  They are from You.  They are good gifts from You.


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Matthew 6:12  
And forgive us
our debts,
 as we also forgive
our debtors.

    Paul spends Romans 1, 2, and half of 3 proving that mankind is under God's wrath because of our sin.  Paul then spends the latter half of Romans 3, then 4 and 5 explaining how God provides us shelter from His wrath by freedom from our sin; this he does mainly by explaining justification.
    We have sampled justification in chapters 3 and 4 in the previous two devotions on the fifth request.  Now let us sample chapter 5:

Romans 5:18  Therefore, as through one man's offense judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation, even so through one Man's righteous act the free gift came to all men, resulting in justification of life.

     The whole language of "free gift" concerns justification.  Justification is God's declaration, not our doing.  It is a gift despite our doings.  It is a declaration based on what another has done; we are not its source in any sense.  It is the freest (we didn't earn or deserve it) free gift that ever was or will be.
   Notice that justification is "justification of life."  Justification is the sole source of life.  Those who are justified have life; that is essentially what justification gives when it gives the free "gift of righteousness" (5:17).  Sin made us dead; justification resurrects us.
    Remember, justification means being declared righteous.  The main contrast in Romans 5 is between justification and its opposite, "condemnation," (used twice) or "one man's offense" /"the offense" (five times).
    Who is the "one man" who offended bringing us condemnation?  ADAM.  Adam becomes the perfect picture to explain justification:
 Adam sinned: everyone became a sinner thereby.
 Christ was righteous:  all His people become righteous (are justified) thereby.*
 We didn't have to do anything to have Adam's sin counted to us.
 We don't do anything to have Christ's righteousness counted to us.

    Justification is central to understanding the gospel.  The concept covers all mankind and all history in the broadest way.  Mankind's whole story is about justification and its opposite.  We come into the world condemned by another's act.  We escape condemnation and enter God's kingdom through a second, gracious representative's act.

    O Lord, thank You for my justification.  Thank You for justification to life.  Let me dwell upon and dwell in my Redeemer and His sacrifice, as He is the one who gives me- freely gives me- what I need to stand righteous in Your presence.  Praise be to His name.  Thank You, gracious Redeemer.  You are my justification, my righteousness.

*  Note that 5:18 above says that "the free gift came to all men."  "All" in what sense?  If "all" of mankind, then every person ever born of Adam will receive Christ's gift of righteousness and therefore go to Heaven.  Can this be, since we read of masses going to Hell?  No, rather, it is "all" of those who belong to Christ.  We must be born physically to inherit Adam's sin; we must be born spiritually to inherit Christ's rightousness.

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Matthew 6:13  
And do not lead us
into temptation,
but deliver us
from evil.

   We have seen how God led Samson into temptation just as He led Pharaoh.  When we choose sin, we are choosing to be more and more abandoned to sin.  Samson was a believer, yet He was not immune to the law of enchantment (Gal. 3:1).  Sin will delude and enslave us to whatever degree we yield to it.  Nor will we find it as easy to get out as we found it to blunder in, for sin takes ownership of it volunteers like any master rules a slave.  Neither will sin let us go without a price, without as steep a profit as it can exact.
    What moral do we derive from this teaching?  The same lesson that the sixth request teaches us in general:  an attitude of CAUTION.  When we properly ask God not to lead us into temptation, we go out into the day cautiously.  We realize how utterly prone to sin we are and how completely dependent we are upon God's grace to keep us pure.
    But let us now balance this caution.  Caution, like most attributes, can be pressed too far and become unbalanced, unhealthy.  When we are too cautious, we can lose CONFIDENCE.
    Are we supposed to be confident?  Yes, not in ourselves, but confidence should pervade our attitudes nonetheless.
    One passage balances caution against confidence very nicely:

Colossians 3:23 - 25  And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men;
 knowing that from the Lord you shall receive the reward of the inheritance. For you serve the Lord Christ.
  But he who does wrong shall receive justice for the wrong which he did, and there is no respect of persons.

    "No respect of persons."  God doesn't leave righteousness behind when we become His children.  No, He is more concerned with it than ever.  He is quicker to judge us, not slower (1 Pet. 4:17).  This is the note of caution.  We are always recompensed for wrong done.  
    The confidence is seen in the admonition to do "whatever we do" "heartily."  "Heartily" is the Greek phrase "from the soul."  If our souls are not involved in what we do, we are more like machines than men.  Yet too great a dose of caution can turn us into lifeless drudges, in great danger of offering the Lord unacceptable service (Luke 19:22).
    When we read of Samson, we wisely become cautious, but we do not withdraw from hearty enjoyment of the Lord and His service.

    O my God, grant me a cautious spirit; a sin is waiting around every corner when I am not wary.  But grant me confidence in Your strength and protection.  Righteousness and satisfaction are waiting around every corner when I am waiting on You.


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Luke 11:1  
And it happened
as He was praying in a certain place,
when He ceased,
one of His disciples said to Him,
Lord, teach us to pray,
as John also taught His disciples.

    There is a particular place we need the Spirit's help in prayer:

Ephesians 6:11, 12  Put on the full armor of God, so that you may be able to stand against the stratagems of the devil.
  For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual forces of evil in the heavenlies.

    Wrestling implies two things:
 1)  We are in a fight;
 2)  The fight is in close quarters.
    Paul speaks of armor and weapons, but he is obviously thinking of a real battlefield, where weapons are sometimes wielded awkwardly as we embrace our enemy in a macabre death dance.
    Paul says that we meet at least partly on our enemies' grounds.  We are wrestling in heavenly places, above the earth.  Daniel's account of a heavenly battleground is the most explicit one in Scriptures and is probably in Paul's thinking.  When an angel came in answer to Daniel's prayer, he revealed this:

Daniel 10:12, 13  Then he said to me, Do not fear, Daniel; for from the first day that you set your heart to understand and to chasten yourself before your God, your words were heard. And I have come for your words.
  But the ruler of the kingdom of Persia withstood me twenty-one days. But lo, Michael, one of the chief rulers, came to help me; and I remained there with the kings of Persia.

    This ruler of Persia could not have been a human, because he withstood an angel.  Remember, Paul in Ephesians 6:12 above spoke of demonic rulers.  These are apparently the type of rulers in Daniel 10.
    In Daniel 10, it is angels who are doing battle with other angels in response to our prayers.  Paul says we are also doing the wrestling.  Apparently our prayers take us into the same realm where the angels struggled.  Perhaps it is only the 'heavens' above our very heads, where demons are allowed to interact with us during prayer.
    This knowledge of prayer changes the way we pray.  When we are mindful of spiritual combat, our prayers our bound to be more purposeful.  We realize that we are being opposed, that what we are asking of God is being contested.  This gives our prayers a much more serious edge.

