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.



    What is prayer?
    A Christian would answer that prayer is our communication with God.  Basically, it is us talking to God.
    But the Bible does not have much to say by way of a definition for prayer.  There is much more Biblical information about the act of praying.  Prayer is defined in the Bible mostly by actual prayers.  The majority of the one hundred fifty Psalms, for instance, are prayers; they are communications directed from the psalmist to his Creator.  There are also many other prayers recorded throughout the Bible.
    The principle prayer, however, was not recorded 'in progress', as most of the other prayers were.  It was laid down as a pattern.  It was given to teach us how to pray.  This has become the very heart of Biblical testimony on prayer.
    This most important prayer is more than a prayer.  It is an insight into the order of importance in human affairs as God sees them.
    The prayer we are talking about, of course, is commonly called the Lord's Prayer, so called because the Lord taught it to us.  It is also called the Model Prayer, since it is the example given us to follow.  Because it is the prayer given for us to pray, it is also called the Disciples' Prayer.
    Every Christian should be an expert in the prayer Jesus taught us to pray.  However well we understand it is how well-ordered our prayers will be.  If we misunderstand it, it will hobble our prayers- not just how we feel we pray, but how we actually get through to God.

    Thank you, Jesus, for not leaving my prayers in the dark.  Thank you for teaching me how to pray.


]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]
 
Matthew 6:9  
Therefore pray in this way:
Our Father, who is in Heaven,
Hallowed be Your name.


    Jesus taught us a pattern for prayer.  Are we bound to use it?  Well, consider what Jesus said:

Matthew 6:9  Therefore pray in this way: ...

    This phrase is in the imperative.  When God speaks in the imperative, He is giving a command.
    Why is it so difficult for us to see that God is commanding us to pray a certain way?  Are we afraid we'll turn into prayer robots if we follow a given pattern?  Well, what about God's many commands to worship, sing, and rejoice?

Psalm 100:2  Worship Jehovah with gladness; come before His face with joyful singing.

    The plain fact is, we need God's commands to direct, not only our worship, but everything we do.  We simply do not have the wisdom to know how to approach God on our own.  We should be very glad He has ordered us to pray, for now we can have confidence that this is an activity He seeks.  We should be exceedingly glad Jesus gave us a pattern for prayer, for any wise man will confess with the apostle:

Romans 8:26  ...For we do not know what we should pray as we ought ...

    Any guidance in prayer should be much appreciated and carefully followed.
    When Jesus said "Pray in this way", He was giving us a pattern for prayer.  Jesus' true disciples will not only obey, but will rejoice in having a key for access to God.

]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]
 

Luke 11:2  
He said to them,
"When you pray,
say,
'Our Father in Heaven,
may your name be kept holy.
May your Kingdom come.
May your will be done on Earth,
as it is in Heaven."


    When we call on God as our FATHER, we could be acknowledging one of two things Biblically.  We could be acknowledging God as the father who birthed us by creating us, or we could acknowledging God as the father who spiritually birthed us by the new birth.  There is much more Biblical information where the word Father is connected to our spiritual birth.
    Recognizing God as our father via creation is referenced in Paul's sermon to the Athenian unbelievers:

 Acts 17:28  "for in Him we live and move and exist, as also certain of your own poets have said, 'For we are also His offspring.'

    All men are God's children via creation.  But is this a sufficient basis for praying the Lord's Prayer?  Only Christians are God's children by the new birth.  It is important for us to know which way we are calling God our Father in the Lord's Prayer.  
    A Christian, of course, calls God Father both ways- by creation and redemption.    But redemption is the only basis on which one may pray the Lord's Prayer.  Why?  By requesting forgiveness, for instance, we acknowledge that the only foundation of a relationship with God is Christ's atoning sacrifice.  Therefore, our primary reference to God as Father is by redemption.  The concept of  redemption assumes creation.  In fact, it assumes creation and the fall.  The Lord's Prayer is definitely a prayer for a fallen creature to pray when he has been redeemed.

    God, thank you for the new birth through Christ, by which I now call You Father.

]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]
 
Luke 11:2  
He said to them,
"When you pray,
say,
'Our Father in Heaven,
may your name be kept holy.
May your Kingdom come.
May your will be done on Earth,
as it is in Heaven."


    There are six requests Jesus instructs us to bring before God in prayer.  Unfortunately, the very fact that the first request IS a request is obscured by the traditional wording, "Hallowed be ..."  
    In the day when it was first translated, this made perfect sense.  In King James' day, there would have been a complete difference between "hallowed be" and "hallowed is".  Today, most readers take them to be the same.  Many have inquired far enough to know that "hallowed" and "holy" are related words.  The common understanding of what we are to pray, then, is "God, your name is holy."
    There is certainly nothing wrong with ascribing holiness to God; in fact, we definitely should.  But this is not what Jesus is instructing us to pray.  If we merely say that God is holy, we have not prayed as instructed.
    There are two elements we need for understanding Jesus' words.  One is the wording of petition; the other is the rendering of the verb.
    Words that convey a petition or request include, "Let", "May", or "Cause to be".
    The verb form of holy is commonly translated "sanctified", which would work well here, since it is the verb form used in the original Greek.
    Putting these two elements together, we can coherently render Jesus' words "Let Your name be sanctified."  There we have it.  King James' original readers would have caught this very drift in their day.  In our day, the old wording, unfortunately, only obscures the meaning.
    There are still two less-than-clear elements in the request for those who want to pray it thoughtfully, as Jesus designed:  the meanings of "sanctified" and "name".  
    What am I asking for if I ask that God's name be sanctified?  The most basic meaning of sanctify is to set apart.  We are therefore asking that God's name be set apart.
    What is God's name that I am requesting be set apart?  His name is simply who He is or how He has made Himself known.
    Future devotions will consider these aspects in greater depth, but this is the starting point:  a clear rendering of Jesus' words so we can make the request He instructs us to make.

    Jesus, thank You for directing my petitions to rightly regard and treat Your Father's great name.

]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]
 
Luke 11:2  
He said to them,
"When you pray,
say,
'Our Father in Heaven,
may your name be kept holy.
May your Kingdom come.
May your will be done on Earth,
as it is in Heaven."


    The second request Jesus instructs us to pray is most commonly rendered "Thy kingdom come."  These words actually translate fairly well in our minds as a request.  That is, most people understand that when they are saying "Your kingdom come", they are actually requesting that God's kingdom comes.
    Several accurate translations of the Bible include words to clarify the request as such.  By putting the word "let" or "may" first, they erase any confusion over what we are to pray.  "May Your kingdom come" is a sentence which makes a clear request.
    We are to ask God, then, that His kingdom will come.
    Concerning this request, God apparently has a kingdom which has not yet come, or not yet come fully.  When we look around us in the world, it is obvious that there are rules operative in many lives which are contrary to God's kingdom.  When we look in our own hearts, even there we find disturbing evidence of the presence of treason against God most high.
    Requesting that God's kingdom comes, then, would seem to be a very far-reaching appeal, both inwardly and outwardly.
    Jesus, thank You for teaching me to request of God the progress of His kingdom, especially in myself.

]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]
 
Luke 11:2  
He said to them,
"When you pray,
say,
'Our Father in Heaven,
may your name be kept holy.
May your Kingdom come.
May your will be done on Earth,
as it is in Heaven."



    The third request Jesus teaches us to bring before God is recognized commonly in the words "Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven".  As with the second request, this one translates fairly readily in our minds as a request.  Adding an introductory word, "Cause Your will to be done," gives us a better feel for the appeal Jesus is training us to make.       
    The request is being made of God.  He is the one with the power to cause His will to be done, just as He is the one with the ability to advance His kingdom (second request) and set His own name apart (first request).  Our cry to Him is to put us on the same page with God in these aims.     
    What is the will of God which we are asking to be accomplished?  There are two possibilities to consider.  One will of God in the Bible is His decree before the world concerning what would come to pass.  This decree includes all activities of all creatures, both what is permitted and what God causes to happen.  Is this what we're asking God, then, that God's decree comes to pass?     No, God's decree cannot be the will referenced in the Lord's Prayer.  Why not?  Simply because His decree is already occurring on earth the same way it is in Heaven.  Jesus is telling us that there is a will of God which is being done in Heaven which is NOT being done on earth.  We're praying for the two to come into agreement.     
    Well, what will of God is at variance on earth, since it is not His decree?  It is His commands.  God's commands are His revealed will for us.  This is the will of God that IS being done in Heaven but NOT on earth.     
    Could we just as well pray, "May Your commandments be kept here as in Heaven"?  Yes.  This is the exact meaning of the request.  "Will of God" is a synonym for "commands of God".  Saying "will of God", though, expresses God's commands more in terms of God's desire.  Therefore, we are aligning our own longings with God's desire when we pray it this way.

    Jesus, thank You for focusing me on God's good and wise commandments and on Heaven where they are honored and observed by angels and glorified saints (Christians).


]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]
 
Luke 11:2 - 4  
Then He said to them,
"Whenever you are praying, be saying:
'Our Father, the [One] in the heavens,           
let Your name be regarded as holy;
Let Your kingdom come;
let Your will be done, as in heaven, [so] also on the earth.
'Each day be giving us the bread sufficient for the day.
'And forgive us our sins,
for also we ourselves forgive every [one] being indebted to us;
and do not lead us into temptation,
but  deliver us from evil [or, the evil [one]].'"


Request
number


d1
d2
d3
d4
d5

d6

    Jesus teaches us six requests to bring before God.  They neatly divide into two groups of three.  The first three requests put our focus on God:  His name, kingdom, and will.  The last three requests shift the focus to us: our daily provisions, forgiveness / a forgiving heart, and deliverance from evil.  
    God's wisdom and goodness shine forth in the arrangement of this prayer.  He tells us exactly what we need.  First, we need Him.  But then He tells us that among all our human needs, there are really only three categories of essential need.
    What an amazing discovery!  Here is what we should be seeking in life!  Here is the proper focal point of human existence!  If this is how we perceive our needs, we are of one mind with God on the matter.  Could there be any greater gold mine of human knowledge?
    Yet this is not our usual perspective on the latter half of the Lord's Prayer.  We commonly see its repetition as a religious routine.  However highly we value that routine as an observance, it will never rise to its proper place in our minds until we see its profound lesson on what a human is and what a human truly needs.

    Jesus, thank You that Your prayer for us is so much more than a routine for us to repeat.  Thank you for your deep compassion in informing us where our true needs lie.

]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]
~                                                                                                    
 
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 followers of Jesus asked Him to teach them to pray.  What came next?  Jesus taught the disciples what we call the Lord's Prayer.
    On prayer, there are two great dividing lines in Christendom.  One line separates those who are teachable concerning prayer from those who are arrogant.  The other line separates those who merely follow a form of prayer from those who pray intelligently.
    The disciples were initially teachable concerning prayer.  They actually asked to be taught how to pray.  Most Christians never ask God how to pray.  They somehow assume that they will be able to pick it up.  Perhaps, more accurately, they assume that if they used a taught prayer they would not be praying sincerely, not from the heart.
    A large portion of Christendom, on the other hand, does make use of a taught prayer- the Lord's Prayer.  They demonstrate submission to the fact that Jesus gave the prayer as a pattern.  
    Now here is the strange thing.  Most of those using the Lord's Prayer do not treat it as an instruction.  They take it as a ritual we've been given.  Ironically, then, most of those who pray the Lord's Prayer are no more teachable about prayer than those who do not use it!  If you tried to teach them what the Lord meant by the prayer, they would resist you.  To inject thinking into their reciting of the Lord's Prayer would ruin the prayer for them.  For them, the effectiveness of the prayer is that they carried it out, not that they understood it.
    Therefore, most Christians are on the wrong side of both lines we have drawn.  The 'free form' supplicators (supplicate = pray) are arrogant, refusing Jesus' instruction on prayer; but most of the 'by the book' supplicators are arrogant too, thinking that the mere repeating of the Lord's Prayer makes their prayer acceptable to God.
    On the other side, the 'by the book' supplicators do not pray intelligently, putting their minds in neutral for the exercise; but most 'free form' supplicators do not pray intelligently in that they pray according to their own format, never a very wise format when compared to a God-given one.
    Here is a paradigm for the categories discussed:

Those who use the Lord's Prayer
Free-form prayers
Teachable
No
No
Arrogant
Yes
Yes
Pray intelligently
No
No
Only say the words
Yes
No*

    This is not a very complimentary assessment of our generation, but it is a starting point for healing.  Jesus said He didn't come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.  Wherever we think our prayers are alright, Jesus will have no healing touch for them.  Wherever we admit that we start out as poor supplicators, Jesus is on hand to help us.

    Jesus, open my ears to hear Your instruction on how and what to pray.

* Most free-form supplicators use a 'grocery list' approach to prayers.  They have a list of needs and/or a list of people needing blessings.  Repeating this list every day easily becomes its own ritual, devoid of spontaneity.

]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]
 
Luke 18:1  
And He also spoke a parable to them
with reference to its being necessary
always to pray,
and not to give in to evil


    If Jesus gave us a pattern for prayer, one of the most critical elements would seem to be its regularity.  Whatever kind of conceptual pattern Jesus offered would be of little practical value if we didn't have some kind of schedule in which to implement the model.
    In addressing this matter, we have also identified the main barrier in most peoples' prayer lives.  Most people are unsuccessful in their prayer lives because they cannot manage the scheduling aspect of it.  This means, ultimately, that they lack the discipline for prayer.
    If there is only one motivation for a Christian to overcome his disordered habit in prayer, it should be that Jesus directed us to pray DAILY.  He gave us the Model Prayer as a framework to use, and he gave us a schedule in which to exercise it.  The timetable is slipped into one of the six requests:

Matthew 6:11  Give us this day our necessary bread

    There it is.  It is very simple, and it is very direct.  Since this is part of an instruction for prayer, the words "this day" inform the student that he will be using the outline daily, every day on which he can renew the formula "this day".  Once "bread" is understood as a representation for all that is necessary for our lives, it is all the clearer that this is a request expected to be made every day.  We require the necessities of life daily, so we ask for them daily.
    By making this phrase part of our prayer archetype, Jesus is clearly directing us to pray daily.  And there it is.  There's my motivation.  If I let a day go by without a scheduled, disciplined prayer time, I have disobeyed my Lord.  If I don't set a regular time, there will be days I forget.  I must discipline my prayer time without fail.

    Lord Jesus, the hardest part about scheduling prayer is making the commitment knowing that my faithlessness will be revealed.  Men have contacted Your faithfulness enough to become faithful themselves.  They did this by sticking to a commitment.  I can become one of them.  It begins with an initial commitment.
["It begins now" would be the appropriate words to end with... if they are not merely words.*]

*  "It begins now" are still the appropriate words even if this is the hundredth time you've tried to make such a commitment.

]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]
 
Luke 11:2  
He said to them,
"When you pray, say,
'Our Father in Heaven,
may your name be kept holy.
May your Kingdom come.
May your will be done on Earth,
as it is in Heaven."