    O God, let me wrestle in prayer.  Let me remember that prayer brings me into contested ground.  Let me seek fervently the territory you've laid before me, the territory I strive for in each request you've taught me or given for my pattern.


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Matthew 6:9   
Our Father
who is in the Heavens,
cause Your Name
to be set apart.

    Asking that God's name be sanctified is asking that we would revere the portrayal He gives of Himself in the Bible.  In the Bible, He is, in no uncertain terms, the 'guy in charge.'  He is sovereign.
    Because we are the subjects of His control, we dislike the idea that He might overly control us.  Why?  It would make us feel like robots, and we don't want to be considered robots.  One of the most appalling cruelties that can be inflicted in a horror movie is being turned into a zombie or being mentally joined with some new breed of insect-like alien- becoming one soul with their colony; becoming a sort of robot.       
    Why should this be scary?  There's usually no blood involved.  The person is just no longer who he was before.  Scarier still is when they can act just like before.  The very apex of panic is when a transformed person loves what they have become.  They appeal to their friends to join them.  Everything is perfect now!  Would-be victims insist, "No, I just want to be myself, even with all my human imperfections!"
    Of course, on one level, this bears a good message, that humanity is superior to insect-like orders.  On another level, though, it shows man's resistance to improvements that even God Himself might offer!  ... which improvement God does offer, but not to make us zombies; rather to free us from the realm of the walking dead!
    The fact that the unbeliever is the zombie with a will of iron set against God and good is obvious from verses like:

John 1:12, 13  But as many as received Him, He gave them the authority to become children of God, to those who believe in His name;
  who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

    Look at that!  John is careful to exclude man's will as a source of the new birth.  Man's will is 'free,' but because man himself is the slave of sin, he will only 'freely' choose evil.  He will never choose God.  Jesus stated this to a crowd that actually wanted to make Him king!

John 6:65  And He said, "Because of this I have said to you that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted to him by My Father."

    And He was telling that crowd that the Father had not granted them to come to Him!- even though they had traveled a long way to attach themselves to Him!
    For those who want their answers from the Bible, the testimony is plain and abundant.  Man's will is not forced, either by God or the Devil, but that warped will simply never considers God's way an option.  God must step in and mercifully supply a new, agreeable will.

    O Father, how difficult it is to accept this testimony of ourselves- that we do not even have the good sense to submit to the gospel when its benefits are staring us straight in the face!  Truly, Your testimony of our dilemma is right:  we are lost.  We are lost and refuse a map home when it is offered.    The only map we want is a treasure map to our own desires.  That's where our heart is.  O the untold blessing of the new heart!  Grant it to me, and grant me to prize it and maintain it as my dearest part!


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Matthew 6:10  
May
Your kingdom
come

    What is the place of Israel in God's overall plan?  Learning this will help us pray for God's kingdom to come.  Paul's purpose in Romans chapters nine through eleven is to give us a primer on Israel.  Here are some of the main features:

 1)  Israel was always divided into an 'inner' and 'outer' group.  The inner truly knew God, the outer didn't:

Romans 9:7, 8  nor because they are the seed of Abraham are they all children. But, "In Isaac shall your Seed be called."
  That is, not the children of the flesh are children of God; but the children of the promise are counted for a seed.

    Paul then proceeds to compare real 'Christian' Israelites (e.g., Isaac) to Hebrew unbelievers (Ishmael).

 2)  This has always been according to the ongoing principle of election:  God chooses whom He wills:

Romans 9:18  Therefore He has mercy on whom He will have mercy, and whom He will, He hardens.

 3)  Many Gentiles have now become part of this 'inner' group:

Romans 9:24  even us whom He called, not only of the Jews, but also of the Gentiles

 4)  And yet God has not given up on the former Israel, including the outer group:

Romans 11:1  I say then, has God cast away His people? Certainly not! For I too am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin.

 5)  The former type of election, national (working alongside spiritual election) is still in effect.  Concerning unbelieving Israel, Paul says:

Romans 11:28  Indeed as regards the gospel, they are enemies for your sakes. But as regards the election, they are beloved for the fathers' sakes.

    So God still loves His accursed people in that covenant way, according to the Abrahamic covenant.

6)  Therefore, God will one day bring 'old Israel' back to Himself:

Romans 11:25, 26  ... blindness in part has happened to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in.
  And so all Israel shall be saved ...

    How crucial to follow Paul's reasoning throughout these chapters!  He included Israel in his 'systematic theology'- Romans.  They are a necessary part of our theologies and our prayers as well.

    Lord, Your ways are deep and complex indeed!  You see Israel on two different levels, and You remain completely consistent with both levels.  You see me as spiritually elect, yet a Gentile nationally as well.  I pray for my cast-off brother, Israel.  I also thank You for all the Jews You have brought to Yourself through all these generations, including our day.  Praise to Your name, O Most High.


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Matthew 6:10  
May Your will be done,
as in heaven,
so also on the earth.


    Are you full of a knowledge of God's will?
    You are supposed to be, and you are supposed to pray it for others as well, as Paul gives example:

Colossians 1:9  On account of this we also, since the day we heard, do not cease praying for you, and asking that you may be filled with the full knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding

    How can You be filled with the "full knowledge" of God's will?  Most Christians in our day think of this in terms of being in the 'perfect will' of God or being in the 'center of God's will.'  Believe or not, this goal is actually contrary to what Paul is teaching and will rob us of his true aim- will actually keep us from knowing or doing God's will!
    Paul is speaking of God's will as something knowable; therefore, He is speaking of God revealed will.  That would be the Scriptures.  By contrast, expecting to be in God's supposed 'perfect will' is hoping to somehow be where God has ideally projected for us (in His secret will).  It implies that there is a potential God sees which, if I am fully submitted to Him, I should be able to discover and walk in.  In this, the knowledge of Scriptures is secondary at best.  The key element is finding 'peace' in my heart through utter submission to God's will.
    How deceitful our flesh is and how crafty Satan is!  Whereas a desire for utter submission to God is commendable, it is utterly useless without a thorough knowledge of Scriptures.  There is no 'ideal' hidden in God's mind which I must find.  I need to find the ideal already revealed in Scriptures.  At that point, utter submission simply means obedience- not nearly as romantic as finding the supposed 'perfect will' of God.
    Should I be at peace when I am obedient?  Yes, because I am doing what God told me to do.
    O God, my God, deliver me from subtle traps.  I want to be submitted to You, and I want to have the peace You promised, but I know I cannot bypass Your Word.  I know that the 'center' of Your will is to be found when I am immersed in the midst of a broad, balanced comprehension of Your mind- the Scriptures.