    The first word in the Lord's prayer is "our".  Actually, in the Greek, the first word is "Father", followed by "our", because that's how possession is expressed in Greek.  Anyway, the phrase is NOT, "my Father"; it is "our Father".  What is significant about that?
    When we say "our Father", we are to conceive of God as the one who has birthed a large body of spiritual children (Rev. 7:9 indicates an innumerable company).  Jesus teaches each individual child of God to relate to his Father as part of a larger body of children.  What, then, is significant about that?
    When we relate to God in prayer as part of a larger body, we keep ourselves from insular thinking.  That is, we keep from thinking in terms of 'me and my private world'.  We see that whatever pertains to ourselves in prayer also pertains to every other child of God.  Thus we include them in our prayers.  This is very important.
    Sin has cut us off, not only from God, but from fellow humans.  God in redemption joins us back to Himself AND TO EVERYONE ELSE HE REDEEMS.  If we do not grasp this concept, we do not understand redemption.
    The first person plural is used throughout the Lord's prayer.  Any reference to self is always "us", "our", and "we".
    Of course, whenever I pray for "us", I am also praying for "me".  "I" am part of the "we" I'm praying for.  Therefore, we do not neglect personal focus.  Far from it.  It is only that whatever I need to pray for me, I must be sure to also pray for all Christians.  Nor must I simply pray for the body of Christ in a large, general way.  Specific people I should pray for are part of "us" too.

    Are your prayers inclusive?
    If not, you are not following Jesus' prayer instructions.

    Jesus, thank you for making me part of Your body and instructing me to pray for us all.

]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]
 
Matthew 6:9  
Therefore pray in this way:
Our Father, who is in Heaven,
Hallowed be Your name.

    The first request Jesus teaches us to make is, "Father, may Your name be set apart."  This is the literal meaning of "hallowed by Thy name".
    Does this mean that we should hold the name "Father" in special regard?  Perhaps only when it is in reference to God?  How about the words God, Almighty, Lord, Creator, etc., when in reference to God?
    Certainly these kinds of words should be awarded special status in our speech and thoughts, but that is only one application of a larger principle which the word "name" expresses.  Consider the following verse:

Isa 55:13  Instead of the thorn, the fir tree shall come up; and instead of the brier, the myrtle tree shall come up; and it shall be to Jehovah for a name, for an everlasting sign which shall not be cut off.

    In this verse, something God does becomes a "name" for Him.  That is, God's works DESCRIBE Him.  People will associate the gracious works listed with God.  They will see the fir and myrtle tree and think of God who put them there.
    One aspect of God's name, then, is simply a description of Him.  How God describes and defines Himself is His name.
    When we ask that God's name be set apart, we are asking that God's descriptions of Himself will be accorded elevated status.  On a personal level, one aspect of this is simply asking that God's Word- His Self-description- may hold a prominent place in my thinking; that is, that I will be pondering Bible verses.

    Father, thank you for describing Yourself in Your Word.  Thank You for Your Son who has led me there to know You.

]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]
 
[We now move ahead to the last three petitions of the Model Prayer]

Matthew 6:11  
give us today
our needed bread

    The fourth request teaches us God's GENEROSITY.
    He informs us in the request that we have needs.  He provides Himself as the proper supply for those needs ( offsetting our covetousness as we go to Him ).  In offering Himself as our supplier, God is making known His generosity.  He expects us to approach Him as a generous Maker.
    This is very much against our nature.  Our very first sin as a race was to mistrust God's generosity:

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."

    Satan, through the serpent, knew that if he suggested that God was holding back on us, our potential envy might be prodded.  Satan hoped we'd agree that "God is keeping something from us because He wants it for Himself alone?  Well, we'll see about that!"  This was Adam and Eve's supposition and has been man's heart ever since; except now it is so natural for us, we need no question from Satan to prod us.  God is just automatically suspect in our minds.
    Most men, even as unbelievers, can think of areas where they have been grateful to God.  They therefore assume that no suspicion of God exists in them.  Rather, our gratitude to God is only a pat on our own backs, a token by which we assure ourselves that we give God His due.  There are a thousand other subtle ways in which we deny God.  In fact, this is our general bearing, but it is so much a part of us that we do not recognize it.  Will we accept our ungodliness from the testimony of Scriptures?

Romans 3:18  "There is no fear of God before their eyes."

    Whatever reverence man gives God is for show.  There is no real, universal respect for Him in our souls.  The mere presence of any kind of discontent in our hearts is proof that we have rejected His providence.  We do not naturally relate to God as a generous provider.

    Jesus, thank You for revealing God's generosity.  I should be contentedly trusting You.  Thank You for also revealing my natural discontent.  I apply to You, my Maker, for a new heart, or, if I have one, a heart newly filled with gratitude.

]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]
 
Matthew 6:11 - 13  
give us to-day our needed bread,
and forgive us our debts,
as we also forgive our debtors,
and lead us not into temptation,
but save us from evil.


    The fifth petition Jesus teaches us to make of God is "forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors".  Next after attention to our earthly needs, we focus on an obstacle.  Our sins are a debt which stand as a barrier between us and God.
    The word which Jesus uses for debt is the regular word for a monetary debt.  The word for "forgive" is a word which means to send forth or release.  "Release our debts."  We could easily understand that we owed God money, if this were possible.  Jesus, though, is obviously extending the idea of debt into another realm of exchange.  Where we find ourselves in debt to God is in the realm of His commands.  God's commands are binding upon us, and by disobeying them, we have put ourselves 'in the red'.  We owe God.
    The request is so simple.  We ask God to release whatever obligation our treason against Him has accrued.  We know that this request speaks volumes, but it still comes down to one fundamental transaction.  God is owed.  He must release the debt.  Our sins stain us.  God must cleanse them.

    Jesus, thank You for making my failing a daily matter in prayer.  Until my sin is gone, it demands continual attention from the only one who can repair my record and myself.

]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]
 
Matthew 6:11 - 13  
give us to-day our needed bread,
and forgive us our debts,
as we also forgive our debtors,
and lead us not into temptation,
but save us from evil.


    The sixth and last request Jesus teaches us to ask of God is actually two connected requests.  "Do not lead us into temptation" is the first part; "but deliver us from evil" is the second part.  They definitely form one connected request.
    Theologically, this is the most difficult part of the Lord's Prayer to understand.  Why would God lead us into temptation?  If He did that, wouldn't He be interfering with our free will?  If He led us into temptation, wouldn't He be promoting the sin He tells us not to commit?
    These are certainly deep waters.  For now, the important thing is to make a commitment to grasping the doctrine entailed here.  The Bible is replete with information on this very subject.  It is nothing like Top Secret, nobody-can-understand, mysterious stuff.  You'll be surprised how many times God seems to cross the line of man's free will in Scriptures.  There's plenty of data for our analysis.
    Just now, the important thing is to have words that will effectively translate this request for you so you can pray it today.  Probably the best parallel phrase for the Sixth Request comes from the Psalms:

Psa 141:4   Do not incline my heart to any evil thing

    This is basically the same request in different words, yet it probably renders better to our minds the concept we should comprehend in the sixth request.

    Jesus, thank You for not sparing me the deep things.  Thank You that Your Father's sovereignty over His creation is not a concept locked in an iron vault, but You have given it to us as a daily consideration, as a consideration in His presence, in prayer.

]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]
~                                                                                                    
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.

    When Jesus' followers asked Him for instruction on prayer, Jesus taught them what we call the Lord's Prayer.
    Most Christians in our day do not use the Lord's Prayer as a private prayer.  Why not?  They see churches where the Lord's Prayer is repeated corporately, and they conclude that such an exercise cannot be sincere worship of God.  They see it as mere repetition.  Even many who are part of a church that repeats the Lord's Prayer do not pray it privately.  They sense that what they use as a ritual corporately would not express the proper sentiment to God in private.
    Most who do say the Lord's Prayer privately repeat it as their churches do:  verbatim, with no further thought.  Yet this falls right back into the trap Jesus was teaching His disciples to avoid:

Matthew 6:7  "And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words."

    Turning the Lord's prayer from instruction to a ritual or simply bypassing the instruction altogether- how can training as important as the Lord's Prayer have thus gone by the wayside?  How can we fail to see our neglect and its danger?
    Surely this is a report on our spiritual condition, and the report is not a good one.

    Jesus, help me to acknowledge my place among the masses who neglect or misuse Your instructions on prayer.  Begin to grant me repentance, please.

]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]
 
Matthew 6:9  
So, then, you should pray this way:
Our Father who is in Heaven,
May Your name be sanctified.


    The Lord's Prayer is recorded twice in Scriptures, once by Matthew and once by Luke.  In Matthew 6, Jesus taught the prayer as part of the Sermon on the Mount.  He was on a hill when He taught it.  In Luke 11, Jesus taught the prayer in response to his disciples request to learn to pray.  He had just been in Bethany and was speaking to his disciples privately, not teaching publicly.  In Matthew, he taught a crowd somewhere in or near Syria.  The two occasions are separate.  It is very likely that Jesus taught the Model Prayer many places He traveled, and He wanted us to have these two instructions.
    There are a few minor differences in the wordings of the two prayers.  This shows us that Jesus certainly did not intend the prayer for strictly liturgical purposes.  The exact formula was not critical.  We cannot pray it word-for-word, because there are two different wordings.  To be liturgically even-handed, we would have to alternately pray the Matthew version one time, the Luke version the next.  Having two versions of the prayer underscores the instructional purpose of the prayer.  The variant wordings comment on each other and give us a broader understanding of prayer as Jesus was seeking to convey it.
    Using the words themselves is fine.  In fact, it seems unavoidable to use most of the words.  But they are only a framework, only a beginning.  By understanding the prayer, we should be able to employ it for as long as we can pray.  Anything we can pray can be put under one of the headings in the Disciples' Prayer.  Any of the Psalms we use as a pattern for prayer also fall under one or more of the heading in the Model Prayer.

    Lord Jesus, thank You for bringing to Your disciples' remembrance all that You wanted us to know.  Thank You for the two versions of our ideal prayer.  Help me to understand them and to use them to understand and approach You.

]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]
 
Matthew 6:9  
So, then, you should pray this way:
Our Father who is in Heaven,
May Your name be sanctified.

    We are told to pray to our Father "in Heaven".  It is almost as if we have a piece of mail for God, and we are writing the address on the envelope.  The PLACE where we are to send our prayer is Heaven.
    Where is Heaven?
    Be careful how you answer.  It is easy to be cavalier and say that Heaven is everywhere, since Heaven is where God is, and God is everywhere.
    Consider this bit of evidence:

John 17:1  Jesus spoke these things and lifted up His eyes to Heaven, and said, Father ...

    If Heaven is everywhere, why did Jesus lift His eyes?  Heaven, and God in Heaven, are obviously someplace away from earth.
    Can Heaven come down to earth?  Yes, as apparently happened at Mount Sinai. God came down and spoke with the people (and they didn't like God's direct presence very much).
    Now in saying that Heaven is somewhere in particular, are we limiting Heaven or God?  No.  When God decided that something besides Himself would exist, He obviously had to have a point of contact with His creation based on the creature, not on Himself.  He is infinite, the creation is finite; the creation cannot rise above its limitation to meet God as He is.  But that's OK, as long as the way God presents Himself to us is a real presentation of Himself.  It doesn't have to be all of Him to be Him.  As long as the PART He presents to us is consistent with the WHOLE, we can have real and sincere interaction with Him.  And this is the case.
    Therefore, God created Heaven as a sort of headquarters for His dealings with His creation.  His creation was bound to space, so a space was needed where they could direct their attention in coming to Him.
    Hence, we pray to God in Heaven.  We look away from ourselves to the place where God's presence is met more directly.

    Jesus, thank you for anchoring my prayers by giving me a place toward which to pray.  Thank You that You are there for my sake.

]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]
 
Matthew 6:9  
So, then, you should pray this way:
Our Father who is in Heaven,
May Your name be sanctified.

    Jesus teaches us to request of God that His name be revered.
    How can we correctly regard God's name- who He is and how He reveals Himself?  The most direct Scriptural clue probably comes in this verse:

Psalm 138:2   I will worship toward Your holy temple, and give thanks to Your name for Your mercy, and for Your truth; for You have magnified Your Word above all Your name.
    This verse, by the words "above all Your name," compares various ways God manifests Himself.  The psalmist knows that he can count on God's mercy and truth because God is a God of His word.  He knows that God's temple is a place where He meets with man because God spoke that it is so.  God's stability to us is communicated through His speech.  We count on God having a certain character, performing certain acts, because He has verbally testified these things.  Therefore, God's Word is the chief way He has made Himself known.
    This may be surprising when we consider that God often appeared personally to men.  But even when He appeared to them, it is what He said that revealed who He was.  There is no essential difference between a personal appearance of God and His written testimony.  The fact that a written testimony is what He has left us makes the Bible the main way God reveals Himself.  Scriptures are exalted above every way God reveals Himself.  Greater than creation, greater than conscience, God has exalted Holy Writ as His chief means of self-expression.  When we are finally in God's presence, it is still what He speaks to us that will reveal His name, and nothing He says in the endless future will ever contradict anything He has articulated so far.

    Jesus, thank You that You, God's personal Word, spoke the written Word through prophets and apostles, and that that testimony can never be disconnected from You in any way.

]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]
 
Matthew 6:9  
So, then, you should pray this way:
Our Father who is in Heaven,
May Your name be sanctified.
May Your kingdom come.

    "Father, let Your kingdom come."  So we are to pray.
    What is a kingdom?  A kingdom is a place where a king reigns.
    What is God's kingdom in particular?  It is  the place where He reigns.
    Requesting that God's kingdom comes implies that there are places now where God does not reign.  Jesus taught us to make this request from earth, implying that earth is a place where God's reign is not in place.
    Does this suggest that God does not reign on earth at all?  No.  In fact, there is one sense in which God completely reigns on earth.  Consider these words:

Dan 4:35  ... And He does according to His will among the army of Heaven, and among those living in the earth.  And no one is able to strike His hand or say to Him, What are You doing?

    There is certainly a sense in which God rules all things completely. But this rule includes allowing His enemies a certain freedom of movement, awaiting a future day for completely overthrowing their schemes.  This eventual overthrow of God's enemies is definitely one of things we are praying for in the second request Jesus teaches us.
    This request, then, has a bit of an edge to it; in it we ask for some men's overthrow.

    Father, there are many on earth who do not submit to Your reign and who therefore oppose Your kingdom.  Jesus, thank You for giving me a request to express my desire for the coming of Your Father's final empire of virtue.

]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]
 
[We now move ahead to the last two requests]

Matthew 6:11 - 13
 Give us today our daily bread,
and forgive us our debts
as we also forgive our debtors.
And do not lead us into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil

    The fifth request is the only conditional request in the Lord's Prayer.  The word "as" makes it conditional.  "Forgive me as I forgive others."  The Greek word for "as" means "in proportion as".  However much I forgive others, then, is how much I can expect God to forgive me.
    In making this request conditional, Jesus ties us to our fellow human beings.  That is, He recognizes the tie that is already there, the tie He put there at our creation.
    In tying us to our fellow humans, Jesus also shows that every man has a two-way relationship, one vertical and one horizontal.  The vertical relationship, as it is aptly called, is between us and God.  The horizontal relationship, extending out from ourselves into the world, is between us and other men.  The two relationships are very much linked to one another.  We can do nothing in one realm which does not affect the other.  Of course, this is saying nothing more than that reality consists of the two realms.  Only in our imaginations can we separate them, but separate them there we certainly do!  We try to claim God's forgiveness without any thought of our forgiving of others.  Whether we make this separation negligently or maliciously, in neither case can we erase the bond.  We are connected to both God and men.
    If God has forgiven us, we must be able to extend forgiveness to those who have offended us.

    Jesus, you have wedded me to my neighbor.  How seriously I must take my offense against him!  Only your own broken body can soften my heart to give compassion on those who, like myself, are transgressors.

]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]
 
Matthew 6:11 - 13
 Give us today our daily bread,
and forgive us our debts
as we also forgive our debtors.
And do not lead us into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil

    "Do not lead us into temptation."  We are instructed to make this request of God.
    What does it mean?
    From the wording, it would appear that God can lead us into temptation.  Furthermore, it would appear that He will lead us into temptation if we do not successfully request otherwise.  Without other qualifications, these conclusions are justified by the words Jesus gives us.
    Most people take the request in this sense:  Bring me safely through temptation; or,  Give me strength to resist temptation.  These are good requests, but they are not the request Jesus is teaching us to make here.
    At this point, the main lesson we have to receive concerns the Inspiration of Scriptures.  Did God inspire the Scriptures down to the very words?  How precise can we really be with language, after all?
    According to Jesus, Scripture is inspired, not just down to the word, but down to the letter:

Matthew 5:18  For truly I say to you, Till the heaven and the earth pass away, not one jot or one tittle shall in any way pass from the Law until all is fulfilled.
    A jot was the name for the smallest Hebrew letter.  A tittle was an overhang on a Hebrew letter, differentiating some pairs of letters by only that much.  Our saying would be, "Not the crossing of a 't' or the dotting of an 'i' will be lost from Scriptures."  And this very well captures Jesus' teaching in the above verse.  If it is so, then saying that Scriptures are very inspired is something of an understatement!
    The question is:  Do we believe in the inspiration of the sixth request of the Lord's Prayer?  Or do we have to generalize the wording into some formulation that's easier to stomach?

    Jesus, thank You for Your hard teachings as well as Your easy.  I know You would only teach us the truth, so reality must contain some hard matters (as if I didn't already know this).  Thank You for revealing to toughen us rather than obscuring to tranquilize us.

]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]
 
Matthew 6:9  
Therefore
 pray
in this way

    Jesus taught us to pray intelligently.
    Most Christians who utilize the Lord's Prayer do so as an incantation.  Publicly or privately, they simply repeat the prayer with whatever vague impressions the words present to their minds.  With an incantation, though, an air of mystery is actually preferred.
    Jesus was trying to teach us how to pray.  He was not giving us an incantation, He was giving us an instruction.  An instruction must be understood.  Until we understand what Jesus was teaching concerning prayer, we will not really be praying, though we use the very words He gave us.

    Jesus, keep me from ignorant prayer.

]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]
 
Matthew 6:9   
Our Father
who is in the heavens,
let Your name
be sanctified


    The first request Jesus teaches us to make in our prayers is that God's person, character, and revelation be set apart from all created things.  We pray that a proper regard for God and His Word will come from ourselves and from all men.
    Is it true, though, that the Scriptures are God's highest means of revelation?  It seems to be a 'no-brainer' that Jesus Himself is the greatest revelation ever to speak to man.  Yet the psalmist said:

Psalm 138:2  ... for You have magnified Your Word above all Your name.

    Of course, we could say, "Well, Jesus was the Word come in flesh!"  Which is true, and there are many senses in which Jesus and the Scriptures have identical descriptions, both being called "the Word" very deliberately.
    But consider what Jesus said about Himself in relation to the Word:

Matthew 26:53, 54  Or do you think that I am not able now to call on My Father, and He will place beside Me more than twelve legions of angels?  How then should the Scriptures be fulfilled, that it must happen this way?

    Jesus had recently prayed in Gethsemene that this very event would pass Him by, at least in the short term.  Apparently, the Scriptures had priority even over the One who had written them!*
    Of course, it is not that the Scriptures are intrinsically superior to their Author.  On the other hand, though, how can someone's words be inferior to that person?  Are not someone's words merely an extension of himself?  In other words, it is nonsensical to compare the worth of a speaker and his words.  The words are part of the speaker.  Doesn't  Jesus say this about us?

Matthew 12:37  For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.

    Being judged by our words means being judged for who we truly are.  Our words are virtually synonymous with ourselves.
    So with God, in whose image we are made.
    Jesus came as a MAN.  As a man, He was servant to God Most High.  Jesus paved the way for our proper behavior in His relationship to God's Word.  The Son of God submitted Himself to the Writings that are exalted above all God's Self-revelation.  How much more should you and I comply with those same Affirmations?  Such compliance, willing and joyous, is an answer to the first request of the Lord's Prayer.  Such compliance, then, should be our request.

    Jesus, thank You for submitting to the Scriptures as my example.  Thank You for speaking such beautiful and powerful statutes, beyond the scope of my mere admiration, suitable chiefly to be revered and served.  Let me bow to Scriptures as You did, finding my true joy in sanctifying Your Word.

* Jesus was evidently the One who spoke personally to the Old Testament Scripture writers, Gen. 15:1; 2 Sam 24:11; 1 Kings 6:11; Jer. 1:13; Ezek. 11:14; Zech. 1:1, etc.

]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]
 
Matthew 6:10  
Let Your kingdom come

    When we ask God to cause His kingdom to come, we are asking that every opposing kingdom in the world and universe be brought to an end.  The complete arrival of God's kingdom would mean that no opposing kingdom could stand.  That would seem to doom all, or nearly all, nations of the earth:

Psalm 2:1 - 3  Why do the nations rage, and the peoples meditate on a vain thing?  The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers plot together, against Jehovah and against His anointed, saying, Let us break their restraints in two and cast away their cords from us.

    This seems to describe the general attitude of the nations of the earth towards God.  It does not seem to be describing an isolated nation here or there.  We might well ask Where is the nation which does not operate in opposition to God?
    Of course, we will look in vain through the minutes of the meetings of these nations' legislators to find "Resolved:  we shall break God's restraints."  But the savvy Christian can see where numerous laws and procedures in the nations are fundamentally dissention from God and His ways.
    We are to pray, then, against these rebellious kingdoms and their ways.  We must even pray against our own nation where it defies God.

    Jesus, give me grace to pray against the mutinous nations of the earth.  I am but an insurgent whose heart You healed.  Continue to overcome many by this same grace, but cast down all who will not bow before Your sovereign throne.  So cause Your own good kingdom to come.

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


    In the third request which Jesus teaches us, we ask that God's will, expressed in His commands, be obeyed on earth like it is obeyed in Heaven.
    If we are listening to Jesus' instruction first as information, which we should, it is informing us that there is a rift between Heaven and earth.  This rift becomes the platform for our request.
    What is the rift between Heaven and earth?  First off, we know that Heaven is friendly to God's commands, while earth in some way is not.  The psalmist puts it this way:

Psalm 119:89  Forever, O Jehovah, Your Word is established in the Heavens.

    The psalmist uses the plural for Heaven, because the Hebrew word for Heaven does not appear in the singular.  The same word signifies the sky, space, and God's dwelling place- any of the three.  Context determines which one the writer is referencing.  Here it is obvious that the writer refers to Heaven as God's headquarters, so to speak.  In this case, it is appropriate to capitalize the word in English, because it is a specific location and not merely a general region.
    The critical question now is how God's will is done in Heaven.  That is what will determine how we pray.  We are to set our longings on having earth's obedience match Heaven's.  The psalmist tells us how God's will is done in the verse above when he says that God's Word is established in Heaven.  God's Word, then, is synonymous with His will.  What God says determines what we must do.  Jesus' logic is that if this is the order of things in Heaven, so it must be on earth.

    Jesus, thank you for taking my thoughts Heavenward, to God's command center.  Help me identify the difference in Heaven's obedience, that I may tune my desires for earth- myself first- to it.  

]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]
 
Matthew 6:11  
Give us today
the bread
sufficient for the day.


    The fourth request Jesus teaches us is, "Give us this day our necessary bread."  Notice that this translation puts "necessary" for the usual "daily".
    The Greek word for "daily" is epiousios, a word used only in the Lord's Prayer in the New Testament.  It is harder to define a word for which we have few actual examples, but "daily" is probably not the best translation of epiousios.  Assigning the proper root word is the difficulty, but it is probably ousia, from a root meaning existence or subsistence.  Epiousia would then mean "for subsistence".
    "Give us this day our ..." is the phrase used in Matthew.  Luke, recording Jesus' teaching of the Prayer in a different place and time, has "Give us day by day our ...", or, better, "Give us for the day our ..."  There is definitely a sense of repeated and ongoing need in the request.  
    Jesus here teaches us that we are firmly tied to the earth, that we are therefore also tied to earth's rotation and relation to the sun.  Every new day, our need for what comes from the earth is renewed.  Every day, then, we may either acknowledge that need as being met only by God or else, by default, we deny God as our sustainer.  If we do not address God and ask Him for our daily necessities, we clearly imply that we think we gain them by other means.  Either that, or we think we can receive them from God without asking:  this, when Jesus has unambiguously commanded us to ask!
    Let us confess, it can get boring, asking God for what we assume He's going to give us anyway.  Obviously, if I do not have a sense of need within, such a request will become mechanical, a mere slavish duty.  Therefore, as much as anything else, Jesus is teaching us to acquire and maintain a sense of need within.  More easily said than done!   But if we truly remember that the earth provides for us only as God blesses it, we can request our daily portion deeply and sincerely every single day.

    Lord Jesus, help me to see myself tied to earth and gladly so; for it is through Your earth that Your goodness is manifested to me.  Help me to see myself tied to my provision, and, again, gladly so; for that provision is a marker of Heaven's kindness which, though believing in, I do not wish to presume upon.  Therefore I will renew my request for necessities every day.

]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]
 
Matthew 6:12  
and forgive us our debts,
 as we also forgive
our debtors

    The Lord's Prayer is taught as part of the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5 - 7 (the Lord's Prayer is in the middle of the sixth chapter).  The fifth request is the only one Jesus explains.  Right after giving the model prayer, Jesus says:

Matthew 6:14, 15   For if you forgive men their deviations, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.  But if you will not forgive men their deviations, neither will your Father forgive your deviations.

    He goes back and clarifies only one request out of the six.  That tells us something.  Jesus is saying that this request is a potential 'show-stopper'.  If we don't have this request right, our prayer isn't going to get off the ground, no matter how well-prayed it seems to be otherwise.  If our hearts can't clear other men of their slips, God isn't going to clear us of ours.  It seems fair to assume, then, that many, many repetitions of the Lord's Prayer in churches and in private have fallen right to the dirt because the petitioners failed to clear their hearts of bitterness or grudges.  Many prayers in general have followed the same failure.
    Does this put pressure on us in prayer?  If we understand it correctly, it certainly does!  There's no way to pray the fifth request lightly if we know that failure to comply is failure to connect with God.  If we simply assume that that part of our relationship with God is already taken care of, then we obviously don't understand forgiveness, because Jesus is explaining a crucial aspect of it right here.  Whatever I thought I knew about forgiveness, if I thought it allowed me to deal casually with another's offense, I was definitely mistaken.

    Jesus, thank You for explaining this request.  I would not have naturally thought of my ability to forgive as an obstacle between me and You.  Search my heart, then!  Don't allow grudges, ill-will, unforgiveness, a superior attitude, or any such thing to dwell in my heart.

]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]
 
Matthew 6:13  
and do not lead us
into temptation,
but save us from evil.


    "Do not lead us into temptation" is a very deep request to bring before God.  It goes to the deepest place in our being and the deepest place in our relationship with God.  If we are frightened that God might lead us into temptation, then we are correctly sensing the depth of the prayer and the reality it conveys.
    How can we understand this?  Perhaps we're not even meant to.  Perhaps it is a mystery which we are irreverent to contemplate.
    But if that is true, where do we draw the line?  So many other Scriptures describe God's sovereignty where it apparently bends the boundaries of man's free will.  Are we supposed to read hurriedly over those passages without reflection as well?  Sadly, this is how many in our day approach the Bible.
    We have already discussed the COMPLETE Inspiration of Scriptures.  It was given to us word for word, letter for letter in the Greek and Hebrew.  If this is so, are we not meant to understand these words?  Why do we translate these words into English:  so they can remain a mystery to us, or so we can comprehend God's communication?
    Consider what God said:

Deuteronomy 29:29  The secret things belong to Jehovah our God, but the revealed things belong to us and to our sons forever, so that we may do all the words of this Law.

    In this amazingly beneficial verse, God has divided all knowledge into two categories:  secret and revealed.  Secret knowledge is what God knows but hasn't told us (at least not yet).  Revealed knowledge is what God has told us.
    QUESTION:  Is the Bible revealed knowledge or secret knowledge?
    Again, many want to take portions of Scripture and consign them to God's secret vault.  Well, did God write those parts of the Bible in invisible ink?  Why are they there if they are SECRET knowledge?
    Obviously, by definition, all knowledge in Scripture is REVEALED knowledge.  I may not understand this or that portion, and I may continue to be mystified to my dying day, but GOD INTENDED IT ALL TO BE UNDERSTOOD.  Otherwise, He would have left it out and reserved it to Himself.  Apparently, my ignorance of Scriptures can be overcome (little by little) by study and prayer.
    The sixth request in the Lord's Prayer is part of Scriptures.  Determine now that you will understand it as well as you can.

    Jesus, thank you for this request and for all of Scriptures.  Thank you for the astounding freedom in realizing that all of it is intended to be understood.

]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]
~
 
John 21:25  
And there are also many other things that Jesus did, which, if they were written one by one,
I suppose not even the world itself could contain
the books that would be written.



    By giving us a pattern for prayer, Jesus was obviously not telling us that this was the only way to pray, per se.  Why is this obvious?  Well, Jesus Himself prayed differently in John 17, for instance.  None of the Psalms which are prayers seem to have all the elements of the Model Prayer in exact order either.
    So what IS the relationship of the Model Prayer to all other God-given prayers in Scriptures?
    The Model Prayer is the only one given as THE model.  All the others take one or more elements of the model and employ them to communicate with God.  There is no other prayer in Scriptures which is given to us with the instruction to pray it or follow its pattern.  All the others prayers ARE examples to follow, but the Lord's Prayer is the theoretical pattern for all the rest.
    Theoretical?  Does that mean the Lord's Prayer is not practical?  No, in fact, a dictionary definition of theory is "a belief, policy, or procedure proposed or followed as the basis of action."  The whole purpose of theory is to promote action.  So the Lord's Prayer is the theory, the pure idea of prayer; the other prayers in the Bible are various forms of action taken based on proper theory.
    How could the Psalms follow the theory of the Lord's Prayer since they are in the Old Testament, and the Lord's Prayer came later in the New?  How can the copies come before the original?  Remember that Jesus said that everything He taught was squarely based on "the Law and the Prophets." (Matt. 5:18)  The Psalms already had all the proper elements of prayer in them.  The Model Prayer was just as much a distillation of prior prayers as it was a precedent.  You might say that the Psalms followed the 'unspoken' precedent of the Model Prayer, or that Jesus took the implicit concepts of the Psalm prayers and spelled them out.
    Therefore, every good prayer IS according to the pattern of the Lord's Prayer.  It may only fall under one of the Prayer's several headings, but it still follows the pattern.
    This puts an interesting spin on the liturgical issue.  Should the theory prayer be used as outright practice?  That is, should someone simply recite the Lord's Prayer as a prayer?  Is it a pattern only and not an actual prayer?  
    There can be no doubt that the Model Prayer itself can be prayed, for Jesus said, "When you pray, say ..." in Luke 11.  But the fact that the theory was meant as a foundational framework from which to build is also plain, for Jesus also said, "When you pray ... pray in this manner ..." in Matthew 6.  The words were not meant to be left by themselves.

    Lord Jesus, thank You for a distillation of all good prayers in the Disciples' Prayer.  May my prayers further distill from it declarations and requests to Your glory.