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Matthew 6:11  
Give us today
our necessary bread.

    God bless the disciples all through the gospel accounts!  Recorded in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, the disciples are always up to their necks in foolishness.
    When we first read their antics, we say, "Goodness, I'm glad I'm not as dull as those fellows."  We say that until we have held the mirror of the Word up to ourselves a little longer.  Then we realize that we are exactly as dull as the dazzling dozen.  That's why their accounts are so instructive and encouraging.  Jesus keeps putting up with them over and over, correcting them and lovingly rebuking them.
    One episode that helps us better understand the Fourth Request begins with a warning Jesus gave His little crew:

Mark 8:15  Then He charged them, saying, "Look out, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod."

    And now the disciples give one of their cute little responses:

Mark 8:16  And they were reasoning among themselves, saying, " because we have no bread."

    Poor fellows!  How silly they must have felt later!  Even if they had forgotten bread, how would yeast in someone else' pantry affect their lack?  But again, we flatter ourselves in vain if we think our powers of observation are any greater.  Any small amount of experience shows us that our first impressions of Scriptures are almost always wrong.  If we think otherwise, surely we align ourselves with the Pharisee who prayed, "Lord, I thank You that I am not like other men." (Luke 18:11)
    No, Jesus was using leaven metaphorically:

Mark 8:17-21  But Jesus, knowing about it, said to them, "Why are you reasoning because you have no bread? Do you not yet perceive or understand? Is your heart still hardened?
  Having eyes, do you not see? And having ears, do you not hear? And do you not remember?
  When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of fragments did you take up?" They said to Him, "Twelve."
  "And when I broke the seven for the four thousand, how many hampers full of fragments did you take up?" And they said, "Seven."
  So He said to them, "How is it you do not understand?"

    Mark does not even explain the meaning of leaven.  For him, the lesson was the disciples' thickness.  Matthew records their light bulb finally clicking on:

Matthew 16:12  Then they understood that He did not say to beware of the leaven of bread, but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and Sadducees.

    The point for us is how easily we relate everything back to the physical.  We are physical creatures and we have physical needs.  We can't help focusing on physical matters to a great extent.  The moral is that our physical situation is not the primary focus of God's instruction to us.  He is trying to teach us more.

    O Lord, I know that the world around me teaches me.  I know that Your provisions instruct me.  They tell me to trust You, for one thing.  Help me to learn these basic lessons well enough that I can receive deeper schooling.  Open my eyes to my dimness that I not miss instruction through arrogance!


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Matthew 6:12  
And forgive us
our debts,
 as we also forgive
our debtors.

    What affect should the doctrine of justification have on us?

Romans 5:1  Therefore, having been justified by faith, let us have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ

    Most translations read "we have peace with God."  This is an example of catering the translation to a theology.  Someone who had no theology to validate would go with the best manuscript evidence and translate "let us have peace."  But that makes little sense in our day.  That would mean that we are to pursue peace on the basis of justification.  But since justification is what another has done for me, how can I obtain peace as a result?  Shouldn't I just have peace as a result?  Our age infers that if we seek peace based on justification, then justification was not complete enough, but this is not the case at all.
    This is one of many examples of Paul deliberately balancing the doctrines of justification and sanctification.  Justification is what God has done for me; sanctification is what God does in me.  Paul is simply saying that what God has done for me should affect what God is doing in me.
    "Having been justified," having a complete righteousness outside myself, "let us have peace"- let us adjust our relationship with God accordingly.  This should make perfect sense to us, but we have adopted a rather clinical view of justification.  We are afraid lest the objective (what has been for me) be confused with the subjective (what is being done in me).  A rightly guarded distinction indeed!  But is the objective not to affect the subjective?  That's all Paul is saying.  Our justification is supposed to affect our sanctification.
    So this is what Paul teaches us here.  The affect justification should have on me is that I should seek to make my actual daily relationship with God MATCH the reconciliation He has accomplished.  After all, where is the proof that I have understood and embraced my justification?  It must be in my inner calm and freedom from factors that formerly made me God's enemy.

    Lord Jesus, thank You for my justification.  Father, thank You for raising Him from the dead to accomplish my justification.  I now seek to live my justification.  It has brought me peace.  I must live in peace.  Particularly, I must be at peace with You.  O guide my soul to repose in You, kind Savior!  Let me believe and taste Your goodness like honey in my soul.


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Matthew 6:13  
And do not lead us
into temptation,
but deliver us
from evil.

    Asking God not to lead us into temptation is a request that focuses our gaze upon our own souls.  There we see a very vulnerable fortress.  Our battlements are porous and we are already overrun with spies.  We apply to God for protection:  "Deliver us from evil"- the evil that resides within us and counsels us amiss every moment.
    Our understanding of this request should heighten the level of alertness in our souls:  "Ah, so that is the state of my soul!  I am much weaker than I thought.  How easily I will walk into every trap if I do not keep a constant eye on myself!"
    The normal Christian life is a progression.  We are moving forwards, advancing in our discernment.  We are supposed to become more and more aware of our vulnerability and hence become more and more dependent upon God's active daily grace.
    There is a Biblical command, a warning, which describes the progressive opening of our eyes:

Matthew 26:41  Watch, and pray, that you may not enter into temptation: the spirit indeed is forward, but the flesh weak.'

    The word "watch" in Greek actually means to awaken.  We are being told to wake up spiritually.  The same admonition appears elsewhere:

Romans 13:11  Besides this, knowing the time, it is already the hour for you to wake up from sleep, for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed.

    Paul is addressing Christians.  Can they be asleep?  He speaks as though sleep is our normal state.  How can this be?
    We walk in this world through a kind of mist.  The 'reality' of daily life seems to contradict the reality of the spiritual realm the Bible describes.  We walk in a fog, a dream, which disguises from our view the spiritual forces arrayed against us (or those working for us for that matter).  In addition to this, our moral sense is muddled.  The sin in our members looks through half-closed eyelids at the monster of bad choices.  We do not see how choosing sin sets off explosives, maiming us spiritually.
    Waking up spiritually means becoming exactly aligned with God's morality.  We suddenly see exactly how dangerous sin is, how imperative righteousness is, how sensible both of these perspectives are.
    Paul tells us to wake up, because this world always woos our fallen natures into a charmed state, a hypnotic spell.  We always start to see the world as our friend again, or at least not a dangerous enemy.  We must always be pinching ourselves, reminding ourselves, awakening ourselves.