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

    What are we allowed to praise other than God Himself?
    As we consider how holy God's words are, we eventually question the relationship of Scriptures to their Author.  Certainly, we think, God is superior to His own words?  Yet when we think again, we realize that this is not a sensible comparison.  How can anyone be greater or lesser than his own words?  Our words are merely expressions of ourselves.  Our words are merely part of ourselves.  Our words cannot be separated from us.
    So it is with God.
    We are therefore foolish to try to treat the Bible as one thing and God as another.   Of course, Bibles as objects are not what we're talking about.  But the words God inspired from the apostles and prophets are recorded in the Bible.  Those words are not separate from God Himself.  He stands behind every word, because every word represents Him.  It is He speaking.  To take back any of His words would be to change Himself.
    Yet our generation has fallen into the trap of treating God as one thing and the Bible as another.  We accuse someone who has too high a regard for Scriptures of committing Bibliolatry, or Bible-olatry- worshiping the Bible.  It goes without saying in our minds that this is a sin.  But hardly a man remains who is worthy of this censure, since we have learned so well that we must not regard Scriptures too highly.
    But what does the psalmist say?

Psalm 56:4  In God I will praise His Word

    The psalmist would be uncomfortable in our midst.  He obviously regards the Word too highly.  Yet he would affirm that the Word is praiseworthy.  The Word of God is not separate from God.  Praising God's Word is good; it is merely praising God Himself.  He would have to correct us.  He is correcting us.
    So is Bible-olatry really possible?  Not from having too high a regard for Scriptures.  Scriptures can only be regarded too highly if God Himself can be regarded too highly.
    So, again, what are we allowed to praise other than God?  Nothing, but we are to praise Scriptures, since they are a very part of God, His very breath.
    When we pray for God's name, chiefly His Word, to be rightly regarded, we need not set a limit on our reverence for Scriptures.  Praying that God's Word will be praised by me and by all men is a Biblical prayer.

    Jesus, Word made flesh, You submitted to the written Word.  But in doing this, You were only holding Yourself to Your own word.  How much more am I obliged to that Word!  How greatly I should praise that Word, since it is the voice of Your very lips!  Increase my faith so to extol You.

]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]
 
Matthew 6:10  
May
Your kingdom
come

    When we ask God to cause His kingdom to come, we are plainly implying that His kingdom has not come yet.  Why would we ask for His kingdom to come if His kingdom were already in place?
    Yet we have verses like this one:

Psalm 22:28  For the kingdom is Jehovah's; and He is the ruler among the nations.

    That certainly makes it sound as though God's kingdom has come, is already in place.
    However, in saying that God is a presently reigning king who holds ultimate sway over all other kingdoms, we are not denying that He can allow rebellion in those kingdoms.  In fact, He does.  God does allow rebellion against Himself among the kingdoms of this world.  Therefore, the final arrival of God's kingdom will be the deposing of all those rebels and their kingdoms.  This is the final future we pray for in the second request.
    The reason we can pray this confidently is that God is in essential control even now.  He can cause whatever outcome He chooses.  So His coming kingdom is partly a byproduct of His present dominion.
    Why would Jesus want our focus to be on the unsatisfactory of these two aspects?  Why not pray thanking God for His overall complete supremacy?  Aren't we focusing on the glass being half empty when we could just as easily focus on it being half full?
    In fact, our thoughts have already been directed to God's overall ascendancy when Jesus told us:

Matthew 6:8  Therefore do not be like them, for your Father knows what things you have need of, before you ask Him.

    It is implied that God can take care of our every need because of His complete sovereignty.
    So when we pray according to the unsatisfactory state of the world- God's kingdom not having descended upon it yet- we are only praying according to realism.  We are not praying pessimistically, because we know God's reign will be established in His own good time.  What we are really doing is priming our hearts with longing, sad that it is man's unrighteous influence that colors the world we live in.*

    Jesus, thank You for the confidence that Your Father's kingdom will come; but be pleased to tune my heart to a minor key in requesting an end of the general resistance to Your rule, especially since I see that very defiance so invasive of my own soul.

*  "Blessed are those who mourn."


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


    God's will is not being done on earth as it is being done in Heaven.  We are to pray that God's will- His directions expressed especially in commandments- will be obeyed on earth the way they are obeyed in Heaven.
    But how can we sincerely pray this, knowing that disobedience is bound to be the dominant tone here until Jesus' return?

Matthew 7:13, 14  Go in through the narrow gate, for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and many there are who go in through it.  Because narrow is the gate and constricted is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.

     If this is a 'law' that always holds true- that most of earth's population will always disobey God- aren't we praying against this law to ask that all the earth obey Him?  Firstly, we can pray that God's commands would be kept simply because a day is coming when no disobedience will be allowed:

Philippians 2:10, 11  that at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow, of those in heaven, those on earth, and those under the earth, and that every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

    When we ask that all men obey God, we ask towards a coming day in which they will all obey Him- albeit, most of them unwillingly.
    Secondly, when we are asking that God's will be done, we are asking specifically that Christians will not be disobedient.  Christians are the people we directly focus on in the third request.  Of course, the one particular Christian we focus on most is ourselves.  So there is a definite, positive recipient of our prayer.  Christians have the capacity to do God's will today, but they very well may not do it.  I must pray heartily that they will obey God's commands.

    Lord Jesus, Your commands should be kept.  They direct men in the right and harmless way.  Otherwise, we bring much harm to ourselves and others.  O may Your people truly listen to Your directions!  May I  be attentive to Your good and wise commands!  
     I also long for the day when Your commands are dishonored by no man ever again.  Hasten that day, O Lord.

]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]
 
Matthew 6:11  
Give us today
our necessary bread.

    "Give us for the day the bread we need."  This is a good translation of the fourth request we are to pray.
    Concerning bread, God told us:

Deuteronomy 8:3  And He humbled you and allowed you to hunger, and then He fed you with manna, which you did not know, neither did your fathers know it, so that He might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes out of the mouth of Jehovah man shall live.

    There is a contrast between the two kinds of sustenance man needs.
    Could it be that Jesus is teaching us in the fourth request to ask for this spiritual kind of bread?  Are we to ask that Scriptures feed us rather than asking for physical food?
    Jesus is telling us to ask for needed bread.  We need both kinds of bread.  Therefore, we should be asking for both kinds of bread.  The verse in Deuteronomy says as much.  It says that man doesn't live only by physical bread.  This means man does live by physical bread.  We must therefore pray wholeheartedly for our physical bread.
    Should we be asking for one of the two types of bread first?  Again, considering the order in the Deuteronomy verse, our physical bread is the more basic.  We should be asking for it first.
    In our day, faced with the contrast between physical and spiritual sustenance, many Christians would feel compelled to emphasize spiritual sustenance to the near exclusion of the physical.  Those who would do so show the influence of pietism, an approach to Christianity which tends to see earth and earthly things in competition with holy living and therefore to be avoided or treated with suspicion.  These Christians would acknowledge their need for provisions but almost as a necessary evil.  Anything earthly is seen as a temptation to sin.*
    This is not a very good posture from which to ask a generous God for His excellent provisions.

    Jesus, thank You that food is a primary provision from Your gracious hand.  Thank You that food and clothing are not evil, but good gifts from You.  Now help me not to turn good things into evil by failing to seek them humbly and receive them thankfully.

*  To hold that any pleasurable thing (or even any holy thing) can present opportunities for our souls to sin is a wise position, but not that the things are temptations in themselves.


]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]
 
Matthew 6:12  
and forgive us
our debts,
 as we also forgive
our debtors

     Jesus explains only the fifth of the six requests after giving us the model prayer.  That makes it unique.  Another aspect making it unique is that it is the only CONDITIONAL request of the six.  This, in fact, is the very reason this particular request needed explaining.  The condition is one which can disqualify our prayer:

Matthew 6:14, 15   ... neither will your Father forgive your slip-ups*.

    The conditional aspect of the fifth request is seen in the word "as".  "Forgive us ... AS we forgive"  shows that there is a condition that must be kept.  "As" tells us that we should only expect to be forgiven in so far as we have forgiven others.  "AS I forgive others, O God, SO may you forgive me."  
    This, frankly, should be terrifying to us.  "What happens if I simply cannot forgive an offender?  What happens if someone wounds me so deeply that I cannot release the ill-will in my heart?  Will God then be unwilling to forgive me?"
    A candid reading of Jesus' explanation would seem to answer Yes:

Matthew 6:14, 15  For if you forgive men their offences, your heavenly Father also will forgive you yours ,  but if you do not forgive men their offences, neither will your Father forgive your offences.

    Unfortunately, in our day, we have an easy, readymade answer for this.  We say that salvation is by grace, so no matter how well we forgive or even whether we forgive, we're still going to be forgiven so long as we have believed in Jesus.
    It should also terrify us when we use one doctrine of Scripture to nullify another one.  Who gave us the wisdom to prioritize grace in such a way?  The proper doctrine of God's grace includes warnings against our departure from it:

Hebrews 12:15  looking diligently lest anyone fall from the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness growing up cause trouble

    And the singular cause for missing God's grace in this verse is bitterness, a manifestation of unforgiveness.
    Of course we know that someone who falls from the grace of God was never truly born again; but that is the exact point!  If we let grudges reside in us, we are giving the very evidence that grace does NOT reside in us!  It doesn't matter how real our conversion seemed to us or how deeply we believe in God's grace now.  There is a counterfeit for every felt grace of God.  A professing Christian dominated by bitterness has more evidence against his new birth than for it.  Only when this fact shocks him to his knees does he once again give proof that the new birth did take place in Him.

    Jesus, thank You for speaking so plainly concerning the conditional nature of forgiveness.  May I accept your explanation equally plainly, with no attempt to cover my resentments.  Only You who initially replace a stony heart with a soft one can remove the hardness that creeps back in.

* Believe it or not, this is almost a literal rendering of the Greek term.


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

    "Do not lead us into temptation."  A tough request to fathom, but one which God gave for our comprehension, as He did ALL of Scriptures (see previous devotion on the sixth request).
    "But if I try to get to the bottom of this, how can I help being disrespectful to God?  I'll feel like I'm treading on sacred ground.  His sovereignty over creation is His business.  Trying to understand it makes me a busybody."
    Let us answer that problem in three ways:

 1)  Why would God have revealed it if it were going to compel us to be insolent?  Shouldn't we assume that, properly understood, this concept will make us more humble?  -isn't that why God gives all revealed knowledge?

 2)  It is our retreat from knowledge that makes us impudent.  Refusing knowledge God offers is like saying that I already have enough knowledge on that subject:  a rather prideful assertion.

3)  Our general spirit in theology should be one of adventure:

Proverbs 25:2  The glory of God is to conceal a thing, but the glory of kings is to search out a matter.

    Look at that!  Yes, God has buried certain matters to avoid easy detection, BUT He intends that they be uncovered!  He covered them over so the discovery process would be a glorious one.  By the way, are you supposed to uncover them?

Rev 1:6  and He made us kings and priests to His God and Father    

    If you are a Christian, you are a king who is supposed to search out every divine matter woven into Scriptures.
    The sixth request of the Lord's Prayer definitely requires digging to be successfully mined for our use.  If we thought otherwise, we would make God one who approves laziness.

    Jesus, thank You that it is a shining joy for Your people to uncover those things You have gloriously hidden in Scriptures.

]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]
~
 
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.

    What place does old English have in prayer?  Do words like Thee and Thou enhance our prayers?
    Many people pray partly in Elizabethan English, having gleaned that it is somehow more reverent to use such language in communicating with God.  Are they right?
    Elizabethan English is more precise than more modern English, in that Thee and Thou cover pronoun person and number more particularly than our lone word "you".
    But does this mean that Elizabethan phrases are better for prayer?
    Consider this.  Does anyone even pray in completely consistent Elizabethan English?  I've never even heard anyone try.  Everyone seems to mix Elizabethan phrases with more modern usage.  Those who address God as Thee and Thou usually go little farther in employing old language, other than using words in combination, such as "Thou hast."  But could their partial attempt be at least superior to straight modern jargon?
    In answer:  did Jesus pray in a special language?   Did any godly men in Scriptures use one language for daily life and another language for prayer, even partially?  The answer is no.  We find Jesus speaking to both men and God in Scriptures, and He used the same language for both.  The Model Prayer and the prayer in John 17 were in koine Greek, the universal language in Jesus' day, and all Jesus' words to men were also in koine Greek.  If it was appropriate to use separate language for prayer, the Bible could have given us the same as an example.*
    This should not suggest to us that men who use Thees and Thous in prayer are sinning.  Most who pray in Elizabethan do so because that is what they heard  other men do.  It has been an easy language to partially retain because of the popularity of the King James version of the Bible.

    Lord, Jesus, thank You that, although I approach You differently than I do other men, yet I do not employ language other than my normal speech in my prayers.  Help me to see to it that my reverence for You is from the heart.  Help me to worship You "in the beauty of holiness," but not for show.  Help my public prayers bless men, but help me not to make myself more than I am in those prayers.

*  There are times when Jesus spoke Hebrew rather than Greek, both to men and to God, but those times are noted for us.  The fact that Jesus spoke koine Greek publicly seems plain from the notation of His usage of Hebrew as exceptional in both Matthew 27:46 and later in Acts 26:14 when He spoke to Saul.  Koine Greek for many cultures in the Roman empire was doubtless their second language, nevertheless the one used for public communicating.  Neither was this happenstance; Alexander the Great had undertaken a deliberate policy to make all his empire Greek-speaking.  The Romans merely kept this universal tongue as it was handed to them.

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

    The Scriptures are God's very breath.  "All Scriptures are 'God-breathed'" (2 Tim. 3:16), Paul told Timothy.  As such, they are an inseparable part of God.  They should not be treated as something God gives us in addition to Himself.  This is a crucial prayer fact.
    The Greek word Paul coined for "God-breathed" is theo-pneustos.  This combines the word for "God" with the word for "breath".   "God-breathed" is a good, literal translation.
    The way we treat the Bible, then, is the way we treat God's breath.  
    God's breath suggests something being emitted straight from Him.  Someone's breath is very personal.  It has a warmth from his body's heat.  It has moisture from his body's water content.*  When God says that the Bible is His breath, He is saying that it is a very personal expression of His true self.
    Most Christians treat the Bible rather im personally.  That is, whatever inspires them they count as God speaking, but whatever is difficult they place in an inferior category.  They might even quietly discard it as unworthy of God.  Yet the moisture that flows in God's brain, so to speak, flows with His breath into a difficult passage.  It is not just His heart moisture, as it were, which He breathes.  He is commending complexity to us in a very personal way when the Bible speaks complexly.
    When we ask that God's name be set apart, we ask that Scriptures be revered.  When we ask that Scriptures be revered, we ask that God's personal presence be perceived through them, including when we struggle with what He says.
    Do you treat Scriptures as God's very breath and pray accordingly?

    Lord Jesus, You have spoken.  The Bible is not an impersonal communication from You, but Your very breath.  How easily I separate Your Word from You, and how greatly I sin when I do so!  Grant me faith to hear You speaking to me in all Your Word, that I may hallow Your Name as I ought.


*  Naturally, we are speaking anthropomorphically- a theological term meaning "as though having human characteristics."  God Himself has no literal breath with its heat or moisture since He has no physical body.  However, as we are the copy and He the original, His breath is even more personal than ours.

]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]
 
Matthew 6:10  
May
Your kingdom
come

    Jesus teaches us an unsatisfied state of soul in the second request.  We ask that His Father's kingdom come, acknowledging that Man's kingdom (and all its sub-kingdoms) characterizes our whole world as opposing God.
    The actual ruler of this rebellious world is Satan:

Luke 4:5, 6  And the Devil, leading Him up into a high mountain, showed Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time.  And the Devil said to Him, All this power I will give you, and the glory of them; for it has been delivered to me. And I give it to whomever I will.

    Satan implied that the world's kingdoms were God's to give but that God had given them over to him.  If this were not true, Jesus certainly would have been obliged to counter it, but He did not.  In fact, Jesus later conceded the point more directly:

John 14:30  I shall no longer speak many things with you, for the ruler of this world comes, and he has nothing in Me.

    Satan 'having nothing in Jesus' (having no weakness in Jesus' soul to exploit) was the reason Jesus refused his offer of the world's kingdoms, not because the kingdoms weren't Satan's to give.  Satan certainly does rule the kingdoms of the world in some definite sense.
    Neither did Jesus' resurrection and ascension alter the overall equation.  Even though Jesus has acquired the rights to Satan's demise, the Father has not chosen to exercise that right yet.  New Testament writers still speak of the devil as boss of this world:

2 Corinthians 4:4  in whom the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving ones, so that the light of the glorious gospel of Christ (who is the image of God) should not dawn on them.

    So when Adam and Eve signed on with Satan's rebellion, they put their world, our world, effectively under Satan's power.  When we pray that God's kingdom comes, we are praying that Satan's kingdom comes to an end.

    Lord Jesus, thank You that You came to "undo the works of the Devil" (1 Jn. 3:8), that You personally triumphed over him, and that God will "bruise Satan under our feet shortly" as well (Rom. 16:20).  Until my triumph, help me to rejoice in Your triumph, and help me to grieve over the revolution that has placed the world under unrighteous dominion.

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


   "Father, may Your will be done here on earth.  Your angels obey You in Heaven; so may men on earth.  It is only right."
    But does God have a right to control His creatures by commands?  Wouldn't a more 'enlightened' king simply 'live and let live'?  Isn't this one of those unattractive features of God we're not especially proud of?
    Some might go so far as to say that God is a bully.  He's big enough, so He just tells everyone else what to do.  Many people think of God as a tyrant, though they would never come out and say so.  They might not even admit it to themselves.
    Well, then, is God a bully?  Once He made man in His image, endowing Him with 'free will'*, didn't He consign commands to the practical status of suggestions?  Since God can't make us do it, isn't He merely suggesting?  And is it His frustration over this limitation that makes Him set such high penalties for disobedience?
    You see, commandments carry us to the very core of our relationship with God.  Their one commandment was what set Adam and Eve at odds with God.  Commandments are still what cause us to be suspicious of God.
    So this is a critical question.  Does God have the right to command us?  And we must answer the question not only on the mental level but at a heart level.  Our emotions are what need the biggest adjustment in accepting God's commands.  Our minds already pretty much know that if God is all-wise, He probably has good reasons for all His commandments.  We know that we can't argue the commandments away.  It's just that we don't feel like being ordered around.  The restriction is just that- a constraint like a heavy sweater that's way too tight.  Purely uncomfortable.
    But God does something when He saves us.  He shows us that the sweater was only tight because our chest was swelled to a great surplus through pride.  The material was only too heavy because our personal temperature was overheated through selfish passion.  When he remakes us the right size and temperature, the sweater fits and feels just fine in this cold world.  In fact, we wouldn't dream of going without it.

1 John 5:3  For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments, and His commandments are not burdensome.

* Adam and Eve had a different kind of free will than we do.  Their's began without sin.  Ours begins with sin.  Our is much less free.  Jesus even called us slaves of sin (Jn. 8:34).

]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]
 
Proverbs 30:7 - 9
I have asked two things from You;
do not deny them before I die;
remove far from me vanity and a lying word;
give me neither poverty or riches;
tear for me my portion of bread,
lest I be full and deceive, and say,
Who is Jehovah?
Or lest I be poor, and steal,
and violate the name of my God.


    Near the end of the book of Proverbs, Agur makes these two requests of God:
1)  that he would not be a liar, and
2)  that he would have neither too much nor too little of earthly possessions.
    This second request provides essential commentary on the fifth petition in the Lord's Prayer, "Give us this day our bread of subsistence."
    When we ask for our necessary provision, we must ask for a moderate amount.  Agur describes a moderate amount as what falls between two extremes.  The two extremes, according to the verses in the box above, are:
  a)  having so little that I am starving, willing even to steal to survive, and
  b)  having so much that my soul forgets God as provider and I assume an attitude of independence.
    There is quite a bit of ground between these two extremes which we might call our 'safe zone'.  Our safe zone begins with having food, even if it is just our next meal.  Our safe zone ends with having such a plentiful, consistent supply that we have no reason to question that it will ever end.  
    Most Americans do not ask God for a moderate amount of supplies per Agur's advice.  That's because they have too much:  they are already past the safe zone.  Most Americans, even professing Christians, have so much that their souls can't help feeling that God's aid is anywhere but in earthly supplies.  For earthly supplies, I've got the grocery store.  When has the grocery store ever lacked my daily bread?  Whether I ask God or not, the grocery store will supply me.
    The warning comes to us which came to the greatly blessed Israelites:

Deuteronomy 31:20  For when I shall have brought them into the land which I swore to their fathers, flowing with milk and honey, and they shall have eaten and filled themselves, and grown fat; then will they turn to other gods, and serve them, and despise Me, and break My covenant.

    The only factor necessary to the spoiling of a soul is satisfaction.  Earthly satisfaction always tends towards self-sufficiency.
    There is a line between having enough and having too much.  When we ask for enough, we must also have the sense to ask for no more than that, at least on average.*

    Jesus, thank You for Agur's prayer.  Help me inventory my goods in prayer.  Help me to ask to have the right amount.  You have blessed me, not to endanger my soul, but so I can be generous, as You have been to me.

*  The main Biblical means for keeping our possessions from possessing our souls is to be generous towards the needy with them, Matt. 6:3, 4.

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

    The request for forgiveness of sins is a unique one in the Lord's Prayer.  It is the only one Jesus explains afterwards, and it is the only conditional one.
    The condition, as Jesus explains it, is that we shall be forgiven AS we forgive.  It is very simple.  Its simplicity, though, is dreadful.  If I go without forgiving, I cannot expect to get into Heaven.
    There are two ways to understand the condition in this request.  One is as a BASIS for my forgiveness, the other is as an EVIDENCE that I am forgiven.
    If my forgiveness of others is the basis of God forgiving me, then I cannot afford to have any grudge in my heart.  I cannot afford to leave even a trace of bitterness in my soul.  Further, I cannot afford to let any old resentment return to my spirit.  If unforgiveness taints my soul in any way, God will not be able to forgive me.
    This should sound to us like 'salvation by works,' for that is what it is.  Any way in which I make my effort the basis of my acceptance with God, I have fallen into a works salvation:

Romans 4:2  For if Abraham was justified by works,* he has a boast; but not before God.
Rom 4:4  ... But to him working, the reward is not reckoned according to grace, but according to debt.

    "Justified" means "declared righteous."  God will declare no one righteous on the basis of that man's own deeds.  If there's one thing Paul is clear about, this is it.
    Forgiving others is one of many obligations God has laid down for us.  If we forgive deficiently, we will simply and fairly fall short of God's approval.  But God has made it clear that His means of salvation is not by our deeds.  It is by the deeds of Christ, His righteous life and substitutionary death.
    So if my extension of forgiveness to my neighbor is not the BASIS for God forgiving me, then it is an EVIDENCE that He has forgiven me.  How complete an evidence?  Thoroughly complete, which we shall discuss next time.

    Jesus, I praise Your name for the clarity you breathed into Paul concerning justification by faith; but I praise You for the equal clarity with which you explained the necessity of my forgiving all who offend me.  Help me to understand the relationship between the two necessities, to believe and live according to them both.

* The sense in which we can say we ARE justified (declared righteous) by our works, as James says we are (James 2:24), is that our deeds give evidence (declare) that, just as righteousness has been accepted on my behalf, so righteousness has been deposited in my life.  Righteousness in my life will be manifested and will declare that I am one of God's new-made righteous ones, not completely righteous yet, but completely in possession of righteousness.

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

    How should we pray, "Do not lead me into temptation"?
    A good parallel phrase comes from the Psalms:

Psalm 141:4  Do not incline my heart to any evil thing

    God looks at our hearts.  He sees there inclinations that might cause Him to give us over to our own appetites.  By simply withholding some degree of His gracious influence, He can effectively transfer us into the power of those longings.  
    The psalmist models for us the request that God will not abandon us to ourselves.  The prayer amounts to a simple recognition of our own sinful tendencies.
    And here is where we can discern the psalmist's heart.  Can we honestly ask God to keep our hearts from evil "matters/words" (so the Hebrew) without a truly mournful recognition of our own evil nature?  Is there any way to ask God to direct our hearts away from wickedness without a deep humiliation over what we are, wicked by nature?  The psalmist was evidently very grieved over the ease with which he might fall into sin.
    Actually, acknowledging my present wickedness is only consistent with the recognition of who I have been from my conception:

Psalm 51:5  Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me.

    Am I a sinner because I learned to sin, or did I begin sinning because I was already a sinner?  It is obvious to any honest person that no baby has to learn sin from others.  He begins sinning long before he can take in examples from those around him.  Yes, my acts of sin came from my already being a sinner, not vice versa.*  This is clearly what "in sin ... conceived" means.
    Back to our original question:  How should I pray the sixth request?  The request not to be led into temptation connects me to my inborn and closely bound sinfulness.  My prayer must therefore be a deeply humble and contrite one.

    Jesus, thank you for alerting me to danger by focusing me on my own soul.  Teach me to pray looking to myself that I may bring my cry of dismay to You.  I know You will not despise such a prayer.


*  If we could remember back far enough, we could trace our animosity to God's law all the way back to the womb; so Psalm 51:5 tells us, as does Psalm 58:3

]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]
~
 
John 11:41, 42  
Then they lifted the stone
where the dead one was laid.
And Jesus lifted His eyes upward and said, Father, I thank You that You heard Me.
And I know that You always hear Me,
but because of the crowd standing around,
I said it, that they might believe
that You sent Me.


    If I pray publicly, how should I regard those hearing my prayer?  Should I put them out of my mind so that I can pray solely to God in Heaven?
    Fortunately, there is clear Biblical direction on this question, for otherwise, we could find ourselves quite conflicted, unable to avoid others' examination of our words, but wanting not to modify our public prayer because of our audience.
    Jesus spoke directly to this issue one time when He prayed:

John 11:41. 42  ... And Jesus lifted up His eyes and said, Father, I thank You that You have heard Me.  And I know that You hear Me always, but because of the people who stand by I said it, so that they may believe that You have sent Me.
    Jesus definitely shaped this public prayer according to those present.  This makes it abundantly clear that a goal of a public prayer is not to wipe others' presence from our minds.  Very simply, Jesus was aware of both parties who could hear Him, God and men, and His prayer reflected this.
    Nevertheless, Jesus did not address men in His prayers.  He made no asides when He prayed to God.  When Jesus prayed to God, He may have spoken about others present, but He did not speak to them, either implicitly or explicitly.  We make note of this in light of the tendency some have to comment on people or situations around them when they pray.  The prayer then becomes, at least for that moment, a running narrative and not a communication to God.  That is, it is still a prayer in name; no official end of the prayer was made, but addressing God is no longer the real mode of communication.  Prayer has become simply a vehicle for addressing others.  
    There is an immense difference between addressing the presence of others while praying solely to God on the one hand and slipping in human interaction under the pretense of prayer on the other.  The latter would seem to be a clear case of taking God's name in vain, or taking it, literally, "lightly".  
    We must also note that this is at least partly a matter of attitude.  A man praying aloud at his cancer-ridden wife's bedside might include words such as, "my wife, whom I love so dearly," obviously hoping to convey a sense of his affection to his wife as well as to God; yet his prayer may remain focused on God.  
    But a man praying at the dinner table who says, "and I pray for Johnny, who had better stop fiddling around with the salt while we're praying" has actually left off praying for the moment in order to make a comment on something going on at the table.  In that case, it would have been more respectful of God and prayer to have stopped praying a moment to simply address Johnny directly.

    Lord Jesus, help me to think about whom I am addressing in prayer.  If I pray publicly, help it to be a prayer solely to Him.  Enable me at the same time to be aware that I am affecting (hopefully blessing) those praying with me while I am addressing God.

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

    The Bible is "God-breathed" (2 Tim. 3:16).  This tells us that the Bible comes from God's interior parts, carrying the warmth and moisture from His 'lungs', as it were, directly to us.  We should sense this personal type of presence when we read His Word.  In prayer, we should ask that men would sense this presence when His Word is read and preached.
    Most Christians treat the Bible as a vague approximation of God's mind.  How could an infinite God, after all, fit a real reflection of Himself into men's words, especially using the words of men from a rather unscientific, bygone era?  We might agree that the warmth of God's breath is there in sentiment, but not in strict accuracy.
    Yet Jesus said:

Matthew 5:18  For truly I say to you, Till the Heaven and the earth pass away, not one jot or one tittle shall in any way pass from the Law until all is fulfilled.

    Jesus was specifying the Old Testament writings, the only ones in existence at the time.  He said that the smallest letter (a jot, or a yod) and the smallest part of a letter (a tittle, like the dotting of an "i") in the Hebrew text would not be lost or discarded.  They would even outlast heaven and earth.
    But here we Christians stand on earth, under the heavens, treating those very Scriptures as a rather unsatisfactory expression of God.  There are so many things God said which seem unworthy of Him.  There are so many answers we need which He didn't seem to cover.  We prove our lack of trust in the Bible by the depth with which we study it.  We can't expect such an old book to be very consistent, so we'd better not examine it too closely.  God's breath is comforting in a sentimental sort of way, but we'd best not look there for any intellectual reassurance.

Isaiah 30:21  And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, This is the way, walk in it, when you turn to the right hand and when you turn to the left.

    Teachers sent from God teach us God's words (Isa. 30:20).  Those words become a living guide, as though standing behind us, advising us, there to keep us from wandering off the path.
    A word "behind us." on our ears:  there God is talking to us, speaking His instructions intimately.  God's breath on the back of our necks as He whispers- one would think it should be warm and reassuring.   Yet what does God see as He views this generation responding to His words?  A group hunching its shoulders as from a chill breeze when His breath touches us.  

    Jesus, help me not to despise Your breath.  There are so many ways I belittle Your Word.  My simple inattention brands me as a great traitor.  Strengthen me to honor Your written voice and to rejoice in Your presence in the holy writings, however well I initially understand them.

]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]
 
Matthew 6:10  
May
Your kingdom
come

    God put the earth under His regent, Man:

Psalm 115:16  The heavens, even the heavens, are Jehovah's; but the earth He has given to the sons of men.

    God was willing to create man on earth, even knowing that man's coming rebellion would be a complete loss of the planet.  God knew the situation would not right itself.  God knew He would have to intervene to salvage anything from mutinous earth.  But God had chosen to act before the uprising had even taken place:

Ephesains 1:4  according as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love

    Yet God has not corrected man's deviant state all at once.  Those whom God saves still have a battle to fight before they are completely "without blame" in His presence.  Here is the cry of a redeemed man's heart while he still dwells on earth:

Romans 7:15   For what I work out, I do not know. For what I do not will, this I do. But what I hate, this I do.

    So when I ask that God's kingdom arrives in all places, the only place for which I  will give account is my own inner man.  My own soul, then, receives my greatest cry for God's control.  My own heart is the domain that, having cast off God's authority, most requires my urgent plea for the recovery of God's jurisdiction.  But my soul will not cry out unless I see how far astray it is and lament accordingly:

Romans 7:23  but I see a different law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity under the law of sin which is in my members.

    A Christian lives his whole life in partial captivity to sin.  We do not become sinless here; therefore, we are chained in a death match with sin all our days.  That is the real misery of our existence.  And that misery fuels the fire of our request, "Cause Your kingdom to come in my own wretched, rebellious soul!"