    O Lord, awaken me.  I accept the responsibility to be awakened.  I call myself awake, looking to You who opened blind eyes to be merciful to me.
  How I dally with sin!  How I mentally play out scenes in which sin does no harm, in which sin does me good!  How I dream!
    Convert these dreams to nightmares, O God, for such they are in reality.  Awaken me.  I walk as a night-dweller.  Let me walk in the day.


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Luke 11:1  
And it happened
as He was praying in a certain place,
when He ceased,
one of His disciples said to Him,
Lord, teach us to pray,
as John also taught His disciples.

    Prayer is a wrestling match with spiritual forces:

Ephesians 6:11, 12  Put on the full armor of God, so that you may be able to stand against the stratagems of the devil.
  For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual forces of evil in the heavenlies.

    Paul does not identify prayer as the only activity in which we tussle with demonic forces, but prayer should probably be when we are most aware of it.
    Remarkably, prayer might also be described as a wrestling match with God, based on Jacob's wrestling in Genesis 32.  

Genesis 32:24-30  And Jacob was left alone. And a Man wrestled with him until the ascending of the dawn.
  And He saw that He had not prevailed against him. And He touched on his hip socket, and Jacob's hip socket was unhinged as he wrestled with Him.
  And He said, Send Me away, for the dawn has ascended. And he said, I will not let You go unless You bless me.
  And He said to him, What is your name? And he said, Jacob.
  And He said, Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, because you have wrestled with God and with men, and have prevailed.
  And Jacob asked and said, Please reveal Your name. And He said, Why this that you ask about My name? And He blessed him there.
  And Jacob called the name of the place Face of God, because I saw God face to face, and my life is delivered.

    While God grapples with us, he gives us a consciousness of spiritual matters, taking us onto ground which Satan contests.  Our wrestling with God is therefore simultaneous with our scuffling with unclean spirits.  God is bringing us onto a battlefield in teaching us to pray.  We are primarily interacting with God, aligning our purpose with Him; this causes Satan's forces to oppose us.  

    My God and King, You have created men and angels who could oppose You and who have opposed You.  You have rescued me from that rebellion, so now I side with You against my former comrades.  Help me not to treat prayer casually, for I know that would be to deny the ongoing battle.  Forgive my tepid prayers.


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Matthew 6:9   
Our Father
who is in the Heavens,
cause Your Name
to be set apart.

    We are considering God's name in terms of His sovereignty.  This is a common sticking point with men.  They might accept anything else God testifies about Himself, but His sovereignty crosses a boundary into forbidden territory.
    Why?  Because it becomes an issue of justice or fairness.  If God's sovereignty extends into His choice of whom He will save, how can that be fair to the poor fellow who doesn't get picked?
    Let us answer that question in a couple of ways.
    First, did God have to allow men or angels to fall in the first place?  Could He have made them where they had no inclination or opportunity to sin?*  Yes, God could have made us unable to fall.  Therefore, God had a purpose for creatures who could fall.  Satan's fall did not surprise Him nor did Adam's.
    Now another question:  Could God have simply punished Satan and Adam and been done with them?  Would that have been just?  Did He have to offer a means of redemption?  No.  (In fact, He apparently offers no means of redemption for Satan and the demons.)  Well, if God could have punished man immediately, there should be no problem with His punishing them at the end of history.
    Enter redemption.  God might have handled redemption one of two ways:  1)  Offer salvation to whoever wants it; or  2) secure salvation for some.  Considering Scripture's testimony about man's nature, if God had only offered salvation, none would have taken it.  Therefore, God was truly merciful and secured salvation for the elect.  He didn't plan a possible salvation, He planned an actual one.  Heaven will be populated with an innumerable company thereby.  Such is God's election.

    Now on to a second answer for God's passing over of the non-elect.
    Will one single non-elect person be able to tell God on Judgment Day, "I wanted to become a Christian, but You wouldn't let me"?  No, many will have to confess that they gave Christianity a try and quit, but none will be able to say that they really wanted what God offered in the Gospel.  If they had, they would have taken it and kept it.  
    So there is God's justice to the non-elect.  They get what they want- no God.  God put up with their rebellion throughout their lives, continuing to extend His goodness to them.  Their freely made choice to avoid the gospel is on their own heads.  There is no unfairness or injustice with God.

    O God, You have declared Your name in all Your works, perhaps most especially in the two works of salvation and judgment.  These are the works that will eternally declare Your name most significantly.  You are pleased to display Your character both in both.  Thank You for Your choice of a people in whom to reveal Your mercy.  May I demonstrate that I am one of them by my submissive response to Your dealings with those You judge.

*    Answering that God was compelled to make us the way He did is dangerous territory!  No, God obviously chose to make us with the potential to fall.  He made us according to His wisdom, but He could have made us error-free.  Elect humans and angels will be error-free in Heaven, so we know there is no drawback to an error-free nature.  God originally made man upright but fallible (Eccl. 7:29).


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Matthew 6:10  
May
Your kingdom
come

    Can we really understand our place in God's plan without understanding God's dealings with Israel?  There are two reasons that the answer to that question must be No.
 1)  God's dealings with Israel are basically the record we call the Old Testament.  We cannot do without that record:

Romans 15:4  For as many things as were previously written, were written for our own instruction, that through the patience and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we may have hope.

 2)  If we are Christians, we have entered into Israel's covenant:

Heb 8:7, 8  For if that first covenant had been faultless, then no place would have been sought for a second.
 For finding fault with them, He says: "Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah

    There is no covenant for a Christian to enter into but the New Covenant; yet it was promised first to Israel.  Ironically, Israel has been cut off from that covenant, and Gentiles are now its main constituents.
    Paul indicates that our reflection upon Israel is an important one:

Rom 11:17-21  But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive tree, were grafted in among them, and became a partaker of the root and of the fatness of the olive tree,
do not boast against the branches. But if you do boast, remember that you do not support the root, but the root supports you.
You will say then, "Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in."
Well said.  By unbelief they were broken off, but you stand by faith.  Do not be arrogant, but fear.
For if God did not spare the natural branches, perhaps He may not spare you either.