    Jesus, I rebelled against Your rightful regime.  Even now, I resist being ruled by You.  Fill me with a greater heartache that I treat You so.  Show me more of my general stubbornness and more of the specific ways I manifest it.  Reveal this as You extend Your grace for me to be humbled, to confess my sin, and to cast it off, please.

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


    "God, may Your will be done on earth.  May men keep Your commands."
    But what are COMMANDS?  Simple answer:  they are God's "do's" and "don'ts".
    In Scriptures there are both direct commands and implied commands.  Direct commands are worded in the imperative:  "You shall ...", or "You shall not ...", or any similar phrase.  Implied commands occur when we understand that God's direction is being laid out for us, yet it is not in the form of an imperative.  A good example occurs in Acts:

Act 20:7  And the first day of the week, we being assembled to break bread ...

    Ever wondered why we worship on Sunday instead of Saturday like the Jews?  Well, here's the passage that tells us why.  The early Christians apparently met to worship ("break bread" = communion) on the first day of the week.  There's only one other passage that verifies this, but together, they assure us that Sunday is our new worship day:

1 Corinthians 16:2  On the first day of the week, each of you is to set something aside and save to the extent that he prospers, so that no collections will need to be made when I come.

    Notice that neither of these passages TELLS us to meet on the first day of the week.  They only indicate that Sunday was the day Christians were meeting.  Yet this is sufficient direction for the Church to have set Sunday as her meeting day for these millennia.
    Meeting on Sunday is an implied command.  It comes from an example which serves as a pattern we are to follow.  Would we be disobedient if we changed our regular meeting day to another day?*  Yes, for an implied command is still a command.  If we have rightly arrived at it, it is binding.
    Are commands really part of the Christian faith?  Aren't commandments more tied to the Old Covenant?  Well, there are about 1,050 commands in the New Testament.  Even after merging repeat commands, we have 800 of God's "do's" and "don'ts" to attend to!  Yes, commandments are very much part of the Christian faith.

    Jesus, we call You Lord, but we live in a day when Your disciples are uncomfortable with Your commandments.  May Your will be done, Lord Jesus; help me respect and obey all of Your "do's" and "don'ts".  May I watch out for them as I read and attend to them as I live.

*  We can meet on as many days as we like, but Sunday is a necessary day to meet.

]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]
 
Philippians 4:12  
I know how to be humbled,
and I know also how to abound.
In everything and in all things
I have learned the secret
both to be filled and to be hungry,
both to abound and to be in need.



    As a missionary, Paul had a particular approach to daily necessities.  He had learned how to make do with next to nothing, but he also knew how to handle relative abundance.  Obviously, his abundance was not so abundant that it would last through his dry spells.  It was only abundant in that it was more than he needed at the moment.  He wrote the above verse concerning some money the Philippian church had sent him.  For that moment, he had more than enough.  It was important that he knew how to budget his money and bear in mind future expenses rather than immediately spend too freely on secondary supplies or services.  This is the main sense in which he knew "how to abound."
    Truly, one does not know how to abound if one does not also know how to be humbled.  What we do with a monthly or weekly paycheck shows whether we appreciate how quickly money evaporates.
    Paul is giving us one application of the lesson of Agur in Proverbs:

Proverbs 30:8   ... do not give me poverty or riches; tear for me my portion of bread

    Agur pictures God sitting at table with him, tearing from the meal's loaf of bread what Agur needed for the immediate future, what would fit in his belly until his next meal.*  The extension of this is that, on a given day, we ask God to give us what we need for that day.
    Paul had the same picture.  He knew that if God provided more than a day's portion at one sitting, it should be carefully wrapped and preserved to last longer.  Either that, or it was meant to be shared.  That's what Paul, as a Biblically thinking man, saw when God gave him abundance.
    How do you approach your abundance?

    Lord Jesus, thank You for granting Paul contentedness.  Thank You for granting me his example.  I know that I cannot have true contentment without thinking properly about my daily portion, including what to do with too much.

*  Bellies stretch.  We have to be careful not to overstretch them.

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

    "Forgive me as I forgive."  God created no lone souls.  He created each of us as a man among men.  Who I am as an individual is evidenced by how I treat others.  I cannot truly love God then fail to care whether I love man.  Loving man is one evidence God gives me for whether I do love Him.  Forgiving others is simply one manifestation of loving them.
    Forgiving others, then, is an evidence of my salvation.  It is part of the proof of whether or not I have received the new birth and the new heart that comes with it.  Forgiving may be difficult, but it is not impossible for a true child of God.  Neither can it be a matter of indifference to God's offspring when they read:

Matthew 6:14, 15  For if you forgive men their offences, your heavenly Father also will forgive you yours ,  but if you do not forgive men their offences, neither will your Father forgive your offences.

    A child of God is naturally concerned when he reads this.  He is concerned lest his lack of forgiveness defines him as someone without God's pardon.
    No Christian educated in Scriptures will believe that his forgiveness of others is the basis for his own salvation.  He knows that no goodness of his own, however necessary, can be his foundation for acceptance with God.  He knows that his willingness and ability to forgive can only be an evidence of his regeneration.  The question now is this:  How sure an evidence is it?
    This is the question that our generation thoroughly misjudges.  Having determined that our ability to forgive is not the root of our salvation, we think we have answered the question.  Rather, we have only qualified the answer.  The Bible consistently moves beyond the question of the root of the tree to its fruit.  We are assured that as certain as the root, so certain is the fruit.  An uncertain fruit, then, denotes an uncertain root:

Matthew 7:16, 19, 20  You shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thorns, or figs from thistles?  ... Every tree that does not bring forth good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.  Therefore by their fruits you shall know them.

    Strangely, our generation has magnified the privacy of one's relationship with God to the extent that we are forbidden to question the reality of that relationship.  We have made a man's regeneration the great unknowable, while Jesus said it is as easy to know as what kind of fruit comes from which plant.
    How sure an evidence of eternal life is my forgiveness of others?  Absolutely sure.

    Jesus, I'd like to cut some slack to my unforgiving heart, but You have made it a dangerous matter to do so.  I know that You must cut me great slack in order to save me, but you do not thereby indulge me laziness or neglect in dealing with my grudges against others.  Give me grace to deal with grudges.  Give me grace as I do so today.

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

    How can I intelligently ask God not to lead me into temptation?  What does that request mean?  I know He doesn't want me just repeating words as part of a religious formula.  Jesus is teaching me a concept in the sixth request, albeit a heavy one.  What do I make of it?
    Probably the greatest key to understanding the first half of the sixth request is the second half of it:

Matthew 6:13   ... but save us from evil.
                                                                         Darby Translation

    "But" save us.  Don't let this happen (being led into temptation), but do make that happen (deliverance from evil).  Don't incline me to  evil; rather, draw me away  from it.  
    We are either being rescued from temptation OR else we are being  led into it.  It is not too much to say that every moment of our lives is a moment in which we are being liberated from temptation more OR ELSE following temptation more.  A spiritual snapshot of us would reveal one state more than the other at any given moment.
    Being led into temptation does not mean being given over wholesale to wicked practices.  We may lead a fairly uneventful life, with no particular attention to spiritual battle, and yet be firmly in the grip of temptation.  Most men on earth are fully fallen to temptation and have never been free of it.  Apart from God's deliverance, their only possible path is movement further along temptation's trail.*
    Salvation is the distinguishing mercy of God in which He  1) sets a man's soul at liberty and   2) empowers him to keep walking, ever away from the land of his bondage and ever toward his blessed new homeland of liberty.  This empowerment is the mercy we solicit in the sixth request.
    Those who have been set free must seek to be newly disentangled from self's shackles daily.  This ongoing liberation is the reverse of being led into temptation.  This emancipation, then, is the very deliverance from evil that we are to request.  Hence, conversely, being led into temptation is the absence of this deliverance; it is stepping (further) into enslavement to sin.

    Lord, thank You for showing me what being led into temptation is by showing me its opposite, being delivered from evil.  I must crave the one as much as I must dread the other.  Help me to do both.

* This does not mean that God does not mitigate the effects of men's foolish inclinations.  A man who lives his whole life under the prevailing influence of his own sinfulness is still fairly covered with God's mercies.

]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]
~
 
Philippians 4:6  
Be anxious about nothing,
but in everything by prayer
and by petition
with thanksgivings,
let your requests
be made known
to God

    Should a Christian pray for his needs?  Or is that selfish?
    Certainly a Christian should pray for his needs:

 Philippians 4:6  Be anxious about nothing, but in everything by prayer and by petition with thanksgivings, let your requests be made known to God

    But we are also warned that if our requests become self-centered, we should not expect God to grant them:

 James 4:3  You ask and do not receive, because ye ask amiss, to squander it in your pursuit of sensual pleasures.

    So are we left to seek some middle ground between need and greed?  How will we truly know our own motives?  Wouldn't some requests of need be exactly the same as some greedy ones except for how they are prayed?

    The only way to ground our prayers is to pray according to the instructions we are given.  The most explicit description of prayer we have came from Jesus' own teachings:  we call it the Lord's prayer.  We find that the outline Jesus gave us helps tremendously in curbing selfish prayers.  Jesus teaches us to pray three requests seeking God's glory, then three more appealing for our human needs.  Jesus' layout of human needs second restrains self-seeking prayers.  The portrayal of human need in the Lord's Prayer also curbs thoughtless supplication.

    Thank you, Jesus, for teaching us how to pray.


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

    God's breath falls on our shoulders when He stands behind us, scanning the landscape ahead, pointing to areas where we could easily lose sight of the road and go astray, defining for us which way is safe to go (2 Tim. 3:16; Isa. 30:21).
    God's breath is the Scriptures (2 Tim. 3:16).  With them He stands behind us to point out the way ahead (Isa. 30:21).
    Yet how can we hear the correct directions if we do not understand the Scriptures precisely?  How can we keep from praying amiss if we have misunderstood what God has said, for aren't God's words the foundation for our prayers?
    There are definitely those who listen to the Scriptures yet hear the wrong directions:

2 Peter 3:15, 16  And think of the long-suffering of our Lord as salvation (as our beloved brother Paul also has written to you according to the wisdom given to him as also in all his letters, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which the unlearned and unstable twist, as also they do the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction).

    But do these men say they are twisting Scriptures?  Do they themselves know they are distorting God's Word?  No, in their own minds, they are the ones honoring Scriptures.  Wherever Peter corrected them, they would have accused him of the inconsistency.
    Is this all a matter of happenstance, then?  If I happen to hear it from Peter, I'll get it right; if  I happen to hear it from a heretic, I'll get it wrong?
    No, for the Scriptures are internally consistent.  We only need the Scriptures themselves to avoid misinterpretation.  Heretics err because they do not treat the Scriptures consistently.   They read into a passage what is not there.  They see a necessary inference where there is none.  They take a legitimate idea beyond its proper bounds.
    Jesus corrected men by  Scriptures:

Matthew 22:29  Jesus answered and said to them, You err, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God.

    The Scriptures were a sufficient answer for Jesus.  If someone misunderstood them, they could only be led back to Scriptures to correct them.
    But how likely is it that someone who consistently misreads Scriptures will suddenly see them correctly?  Again, our Scripture above:

2 Peter 3:15, 16  ... which the unlearned and unstable twist, as also they do the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction
    It is the unlearned and unstable who twist Scriptures.  These bad character traits take time to develop in men's souls and, by themselves, will not be corrected in an instant.  The factors which made these men unlearned and unstable are the ruling factors in their souls.  The unlearned are not trying to escape these factors, they promote these factors; that is why the instability has come to rule them in the first place.
    But here's the thing:  Who among us naturally interprets Scriptures correctly?  We are all born with souls bent towards the misinterpretation of Scriptures.  We are all naturally unlearned and unstable.

    Jesus, when I ask to revere Your Father's Word, I know that I am assuming a great change in my soul.  My natural-born soul would never have treated Scriptures honorably.  Even now, Lord, I look at Your words wanting them to say certain things, wanting them to be silent in certain areas.  How can I hope to hallow Your name if I am so biased?  Lord, it is truly the mighty work of a mighty God for me to receive Your words in truth!  Do this mighty work in me!

]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]
 [
Matthew 6:10  
May
Your kingdom
come

    When we request that God's kingdom arrives, what is the real void that describes His kingdom's absence?  What is particularly missing in my soul which negates God's dominion?

1 John 4:8  The one who does not love has not known God, because God is love.

    "The one who does not love."  That phrase describes everybody.  Jesus is the only man who was born into this world without a sin nature, with love.
    Of course we all have love; in fact, many loves.  It's just that none of our loves are the right kind.  It can also be said that none of them are real love:

Matthew 5:46  For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax-collectors do the same?

    The tax-collectors were Jews who collected taxes for the Roman overlords.  In a word, they were traitors.  Yet there was a certain honor even among these thieves.  They would 'watch each other's backs'.  They loved one another.  But Jesus was saying that such a love is deficient.  The right kind of love- man simply has no natural capacity for it:

Titus 3:3  For we ourselves also were once foolish, disobedient, deceived, slaving for various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another.

    Yes, the tax-collectors, or any humans, will turn on their beloved buddies in the blink of an eye.  Such is our 'love'.
    So it is REAL love which enters my soul when God's dominion enters there.  For the first time, I can love as I truly ought.  And loving as I ought means two things:  1)  understanding and seeking the beloved's* true best interest, and  2)  doing so sacrificially.  That was what Jesus did for us, and that is how He defined love:

John 13:34   I give a new commandment to you, that you should love one another; according as I loved you, you should also love one another.

    Our natural human love is deficient MAINLY because it never comprehends the beloved's true best interest.  Why not?  Because we fail to see the beloved's need for God plus his need to glorify God.  We only see the beloved's need to fulfill his natural potential or live happily.  We only conceive of his relationship with God in terms of reaching this potential.  God per se is never an actual part of the equation.  We are simply unable to unseat man from the equation and put God in the central place He logically should occupy.  That's how distant we have become from God, how distant we have become from true love.

    Lord Jesus, You are love.  You have put love in me, so now I can love.  Teach me to love, and so advance Your kingdom in me.

*  The "beloved" is whomever we are supposed to love; i.e., our neighbor.


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


    "God, may Your will be done on earth."
    If I pray this, I am asking that I have a certain relationship to God's commands.  God's commands express His will, so I am asking that I keep His commands.
    However, I will never really keep God's commands if a certain ingredient is missing from my life.  Here's the ingredient included in the psalmist's life:

Psalm 119:97  Oh how I love Your Law! It is my meditation all the day.

    If we don't have a love for God's Law, we will never really keep it.  We are simply in a wrong relationship to the Law and its author if we don't love it.  Another similar ingredient necessary to keeping God's commands is joy:

Psalm 119:111  I have inherited Your Testimonies forever; for they are the joy of my heart.

    We never really come into possession of God's words unless they are our joy.
    Most Christians have never thought about rejoicing over God's commandments.  If they have, it was in a general way.  When it comes to a specific "Do" or "Don't" from God, we usually concentrate on how to keep from muffing it (if we even give it that much thought).  Now we can see that the spiritual Christian goes much farther, comprehending a commandment as part of God's great character and rejoicing in it!

    Lord Christ, You kept all God's commandments in Your days on the earth.  You kept them with deep solemnity and deep joy.  May I walk in Your footsteps and do the same!

]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]
 
Matthew 6:11  
Give us today
our necessary bread.

    "Grant us this day our bread of subsistence."  So we are instructed to pray.
    Jesus also said:

John 6:33  For the bread of God is He coming down out of Heaven and giving life to the world.

    The crowd to which He spoke this was asking for more food, since Jesus had multiplied bread to feed them.  They were trying to manipulate Jesus into being their meal ticket by comparing Him to Moses, whom they credited with having fed the Israelites manna in the wilderness.  Jesus corrected them:

John 6:32  ... Truly, truly, I say to you, Moses did not give you that bread from Heaven, but My Father gives you the true bread from Heaven.

    Jesus was referring to Himself as the true bread from Heaven.  He continued by telling them that they had no appetite for this kind of bread:

John 6:35, 36  And Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes on Me shall never thirst.  But I said to you that you also have seen Me and do not believe.

    They had seen Jesus make physical bread but did not care that He Himself was spiritual bread to be eaten.  They did not want to 'consume' Him or His teachings in that way.
    What happened to this crowd who wanted a king, but one whom they could rule?

John 6:66  From this time many of His disciples went away into the things behind, and no longer walked with Him.

    They had been interested in Jesus a while.  Now they returned to previous interests.  If Jesus had continued to provide physical bread, they might have followed Him the rest of their lives, but it would not have been a following unto salvation.
    Jesus used this as an opportunity to teach His apostles:
John 6:67  Therefore, Jesus said to the Twelve, Do you also wish to go?

    Jesus had done no persuading with the crowd.  He told them where they stood spiritually, they showed no change, and He let them leave.  Then came the next question.  Did His close disciples wish to leave Him also?
    Jesus asks us the same question, either as part of an interested crowd or else as part of an inner circle.  Do we want Jesus on our own terms, or do we cling to Him from a sense of our spiritual starvation?

    Jesus, thank You for coming to earth to be my bread, to feed me.  If only I knew how much my soul needed You, I would be feeding upon You all the time.  That is what I ask- that I might sense my need more sharply.

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

    I can never forgive well enough to earn righteousness and a place in Heaven thereby.  To forgive that well, I would have to forgive as well as Jesus, and other men do nothing as well as Jesus.  In fact, we're barely in the same category with Him, even as far-advanced saints.  True righteousness has been implanted in us, but it begins as a seed and never knows a day's growth without the impediment of the old sin nature:

Romans 7:18  For I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwells no good thing. For desire is present with me, but I don't find it doing that which is good.

    So I do not begin with expectation of complete mastery today or any day in this life, but I do begin with expectation of progress.  Now on some days, progress may only mean a deeper exploration of my own deceitfulness and hatefulness.  That might feel like failure, but it should probably instead be counted as a closer accord with Paul's confession of Romans 7:18 above.
    Again, though, if the seed of righteousness has been planted in me, I possess the starting point from which to build real proficiency in forgiveness:

1 John 3:9  No one who has been born from God practices sin, because God's seed abides in him. Indeed, he cannot go on sinning, because he has been born from God.

    We are assured as a matter of concrete reality that a real child of God has a seed of righteousness in Him which will certainly bear results.  Mercilessness is a sin.  A child of God can and will manifest some callousness because of his old nature, but callousness cannot be the ruling feature in his life.  He "cannot go on sinning" according to the verse above.  His new nature coupled with the Holy Spirit's working will guide him through a process of departure from a ruling grudge.
    When Jesus says that our heavenly Father will not forgive us if we don't forgive others, one thing He is saying is that mercy is a sure evidence of the new birth.  Those who cannot or will not forgive are displaying one of the surest proofs possible that they have no connection to God.  God's forgiveness has not touched them, for they have no forgiveness within with which to touch others.

    Jesus, I know you intend me to be hard on myself as I search out my pitiless side.  Your Father turns no blind eye, whether I do or not.  Help me to confront specific instances of resentment in my heart.  Help me to reserve no exception to this rule, thereby deceiving myself.

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

    Being led into temptation also means following temptation.
    We tend to dislike the idea of God leading us into temptation because it sounds like we, having no particular inclination to do wrong, are tilted by God towards it anyway.  This is very much the opposite of being led into temptation.  God only leads into temptation using wrong desires already in us, as a just reward for craving them.  He creates no new wrong desires.  He increases no existing wrong desires.  The manufacture and upkeep of wrong desires is fully our contribution.
    God sees our heart inclined to some kind of sin:  bitterness, anxiety, materialism, lust...  Our conscience has already disapproved, and we have already voted our conscience down (We usually can't even recall our conscience's testimony, we stifled it so utterly).  When leading us into temptation, God simply lets out more of the reins of the sin we have approved.  He was graciously reining it in; He then allows its pull greater leeway.  He lets the sin have more dominion over us.  We made no call for escape, so He is certainly committing no injustice.  Our inclinations were calling for the sin.
    When I am led into temptation, I am merely following what I desire rather than what God commands.  God leads me when He forms the landscape ahead of me to my heart's desire.  I want less of Him?  Then less of the real Him I shall have (less of the "real" God because temptation is often the occasion when we talk our best God game)!
    An accurate view, then, is that we begin following temptation, then God continues leading us towards it.  We take off after sin, and God simply increases our opportunities to catch up to it.  Because it is idolatry, God is only allowing the idol to extract its due (the due which we pledged).
    We're not used to that concept!  God and the other gods are in competition.  Certainly God wouldn't give us over into their hands!  Certainly He wants to win us back all the time!  Ah, but that is exactly how God does so.  He acts justly in causing us to reap what we have sown, but He mercifully does so by letting that reaping be our very lesson against repeating the foolishness.
    Isn't God taking a horrid chance?  What if I fancy my chosen idol more and more?  
    INDEED!  What if my desire for God was only a false and temporary one?  Well, now at least we will know where things really stand.

    Jesus, thank You for teaching me a real fear of God, that You will not tolerate sin in me but will isolate me with it the more that I choose it.

]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]
~
 
Luke 18:1  
Now He was also telling an allegory
to them to show that it is necessary
to always be praying
and not to continue becoming discouraged,

    Why should we pray?
    Prayer is the demonstration of our belief in God.  What we really believe about God becomes evident when we pray.  We can have all sorts of fancy notions about God in our heads, but when we pray, we demonstrate what we actually believe about Him.  We relate to God in prayer according to our real concept of Him.
    Is it too much to say, then, that most Christians don't much believe in God?  When they do not pray, they demonstrate that they don't believe there's anyone there to pray to.  When they pray uncomfortably, they demonstrate lack of acquaintance with God.
    What we pray is who we are.
    From the verse in the box above, we can see that prayer also reflects our relationship to Jesus as Lord.  He is the one who gave the parable teaching the necessity of prayer.  If He is truly our Lord, we will submit to His teaching that prayer is a necessity.  That is, we will not merely agree that prayer is necessary, we will actually pray.
    Prayer, then, reveals whether we are obedient.  Prayer reveals if we are commandment keepers.  When Jesus indicates the necessity of an action, we treat Him as master when we carry out the deed.  Again, the hallmark of the past several generations of Christendom is our ingenuity in inventing ways to avoid obedience.  Prayer is a foremost example of commands we avoid.
    Why should we pray?  Jesus taught that prayer is necessary.  However stumbling my prayers are, I'd better obey first and address my clumsiness along the way.

    Jesus, teach me to pray.

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

    The Scriptures are spiritual.  Man has an automatic spiritual response to them.
    When we pray that God's name be hallowed- that His Word be revered- we are asking that our spirits be properly inclined towards holy Writ.
    There are two factors in a proper inclination towards Scriptures:
 1)  that our spirits first be newly made through the new birth;

Ezekiel 36:26  And I will 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 you a heart of flesh.

 2)  and that our newly made spirits be maintained in a proper relationship to God and His Word.  As Paul prayed for the Colossians:

Colossians 1:9  For this cause also, from the day in which we heard, we do not cease praying on your behalf, and asking that you may be filled with the full knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding

    By praying this for us, Paul showed that having spiritual understanding is not automatic.  It's not inbuilt like our balance, an ability we simply possess and naturally put into action.  Spiritual understanding only comes through a process of continually submitting ourselves to a correct understanding of Scriptures:

2 Timothy 2:15  Give diligence to present yourself approved to God, a workman unashamed, rightly dividing the Word of Truth.

    If we are admonished to rightly divide the Word of Truth, then that Word can also be wrongly divided.  Wrongly is the way we naturally deal with Scriptures.  This mishandling is what we must overcome to relate to God properly.  We must insure that we are hearing precisely what God says.  If we do not, we cannot be "filled with spiritual understanding" per Paul's prayer above.
    There is, then, a very definite academic element in our relationship with Scriptures.  God is pleased to put us to studying.  But the whole process is still ultimately a spiritual one:

John 6:63  It is the Spirit that gives life.  The flesh does not profit, nothing!  The Words which I speak to you are spirit and are life.

    Jesus claimed that His words carried a special property.  They were, and continue to be, spiritual words.  This means, for one thing, that they communicate directly to our spirits.  As we consider Jesus' words, our spirits are responding to God's Spirit.
    In all our mental sweat, then, in analyzing Scriptures, we are performing a spiritual function.  When our brains get tired, they are being drained by both intellectual exercise and spiritual exertion.  Intellectual toil in the Scriptures, then, is simply one facet of an overall spiritual endeavor.
    Again, the Scriptures are spiritual.  When we pray that God's name- His self-proclamation- be revered, we must ask that our spirits be submitted to precisely what He has proclaimed in Scriptures.

     Lord Jesus, You have spoken very personally in Scriptures, yet the only way I can hear You there is to come to an exact understanding of the words.  Make me alert to my inclination to wrongly divide those words, that I may hold myself to a straight reading of Your self-assertions.

]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]
 
Matthew 6:10  
May
Your kingdom
come

     Men have a natural kind of human love without God's love in their souls:

Matthew 5:46   For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have?  Do not even the tax-collectors [i.e., traitors] do the same?

    But when God's "kingdom comes" into our souls with its new kind of love, our old kind of love, part of our "old man", competes with it.  Our old 'tax-collector', selfish type love seeks to hold sway over our new Jesus kind of unselfish love.  Adding to the problem, our old selfish love knows how to masquerade as real Christian love.
    For instance, "I'm not one to gossip, but I'm concerned about brother Milford.  Did you know that he ..."  And so our old man bonds us with a fellow-gossip in the name of Christian concern.  Meanwhile, real love sits idly on the sideline.
    We seek an out from our marriage because our old man tells us that we would be a better or happier Christian if we'd just marry godly so-and-so.
    We tell ourselves that our form of doctrine or worship must be right, because it makes us feel more love for God, even though the doctrine or routine cannot be verified by Scripture.
    Our natural, human kind of love, completely devoid of the Holy Spirit, can pose quite successfully as godly love- up to a point.  The better we know Scriptures, the more easily we can identify the fake; but most fakes are not even that difficult to recognize.  Dropping out of our marriage for a greener pasture yonder is fairly obviously a sin.  It's just that we feel so strongly about it and speak so convincingly regarding it that no one is probably going to challenge us.  We rehearse a thousand insurmountable problems with our old marriage.  God couldn't want me to stay there.
    Moving on from the more obvious examples, think of the myriad subtle ways that our fleshly (merely human and selfish) love passes for 'acceptably spiritual'.  This selfish love must be passing inspection right now, for we are not challenging it.  We live without deliberately obeying the command, "Love," yet we find no prevailing sin in our lives.
    When we entreat that God's kingdom come within us, we are asking for real love to take hold.  It is therefore essential that we be able to identify our old kind of love; otherwise, it will quietly pass itself off as the real; we will continue to assume we're OK.

    Lord Jesus, thank You that when Your kingdom holds sway, real love holds sway.  Open my eyes to see the difference between my natural, selfish love and Your real and sacrificial love.  Fill me with dissatisfaction until I operate by the real.

]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]
 
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.

    If Jesus taught us to pray, should we follow His instructions?
    This should be what's called a 'no-brainer'; it doesn't take any brain power to deduce that, yes, we should follow any instructions Jesus gave us on prayer.
    Yet here we have a passage where Jesus taught us how to pray, but who's following His instructions?  Half of Christendom feels that a prayer with borrowed words can't be a sincere prayer to God.  They thereby avoid Jesus' instructions on prayer.  
    The other half of Christendom uses the words of the prayer and yet are no closer to fulfilling Jesus' instructions.  How so?  They repeat the words without directing them as an intelligent communication to God.  They cannot use them as intelligent communication, because they have never learned what the prayer means.
    Is the prayer self-explanatory?  By no means!  The last request Jesus' teaches us to pray involves one of the most difficult doctrines in Scriptures:  God's place in our temptations.  Yet we must have at least a basic understanding of it if that part of our prayers are to be meaningful.
    Do you want Jesus to teach you to pray?  Do you have the patience to learn what He means?  Then you're in select but good company.

    Jesus, I desire Your instruction on prayer.  Forgive my ignorance and renew my mind with Your truth.


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


    When we ask that God's will be done on earth, we are asking that men would love God's commands and obey them with joy.  We ask this particularly for ourselves.
    Some verses where we see love and joy in God's commands are in the Psalms:

Psalm 119:97  Oh how I love Your Law! It is my meditation all the day.
Psalm 119:111 I have inherited Your Testimonies forever; for they are the joy of my heart.

    The psalmist had joy in the law and testimonies of the Old Testament.  We have spoken of the great number of New Testament commands we should keep (800); but what about the Old Testament?  Is the Old Testament for Christians?  Especially Old Testament commandments?
    We may answer in a general way by considering New Testament descriptions of a Christian's relationship to the Old Testament:

Romans 15:4  For whatever things were written before were written for our instruction, that through patience and encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.

    The things in the Old Testament are apparently not left behind.  God always intended for the Old Covenant writings to come over into New Covenant domain.
    But while we confess this in a general way, we know that Christians no longer sacrifice animals, for instance.  Much of the Old Covenant was fulfilled in such a way as to make our continued practice of it imprudent.  What, then, do we do with those commands- commands to make sacrificial offerings, for instance?  
    We do the same thing John the baptizer did:

John 1:29  The next day John sees Jesus coming to him and says, Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!

    When we confess and proclaim Jesus as the fulfillment of Old Covenant sacrifices, we make Him our sacrifice.  We fulfill all the sacrificial offerings of the Old Covenant in Him.
    Furthermore, we continue to make sacrifices ourselves:

Hebrews 13:15  By Him, then, let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips, confessing His name.

    We are to be just as busy as an Old Covenant priest in offering our own sacrifices.  Interestingly, our Old Testament brothers understood this very thing about themselves:

Hosea 14:2  Take with you words, and turn to Jehovah. Say to Him, Take away all iniquity, and receive us graciously, that we may repay with the calves of our lips.

    So a Christian is not in alien territory when he is ingesting the Old Testament.  Even commandments that we do not fulfill in a hands-on manner we are still to honor and obey completely.

    Lord Jesus, may Your will be done.  May I do Your will.  I know I cannot do Your will without knowing it, and I cannot know it if I sever commands You have told us to retain.  Help me understand and properly submit to all Your commandments, for they are good and given for my good.

]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]
 
Matthew 6:11  
Give us today
our necessary bread.

    Communion is a demonstration that God wants to dine with us.  He is asking us to dinner, as it were.  This was also one of the basic messages of the Tabernacle and the Temple, where the bread of the Presence was perpetually laid on a table as part of worship.
    God wants to dine with us, and He gave us communion to remind us of it.  The elements of the communion table are reminders of the means by which the gap separating us from God was bridged, allowing us to sit at table together.  
    But communion itself is a table and a meal set on it.  It is not much of a meal, all by itself, but even the solitary bread and wine are eaten in God's presence, taken from His table.  The original institution of the Lord's Table was simply a highlighting of certain elements of the Passover, which was a meal.
    The early Christians apparently continued in something close to this very exercise of the Lord's Table:

1 Corinthians 11:20, 21  Therefore when you come together into one place, this is not to eat the Lord's supper.  For in eating each one takes his own supper first; and one is hungry, and another drunken.