    Our standing with God depends on Israel.  She is the "root that supports us."  Our humility stands or falls with Israel.  If we forget her, we forget our root, calling ourselves the root by default.  If we forget her fall, we forget that our connection to God is only as lasting as is our faith.  Israel reminds us not to trust in our own goodness.

    O God, thank You for the testimony of Israel.  She reminds me of Your severity.  Your patience with her came to an end and You cut her off.  So You may do with me.  Israel also reminds me of Your mercy.  Your patience with her continues, and You will again call her back to Yourself.  May I be one joined to You when You reunite Israel to Yourself.


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Matthew 6:10  
May Your will be done,
as in heaven,
so also on the earth.


    When we pray for God's will to be done on earth, WE- Christians- are the ones who should know and do that will:

Colossians 1:9  On account of this we also, since the day we heard, do not cease praying for you, and asking that you may be filled with the full knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding

    What is it- this being filled with the knowledge of God's will?  Is it some sort of mystical understanding?  Do I judge it by having peace in my heart?  No, using such means to find the supposed 'perfect will of God for my life' is a counterfeit.  God's will for me is what is revealed.  Understanding and obeying Scriptures is the "full knowledge of His will" I am supposed to attain.
    Notice further, though, that we are supposed to possess Scriptural knowledge "in all wisdom."  What does that mean?
    It means that my understanding must be BROAD enough to insure that my use of this precept does not transgress another precept (due to misapplication).  I must be able to automatically compare all related Scriptures on a given topic.  "All wisdom" also means that I must have insight into the DETAILS of a given verse, insuring that I am reading it exactly as it is written.  God was wise enough in writing that I can analyze His grammar painstakingly; in fact, there are many verses I will misjudge unless I examine them closely.
    In the Greek of our verse, the adjective "spiritual" can be applied to both "wisdom" and "understanding," and it probably should be.  Next we have to discern whether "spiritual" refers to the realm of the human spirit or that of the Holy Spirit.  Since it is the Holy Spirit alone who can confer Scriptural wisdom, we should doubtless take it as the Holy Spirit.  In English, we might render it "Spiritual wisdom" to indicate the difference.  (The Greek does not sort out upper from lower case letters for us.)
    Again, the same Spirit, God Himself, must rearrange our thinking to make us wise.  He must realign our thoughts to take in Scriptures.  When we are thinking and acting in harmony with the Holy Spirit, our knowledge of God's will- the Scriptures- should be "in all Spiritual wisdom."

    O God, send the Spirit to aid my understanding.  Give me diligence to examine Your Word.  Give me both a broad and a detailed knowledge of it.  I commit to reading and studying to attain this end.  Work in me, blessed Spirit of grace!  Touch my understanding.


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Matthew 6:11  
Give us today
our necessary bread.

    Our spiritual state is evident in everything we do.  We tend to think that our spirits only reveal themselves in God-related activities.  Of course, this would be true if we could see that everything is a God-related activity.  God is not left out of our decision of what to have for dinner.  God is not omitted from how we approach the whole topic of dinner.  If we could see it, dinner reveals as much about our relation to God as worshipping in church does.  Our spiritual state is the same in both activities.  How we relate to God only differs in the application of differing means.  If I truly worship God in the assembly, then I truly worship Him at dinner.  If my philosophy of mealtime is heathen, then my Sunday offerings are not accepted either.
    Jesus conveyed this thought in the Sermon on the Mount:

Matthew 6:25  "Because of this I say to you, do not be preoccupied about your soul--what you shall eat, or what you shall drink--nor about your body, what you shall put on.  Is not the soul more than food and the body more than clothing?

    Jesus tells me that my overattention to dinner pegs me as someone lacking faith.  Distraction over what's in my closet does the same.  I am showing my relation to God by being worried about my food or clothing.
    At the end of this passage, Jesus tells us how to deal with improper preoccupation:

Matthew 6:33  but seek first the reign of God and His righteousness, and all these shall be added to you.

    There are two very serious commands given in this passage.  The earlier one is "do not be preoccupied."  The one just above is "seek first."  Therefore, EVERYTHING hinges on priority.  We must be able to put food and clothing second to our pursuit of God.  That means we have to think a certain way about our food and clothing.  Our thoughts must move out of the realm of distraction.  Our treatment of our provisions must take on a distinct, purposeful secondary nature.  
    This takes as much concentration as continuous prayer.  Jesus is not telling us to just relax about the whole matter.  He is telling us we should be calm about our earthly needs because of our trust in God.  But as earthly beings, this means that we have to KEEP earthly concerns from being distractions.
    Wherein our thoughts do not remain upon God, earthly thoughts are distracting us.

    Jesus, thank You for identifying my preoccupation with earthly matters.  I know I could say that I don't worry about those things, but You're telling me I do.  You're telling me that that is why I don't put You first.  Help me to see this as a real sin.  Thank You for the encouragement to trust You, that trust is the sensible thing to do.


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Matthew 6:12  
And forgive us
our debts,
 as we also forgive
our debtors.

    When we ask for forgiveness, many factors come into play.  One is my response to God's forgiveness.      
    When I ask God for forgiveness, His answer predates my request; that is, His answer came before my request.  He answered my request for forgiveness in Jesus' death on the cross.  I ask for forgiveness, He says, "Jesus died on the cross to forgive that."  The answer is historic fact.*  
    How do I respond?  That is an important question, because it shows how I relate to the cross.  How has the cross really affected me?  Does it remain simply a historic fact?  What proof is there that the cross has borne fruit in my soul?
    Again, Romans 5:1 is important in answer:

Romans 5:1  Therefore, having been justified by faith, let us have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ

     Paul wants us to go somewhere with our justification.  He wants us to take the 'car' of justification and drive to the city limits of peace.  He wants our hearts to breathe, "I am not enemies with God" and believe it.  He wants us to believe it based on our justification.  Justification is the proper basis for peace.  Believing our justification should bring us peace.  We are supposed to purposely steer our belief in justification towards the production of peace in our souls.
    One nice analogy is Jesus' command to the storm:

Mark 4:39  And having awakened He rebuked the wind, and He said to the sea, "Be quiet, be muzzled!" And the wind abated and there was a great calm.

    Our souls are in the same trouble as the disciples in the boat.  We are carried on the sea of human life, and the wind of sin raises the sea's murderous arm against us.  Christ speaks to both.  He spoke to the wind and the sea just as He speaks to our troubled breast and the sin that causes the trouble.  If we are listening to His declaration, there can be as immediate and dramatic a calm as occurred that day:  from vicious peril to utter serenity.

Colossians 3:15  And let the peace of Christ preside in your hearts, to which also ye have been called in one body, and be thankful.

    The word for "preside" literally means "be umpire."  The disciples called out for Christ's help when overwhelmed.  We are supposed to confer presiding control to Christ every moment.  Peace is to reign.  His cross is to ensure it.  Our meditation on the cross is to confirm peace to our souls.

    O Prince of Peace, speak the word of calm to my soul.  One day's distraction does as much damage as a wave filling my boat.  My eyes are off of You so often.  Come to me.  Let me renew this call continuously unto a presiding peace in my soul.

*  He also answers in the present, applying Christ's death to me now.


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Matthew 6:13  
And do not lead us
into temptation,
but deliver us
from evil.

    As we pray following the outline God gave us, we end with a note of caution (the sixth request).  Our first morning prayer sends us into the day warily- on the lookout against our sinful tendencies, minding the road for traps.
    Paul lets us know that this must remain our attitude throughout the day, because it must be our general mindset:

1 Corinthians 15:34  Be righteously awake, and do not sin; for some have ignorance of God. I speak to your shame.

    It is rather shocking to realize that the apostle assumes our sleepiness.  He sees us walking around in a stupor.  The Greek work for "Be awake" literally applies to waking from drunkenness.   
    Paul was saying that all Christians still in these bodies are naturally sluggish spiritually.  There is something about the sin in our members combined with the state of human society that makes us drowsy in relation to God.  We are like students in school who are trying to stay focused, but our eyes are only half open.  We are always a sentence or two behind the lesson.
    In this light, it is interesting to think of Satan in his strategizing.  Anything he can do to deepen our languor furthers his cause.  Here are five very easy things Satan can do:
 1)  Keep us very busy so we can never really pause long enough to focus on spiritual reality, never concentrate on God's presence or workings;
 2)  Fill us with worry so we do not trust in God and are therefore hesitant to come into His presence;
 3)  Keep us up at night long enough to rob us of adequate sleep.  Television or other media are excellent tools for this (as excellent as they may be for other purposes at other times);
 4)  Get us hooked on numbing drugs, whether for headaches or any other maladies (as much as we may need them as temporary remedies).  Any way Satan can keep us from our proper minds is a way he can lull us into a deeper sleep.
 5)  Put unhealthy food into our bodies, clogging us up generally and subtly distracting us (by stomach aches, diverted bodily energy, and the like).
    But of course Satan's main tactic is to make all these distractions seem normal.  The more they are part of an average person's life, the less likely we are to take any suspicious notice of them.
    We are commanded to "be righteously awake"- be awake in the area of righteousness.  We are naturally drowsy in that area.  Every extra distraction is a weight we cannot afford to bear.

    O God, You dwell in reality.  When I finally come into Your presence, I will see You as You are.  Now I see "through a mirror dimly."  If I am as wakeful as possible, I will still be shortsighted.  Help me to see that every sleepy compromise therefore makes me dangerously inattentive.


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Luke 11:1  
And it happened
as He was praying in a certain place,
when He ceased,
one of His disciples said to Him,
Lord, teach us to pray,
as John also taught His disciples.

    Prayer is wrestling.  It is wrestling with demonic forces who are aligned against God's purposes (whose purposes we are aligning ourselves with in prayer); but prayer is also wrestling with God, as illustrated by Jacob's wrestling with Him.
    When we wrestle with God, we are supposed to prevail with Him:

Genesis 32:28  And He said, Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, because you have wrestled with God and with men, and have prevailed.
    Jacob prevailed with God in a physical contest because God allowed him to.  Once Jacob recognized the identity of His assailant, He was also in a spiritual battle:

Genesis 32:26  And He said, Send Me away, for the dawn has ascended. And he said, I will not let You go unless You bless me.

    Jacob reasoned that it was God who had initiated the encounter.  God had chosen to have dealings with him.  God was also allowing the match to play out on basically even terms.  Jacob therefore felt within his rights to demand a blessing, to make a blessing his 'winnings' from the transaction.
    Did God lose when Jacob won?  No.  God had won His purpose as well.  It was indeed His intention to have interaction with Jacob.  That is why He came to him.  In Jacob's most critical hour (meeting with a vengeful Esau), God was showing Jacob that it was his Creator who should be his main concern.
    God wants us to enter our relationship with Him wholeheartedly as well.  He wants our prayers to be a real grappling with Him.  He seeks to put our lives into such a position, but we fail to realize it.  Instead, we:
 1)  take our difficulties as occasions to grapple with worry instead of with God;
 2)  totally miss the spiritual significance of our circumstances, coming no closer to God or His purpose for us.

    O God, thank You for the example of wrestling with Jacob.  Help me to thus settle with my conscience that I am not dealing irreverently with You be expecting Your intimate dealings.


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Matthew 6:9   
Our Father
who is in the Heavens,
cause Your Name
to be set apart.

    Who is God?  This is the question we wish to see answered when we ask that God's name be made holy.  Will all men like what we say about God?  No.  Will we even immediately accept all He testifies concerning Himself?  Sadly, no.  Our nature inherited from Adam is still suspicious of a Being wiser and mightier than ourselves.  This is even true when we're considering God's goodness.
    How could God's goodness arouse our enmity?
    God's goodness is not simply His kindness.  God's goodness includes His moral uprightness.
    Would we say that a man was good if he sat by and watched a criminal beat and rob an old lady?  What if he even spoke kindly to the criminal?  No, in that case, we would not count the man good at all, even if he helped the old lady afterwards.  Allowing evil free reign is something we consider evil, not good.
    Consider this action of God:

Genesis 38:7  And Er, Judah's first-born, was evil in the eyes of Jehovah, and Jehovah killed him.

    God's goodness is seen in this act in that he did not allow pronounced wickedness to proceed.  God was not good TO Er in killing him, but He was good nonetheless (God was good to Er up to that point).  God's goodness was seen in His punishments in that He is being good to the rest of mankind, restraining evil from spreading.
    God's goodness also covers another vital area of His character.  God's goodness tells us that God is not merely clinical when weighing out decisions.  Though justice guides His every decision, yet He still leans towards kindness in everything He does.  This means that He put up with Er as long as it was legitimate to do so.  It means that Hell is not a work that delights Him:

Ezekiel 33:11  Say to them: As I live, says the Lord Jehovah, I have no delight in the death of the wicked, except in the turning of the wicked from his way, and so to live. Turn, turn from your evil ways; for why will you die, O house of Israel?

    Of course, neither does this mean that God regrets the death of the wicked.  He could never regret justice being done.  But His ABSENCE of delight in punishment is a definite clue about God's character.  He inclines towards pity, towards mercy, towards patience.  This is mainly what we mean by God's goodness as a distinct characteristic.  As such, it is an absolutely fundamental part of God's name for us to embrace.  We can only walk with confidence and security in our hearts if we can declare with the Psalmist:

Psalm 106:1  Praise Jehovah! Give thanks to Jehovah, for He is good; for His mercy endures forever.

    O God, You are good.  Cast out all my suspicions!  Fill me with confidence that You will only do me good.  Why else would You have called me in Christ?  Would You have offered up Your only Son on my behalf only to leave me to fend for myself?  Forgive my unbelief.  You are good and do good.  Teach me Your name.


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Matthew 6:10  
May
Your kingdom
come

    We are asking for God's kingdom to come.  Young's Literal Translation translates the second request this way:

Matthew 6:10  `Thy reign come: Thy will come to pass, as in heaven also on the earth.

    This additional shade of meaning to the word "kingdom" is very helpful.  Praying about a kingdom can, unfortunately, end up as irrelevant as a fairyland wish;  that's how easily our minds are distracted from spiritual reality (if our minds have ever been there).  That's how difficult it is for our minds to take in a spiritual concept to begin with.
    Asking for God's reign to come, on the other hand, focuses our minds on action.  We are asking God to do something.  We are asking Him to reign, to take control.
    When we ask God to reign over an unbelieving world, we ask Him to judge men or bring them to repentance.  
    What are we asking when we ask God to reign over an unbelieving Church?

Isaiah 6:8-10  Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying:  Who should I send?  Who will go for Us?  I said: Here I am. Send me.
 And He replied:  Go!  Say to these people:  Keep listening, but do not understand; keep looking, but do not perceive.
 Dull the minds of these people; deafen their ears and blind their eyes; otherwise they might see with their eyes and hear with their ears, understand with their minds, turn back, and be healed.

    God reigns even when He abandons His people.  He abandons them in order to separate the chaff and punish them while bringing His own to repentance.  There weren't many, if any, of God's people left in Isaiah's day (besides Isaiah).  Leaving hypocrites to their own devices was a definite act of God reigning.  So it is today.  Jesus told us:

Matthew 5:13  "You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt becomes tasteless, with what shall it be salted?  It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and to be trampled underfoot by men.

    God is the one who throws us out and allows us to be dominated and humiliated by the world.  We ask for this very possibility when we ask for God's reign to arrive.  This is what He will finally do to an unrepentant Church.

    O God, may You reign.  I know that You reign in the Church.  Either she submits to You, is disciplined by You, or is cast out by You.  The hardest of these for me to see would be her casting out, for when she is cast out, her blindness infects me as well (Isa. 6:5).
    O God, reign, but subdue in mercy.  Grant repentance.  Bring me to my knees in confession of iniquity, the iniquity of ignoring You, taking You lightly.  Bring Your people to their knees.


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Matthew 6:10  
May Your will be done,
as in heaven,
so also on the earth.


    "May Your will be done on earth, O God."  So we are to pray.  This includes praying that we and all Christians will KNOW God's will.  God's will is therefore a 'knowable quantity.'

Colossians 1:9  On account of this we also, since the day we heard, do not cease praying for you, and asking that you may be filled with the full knowledge of His will in all Spiritual wisdom and understanding

    We are to have a full knowledge of God's will.  This knowledge, of course, is contained in Scriptures.  But the knowledge is to be employed in a certain manner, namely "in all Spiritual wisdom and in all spiritual understanding."
    What is "Spiritual understanding"?  It is primarily insight into His words that the Holy Spirit gives.
    The Greek word for "understanding" literally means "putting together."  This is an eloquent description of intelligence.  Intelligence is really the ability to put things together, to make associations, connect means to ends, glean effects from causes, etc.  We judge the acumen of a detective or a research scientist on this very basis.  
    It is not essentially different for the Bible detective, for the Bible researcher.  When Paul says that we are to have a "thorough knowledge of God's will in all Spiritual understanding," he is saying that we need the Holy Spirit to help us to "put together" various pieces of Biblical information.  This "putting together" happens on very many levels.  Ultimately any piece of Biblical data might lead to any other, depending on the issue at hand.  Any strata of information might cross into any other, from something vastly broad to something minutely detailed.
    Of course, our main responsibility in this area is to get information into our minds- lots of information.  The more we know, the more connections the Holy Spirit can make.  Obviously, we are agreeing with the Spirit by thinking out associations ourselves.
    Let us ask God that we may be full of Scriptures in all spiritual understanding.

    Dear God, revealer of knowledge, thank You for Your generosity.  I can see that in Your omniscience You have no need to restrain the flow of information (No creature can ever threaten You with knowledge he gains).  You have given me vast quantities of information, all there for my education.  You have granted a personal tutor to assist me- the Holy Spirit.  Why wouldn't I apply myself?  Why besides laziness and outright disobedience!  Forgive and renew me in a spirit of holy inquiry and fascination with Your wonderful book, the record of Your will.


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Matthew 6:11  
Give us today
our necessary bread.

    God provides for His people.  This is something we accept by faith.  When we receive our food day by day with no special sign of Divine intervention, we may not exercise any actual faith that God is providing for us,* but it is an article of our Christian faith that He is.
    How far can we go with this concept?  The psalmist went pretty far:

Psalm 37:25  I have been young and am old, yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken, or his seed begging bread.

    Well, if that isn't a bold statement!  Is it universally true?  The psalmist, we note, qualifies his claim in terms of personal testimony.  He selects a certain span of human history- his era and the places he had been- and says that the righteous or his children were never among the destitute under his observation.  Again, amazing.
    We would probably understand the language to mean that neither a righteous man or his children had to take up begging as a means of living.  The psalmist's testimony would not need to extend to individual meals on given days.  Indeed, the righteous man would be voluntarily fasting on a regular basis anyway.
    So, with the qualification of what the psalmist could see, might we conclude that other times or places could witness the righteous man or his children begging?  The psalmist seems to be testifying to something that is simply true all the time.  There seems to be an air of definition about the verse.  
    In support of this, consider two things:
 1)  The righteous man has 'put God in his debt.'  Consider the verse following the one above:

Psalm 37:26  All the day he is gracious and lends; and his seed is for a blessing.
    How does this 'indebt' God?  Solomon explains:

Proverbs 19:17  He who has pity on the poor lends to Jehovah, and He will repay his dealing to him.

    You mean I can make a loan to God??  Yes, and God is happy to obligate Himself for repayment.  But secondly,
 2)  There apparently aren't very many righteous men walking around.  Many men help the poor sometimes, but look at the verse:  the psalmist described the righteous man as being gracious and lending "all the day."  His life is a perpetual lookout for helping the needy.  No, not too many folks like that around.
    This type of men or women probably ARE never forsaken, and God no doubt puts their children under special care as well.  After all, these children saw dad and/or mom care for the needy all the time.  Even if these children got low on goods, they wouldn't lose their heads.  They'd remember that God provides, that he has other helpers like their mom or dad out there.  These children may not have abundance, but they will have enough to forego begging.

    O Lord, You rule the world.  You are good.  You take note of the righteous man.  I aspire to be righteous by Your description and to protect my children in doing so.  I know I may be tested by shortage of goods, but let me always confess Your goodness and provision.

*  We should be exercising actual, heartfelt faith for our providence.


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Matthew 6:12  
And forgive us
our debts,
 as we also forgive
our debtors.

    When we ask God to forgive our sins, Jesus taught us to acknowledge our forgiveness of those who have wounded us.

Luke 11:4    And forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who is indebted to us.

    There is a simple point to be made about this, but unless we think specifically about it, we can easily perceive our duty incorrectly.  The point is this:  We can only forgive someone where they have actually offended us.  Too simple a point?  Not at all.  
    Think further.  When we forgive another, are we forgiving them for who they are or for what they have done?  You see, many Christians find it difficult, some find it impossible to forgive, because they believe they are forgiving a person rather than a deed.
    Now, of course, a deed comes from a person.  In that sense, we are forgiving a person.  We are forgiving them their deed.  The important difference is that we are not forgiving the total person.  We are only forgiving that person's offense against us.  Ah, what an important but usually ignored difference!
    The problem is that we so easily slide back into our almighty judge's robes that we believe we are passing total judgment.  "Should I let this person off the hook or not?  I suppose I might be magnanimous."  This is not what Jesus is instructing us at all.  The Total Person is in God's hands alone.  We cannot forgive a Total Person.  We can only forgive that one deed committed against us.  Even in that case, we cannot wipe the sin away.  Only God can do that.  We can only choose not to count the offense against them.  That is all we are doing.  It is a very limited act.  It is still a difficulty most men will never surmount, but cannot afford to make it more than it is.
    We put ourselves at a great disadvantage when we see ourselves doing more that forgiving an offense.  In fact, we sin when we make ourselves judges who decide others' fates.
    Stephen (Acts 7:60) followed Jesus' example (Luke 23:24) in forgiving the offense of murder against himself.  Even Jesus forgave nothing more than His murder on that occasion.  If He did, then everyone who ignorantly put Him there, including Pilate and Judas, will be in Heaven, because all their sins would have been forgiven.  Jesus did totally forgive some, like the repentant thief next to Him and the centurion who recognized His Divinity.  For the rest, He was our example, forgiving only a specific offense.  This was His duty as a man.  This is what is our duty as well.

    O God, how easily confused I am.  Teach me to forgive men.  Give me wisdom to know where I am offended.  As with physical wounds, the pain of unkind acts against me blurs my judgment.  Clear my mind, that I may be gracious as You have been gracious to me.  All my sins are sins against You.  Any way my neighbor offends me is a sin against You as well.  Let me leave Your dealings with him in Your hands, but let me deal faithfully with the responsibility You have put in my hands.


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Matthew 6:13  
And do not lead us
into temptation,
but deliver us
from evil.

    "Don't bring us into temptation" is a request  that puts us on alert for our day's journey.  This alertness is really a waking up.  "Don't carry us into the realm of temptation" is spiritual coffee for sinners:*

1 Corinthians 15:34  Awake to righteousness, and do not sin, for some have no knowledge of God.  I speak this to your shame.

    "God, wake me up."  This is what we are to ask.
    If God did wake us up, what would our effect be on others?

Proverbs 27:14  He who rises early in the morning and blesses his friend with a loud voice, it is counted as cursing to him.

    This is a somewhat comical proverb.  We have probably all known the type of person who is bubbly from the moment they awake, wishing to spread a little sunshine to everyone else.
    What is Solomon trying to teach us in this proverb?  Is it a lesson in discretion?  That would certainly apply.  When we are insensitive, even our good intentions can make us obnoxious.  Even a blessing can make us a curse.
    But as with many other proverbs, this one is also simply a wise observation from which we may draw multiple lessons.  A spiritual lesson arises from this proverb rather easily.  Consider mankind's natural state again:

Ephesians 5:14   Because of this, He says, Arise, sleeping ones and stand up from among the dead ones, and Christ will shine on you.

    Here, Paul makes spiritual death a kind of sleep.  He addresses Christians, telling them to be wakeful among the sleeping.
    Now if someone just out of bed counts a regular blessing as a curse, what will the gospel seem to a sinful sleepyhead?  "Hello there!  Your sins have you lying in a coffin!  Why don't you climb out before you're nailed in!"
    Yes, men will often find our gospel a curse.  It has awakened us; we are alive.  We are calling from the realm of life into the realm of death.  The dead do not want to awaken from their sleep.  They'd rather have us mute.  We're just a bother.  Worse, we're self-righteous, misguided, nosy bothers.  (Hopefully only the bother part is really true)
    Are we willing to bother people to bring them the glad tidings?  We have to be willing, because they need the Gospel, but until they understand that, it will only seem a noise blurted from a nuisance.

    O God, awaken me.  Remind me of my need of the Gospel.  Jar me from my drowsiness.  Then let me see that I will naturally offend sleeping ones.  The very medicine they need is loathsome to them.  Let me be willing to administer it anyway, even if I am sure they will only spit it in my face.**

*  Spiritual coffee that awakens with no bad side effects.  Apparently, real coffee would not be classified as a food but as a drug if the FDA were newly analyzing it for introduction into the marketplace today.
**  Actually, most people will not be rude to our face.  However, there does come a time when someone has rejected the Gospel and we owe them no more admonition, at least for a season.