    "Takes his own supper" means that each family brought food to contribute to the collective meal.  Someone had to prepare the meal at Passover as well; most often, of course, the occupants of the house.  When the dining family turned into the local church, each family within the church family became the provider for the Lord's Table meal.  We must realize that this was simply the most natural way to approach the event for them.  It was the basic practice of the Passover, and it was the only precedent set by Jesus- a meal taken together.*  
    Obviously, the Corinthians were taking the meal improperly, but the correction Paul gave them was not to abandon the meal:

1 Corinthians 11:33, 34  So that, my brothers, when you come together to eat, wait for one another.  But if anyone hungers, let him eat at home, so that you do not come together to condemnation. And the rest I will set in order when I come.

    A rather simple fix for a problem which had put some of them in their graves (verse 30)!
    The point of our devotion today is not to ask this, but let us ask it before we move on:  Why doesn't the Church celebrate a meal in connection with communion any more?  What happened to the original sequence of bread, meal, wine?  What are we missing by abandoning the original formula?
    God wants to dine with us and has given us an ongoing meal to insure it.
    Do we take full advantage of communion to dine with God?  Does the fellowship carry over into the rest of our lives, for that is what it is meant to do?

    O Savior and Sacrifice, dine with me.  Let me hear Your invitation to table and hasten to be in Your company.  Let every day find me obeying Your command of the table, "Remember."  How can I forget that my Creator wants to sit at table with me?  Let me breakfast with You in my morning devotions so that I may continue to feed on Your goodness throughout the day.

* Old Covenant peace offerings were also occasions on which kin folk would get together to eat in a worship context.  



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

    Does forgiving someone's offense mean forgetting it?
    Some would claim that since our forgiving is patterned after God's, we should forget, since He does:

Isaiah 43:25  I, even I, am He who blots out your trespasses for My sake; and I will not remember your sins.

    But does this mean that God gives Himself a case of amnesia concerning our sins?  Would He actually say, "What sin?" if we brought up a sin we had previously confessed?
    This notion runs directly contrary to God's omniscience.  If God necessarily knows all things, it is contrary to His own nature to blot certain things out of His memory.  Regarding God's nature, it would be somewhat akin to God making Himself act contrary to a promise.  He simply cannot do it, Hebrews 6:18 (and this is not a limitation on His power, but only a boundary in His nature.  He can do all things consistent with righteousness).
    So if God does not absolutely forget our sins, in what sense does He cease to remember them?  Answer:  In a judicial sense.  This means that God will 'throw out' our case in terms of prosecution.  The penalty is taken care of, so there is no more case against us.  It is as though the case never existed.  So God does forget in a very real sense, just not an amnesiatic one.
    Therefore, we are not expected to erase another's offense from our minds either.  We simply choose to cease prosecuting a case against him in our hearts.  And if another's fault comes back to mind after we've forgiven it, it may be necessary for us to forgive him in our hearts again, since old angers resurface so easily.
    Practically speaking, there are some offenses we need to bear in mind.  If someone stole from us, we need to remember this to keep from providing further occasions for his temptation.  Someone with a serious weakness can't be treated as though he were morally strong.  We should not publicize his weakness, but, for his own sake, we do need to bear it in mind.
    So the old adage that to forgive is to forget is only correct in a qualified sense.

    Jesus, thank You for overlooking Your righteous case against my sins.  Actually, thank You for dealing with it head-on, for taking my sins in Yourself.  Thank You for doing this to remove my sins from me "as far as the east is from the west."  In light of this, help me to eliminate bitterness against others from my own heart.  Help me do it one resentment and one annoyance at a time.  Help me both to search out past injuries and to recognize present ones.
]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]
 
Matthew 6:13
And do not lead us
into temptation,
but deliver us
from evil.

    The wording of the sixth request implies that God can and will lead His people into temptation.  Since the Scriptures are inspired, and Jesus was conveying a weighty concept, we must assume that His words were carefully chosen and precise.
    So what does it mean for God to lead us into temptation?
    An important factor in our definition is to determine what is not meant.  We have explicit information about how God does NOT tempt:

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.

    So there is some difference between God directly tempting us, as James references it, and God leading us into temptation.  What is the difference?  
    The most important aspect in answering this is implied in the words "God is not tempted by evil".  This is saying that God is not INWARDLY DRAWN to evil.  Therefore, we might assume that James is telling us that, just as God is not inwardly pulled to evil, so He does not pull anyone else toward evil from inside that person.
    Whatever happens when we are led into temptation, God is not motivating us to sin.  Therefore, if we sin, the desire for it came from ourselves.  In fact, that's how James concludes his thought:

James 1:14  But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire.
    If nothing else, this is important in teaching us that we can never blame God for our sin.  If we sin, it's always because we wanted to.  Furthermore, we cannot blame Satan.  He can suggest, entice, and deceive, but it is for US to either concur or resist.  Our sins come from OUR OWN desires.

    Jesus, clearly I am responsible for my own sin.  Grant me never to lay the blame for my sin, either explicitly or implicitly, on anyone else, especially not You.  Your leading me into temptation will only be consistent with my freely chosen preferences.

]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]
~
 
Matthew 6:6  
But you, when you pray,
enter into your room
and shutting your door,
pray to your Father in secret.
And your Father seeing in secret
will repay you in the open.


    When Jesus taught us to pray, He first pointed out incorrect prayer to avoid:

Mat 6:5  And when you pray, you shall not be as the hypocrites ...

    "Hypocrite" simply means actor.  There were many leading religious figures in Jesus' day whom He did not hesitate to call actors.  Their acting was good enough and sincere enough to fool even themselves.  One reason they prayed was to be noticed for their prayers:

Mat 6:5  ... for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the open streets so that they may be seen of men

    Because these men believed in their hearts that they were close to God, they did not hesitate to perform public prayers to evoke admiration.  Jesus used their negative example to teach that prayer is much more than that.  Public prayer itself was not wrong.  Jesus prayed publicly on more than one occasion (e.g., John 11:41; all of John 17).  The wrong thing was to say a prayer specifically to be admired for it.  Prayer is essentially an act to be noticed by God.  Therefore, the essence of prayer is what we do in private, where we are not observed by others.
    It has been said that private prayer is the heart of true religion.  This is because a hypocrite will have no reason to bring himself before God in secret.  There is no reward for him scheduling time to talk with God.  Only those who truly long for God and His ways will invest the time and effort to bring their hearts and words into His presence privately.  Yes, private prayer or the lack of it really does reveal our true spiritual state.
    For those who have a heart longing for God, Jesus taught a prayer that would prevail with God.

    Jesus, teach me prayer, and especially teach me secret prayer.


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

    God is directing us in a very personal manner in the Scriptures.  Yet how can we hear the directions correctly if we do not understand the Scriptures precisely?  God has guaranteed the accuracy of His words down to the "jot" and the "tittle" ( the smallest letter and part of a letter in the Hebrew alphabet, Matt. 5:18), but there is no guarantee on my part that I will comprehend with similar accuracy.  In fact, I am at a distinct disadvantage:

Romans 7:14  For we know that the Law is spiritual, but I am fleshly, having been sold under sin.

    The "Law" is, literally, God's "direction", His pointing of the way.  The Law is just one portion of God's overall word.  My natural makeup, according to Paul, is to go opposite God's pointing in the Law.  God points north, I go south.  This is what Paul means when he says that the Law is spiritual, but we are fleshly.  We are opposites.
    The upshot of this to prayer is that I cannot return meaningful requests to God if I have not really heard what He spoke to me first.  My prayer will be fleshly if He does not teach me to think spiritually.  
    One consolation in our ignorance is that the apostle acknowledged the same thing about himself:

Romans 8:26  ... 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

    Even when we are fully conversant in God's language, the Scriptures, we will still need the Holy Spirit's direct intervention to keep our prayers from being a complete tangle of miscommunication.
    But what if we start out with an ignorant approach to Scriptures?  Can we presume upon the Spirit's intervention in prayer when we do not even acquaint ourselves with words He directed holy men to write in the first place?  Will the Holy Spirit help the prayers of a lazy soul?

    Jesus, thank You for sending the Holy Spirit to minister You to me.   Thank You that the Spirit's language is Scripture.  Help me to discipline myself to become expert in that communique.  Help me to spend consistent time in it daily, to master it systematically, that my prayers may be a true answer to what you have first spoken to me.

]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]
 
Matthew 6:10  
May
Your kingdom
come

    When we pray for God's kingdom to come, we are asking for Divine intrusion into earthly affairs.  We are asking, in some ways, for God to be 'rude'- to cut in on certain activities (murder, theft, etc.: routines that will not be followed in God's kingdom).  One day, He will do exactly that in a very final manner.  Until then, we pray for God's gracious influences to curb the ungodliness of men on earth.  God already does this on a daily basis, but He has a particular means by which He has intended to limit men's cruelties.  This means should be one focus of our prayers:

Matthew 5:13, 14  You are the salt of the earth, but if the salt becomes tasteless, with what shall it be salted? For it has strength for nothing any more but to be thrown out and to be trampled under by men.  You are the light of the world. A city situated on a mountain cannot be hidden.

    We are the means!   We are the instrument by which God minimizes humanity's self-destruction.  The Church- God's people- is the salt and light that God put here to partially preserve the world.  (We should say that we are probably the most obvious means by which God curbs iniquity, since we can be seen and interacted with day by day.  He has other means for restraining sin that we will discuss later.)
    So when we pray that God's kingdom comes, we must pray that the Church would be salty.  Notice that Jesus said we are salt, but that we could become "tasteless".  Our table salt can become diluted if moisture from the air combines with it.  But in Jesus' day, and still in some countries, the main kind of salt came in blocks that were gathered from the shores of receded salt lakes (like the Dead Sea) or from underground veins exposed to the surface.  These, then, would come mixed with other minerals.  When the salt portion of these dissolved, the remaining minerals were tasteless.  They actually would be thrown out and become like gravel in the streets.
    From this background picture, Jesus is telling us that Christians are the part of the world that make it worth preserving:

Ezekiel 14:13, 14  Son of man, when a land sins against Me by traitorous betraying, then I will stretch out My hand on it, and will break the staff of its bread, and will send famine on it, and will cut off man and beast from it.  And though these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, they should deliver only their own souls by their righteousness, says the Lord Jehovah.

    The implication here is that until a land becomes greatly corrupted, God will spare the land for the sake of righteous men in it.  This means that the righteous men are salt in that land.  Noah, Daniel, and Job were salt before God (they were apparently 'super salt', implying that ordinary Christians do help preserve their nations before God, only to a lesser extent).
    Using this analogy, God is the one 'tasting' a nation.  He is the one who will discard a nation when the Christian influence has become critically weak.  When the Christian influence goes missing, ungodliness prevails.
    There are a couple of questions we should ask here:
    Are you a Christian for whose sake God is preserving your country or city?  Or are you a non-factor?
    Are there any Christians in your community or nation for whose sakes God would reconsider judging the land?
    God's kingdom will advance against its adversaries.  God will decide that it is time to undo a nation for its wickedness.  Godly people in those nations cause Him to delay this decision.  Since Jesus said that we are the preserving factor in society, we should pray that we would well preserve it.  There is a definite tendency among some Christians to 'throw the world to the dogs'.  Jesus said we are the world's preservation.  We are not doing our job if we lose this ability.
    Pray that we will do our job.

    Lord, thank You for making us salt.  Through us, You have reintroduced into human society true righteousness and holiness, real compassion and peace.  We possess none of these traits on our own.  They are all created and developed by You.  Since we can lose our good attributes, to our own and the world's harm, help me to seek urgently for them.  
    O Holy Spirit, gardener, produce Your fruit in me and in all Christ's body!  Love, joy, peace- where can these come from but You?  Forbearance, kindness, goodness- how short a supply there is of these among men!  Faith, meekness, self-control- How many Christians can truly be so described?  Yet we fail our lands and our Lord when we lack them.  Do not abandon us, God, so that we will not abandon our country.


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


    Asking God in prayer that His will be done on earth is really a fairly revolutionary appeal.  That is, if we mean that God's commands should actually be carried out by all men, we are requesting a huge intrusion in the lives of most people.  Is that really what we're aiming for?
    Well, think about it.  The day is coming when all men will comply with God's commands, ready or not:

Philippians 2:10, 11  that at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow ... and that every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

    We are praying in accordance with future reality when we ask that all men comply with God's will.  All will give Him due honor one day.  Is this the kind of prayer, then, that we should 'put feet on'?  Should we tell our neighbors that since they shall bow, they should start submitting to God now?
    This may sound a little meddlesome, but think of it in comparison with staying out of our neighbors' spiritual affairs.  That wouldn't be very considerate, withholding the word of warning they need when we've been let in on it.
    The idea of intruding on neighbors usually brings up a picture of tactless souls rudely spreading their shallowness.  This does not have to be a representation we follow, though.  We should be tactful in persuading men of their obligation to submit to the true King.  Tact is merely love in action.  But tact cannot become a rule unto itself.  Consider this example:

Matthew 14:3, 4  For Herod had laid hold on John, and had bound him, and had put him in prison because of Herodias his brother Philip's wife.  For John said to him, It is not lawful for you to have her.

    For Herod's sake, John could not afford to weigh whether this testimony would hurt Herod's feelings.  There are some words that are going to sting no matter how kindly spoken.  Did John disregard tact?  It doesn't say John screamed at Herod or chided him or broke any other rule of tact.  If merely telling the truth is tactless, then we're in big trouble.  No, we assume John spoke respectfully to a ruler of his people while he told him the truth.
    Thus we should speak with our acquaintances- truthfully and thoughtfully.

    Lord Jesus, may Your will be done on earth.  That is, may men do Your will.  May I do my part in informing men of Your will.  Help me see that love really requires this of me.  Thank You for telling me the painful truth I needed to hear.

]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]
 
Matthew 6:11  
Give us today
our necessary bread.

   When we pray for our daily bread, one thing we ask is to dine on Christ Himself:

John 6:53 - 57  Then Jesus says to them, Truly, truly, I say to you, Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His blood, you do not have life in yourselves.  Whoever partakes of My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.   For My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed.   He who partakes of My flesh and drinks My blood dwells in Me, and I in him.   As the living Father has sent Me, and I live through the Father, so he who partakes of Me, even he shall live by Me.

    This paragraph was the culmination of an ongoing debate Jesus was having with a multitude that wanted Him as king.  Jesus was denying their request and pinpointing their error.  He had already stated it in more general terms:

John 6:51  I am the Living Bread which came down from Heaven. If anyone eats of this Bread, he shall live forever. And truly the bread that I will give is My flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.

    Still, this was shocking for them.  They had obviously never taken in the real meaning of the Tabernacle and Temple God had given them.  By calling on them to dine on certain sacrifices they made- the peace offering particularly- God was telling them that they needed intimate acquaintance with their sacrifices.  They and their sacrifice were to become one.  How else could their sin transfer from themselves to another?  How else could the innocence of the victim be transmitted to them?
    God had made it unmistakable for the observant:

Isaiah 53:5  But He was wounded for our transgressions; He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was on Him; and with His stripes we ourselves are healed.

    But this description of Christ as priest and sacrifice did not fit with their understanding of Messiah as glorious king and victor, so they simply filtered Isaiah's prophecy out and insisted that Jesus be their heavenly baker, ever giving fresh manna like Moses, with whom they sought to set Jesus in competition.
    Jesus used this opportunity to give the deepest explanation we have of our intimacy with Him.  We are to consume Him.  Without this ingestion, we have no Jesus.  This is the real meaning of the Lord's Table.  We are to take Jesus into ourselves.
    Realize, the eating part is nothing unusual.  God made us to be consumers.  We take things in.  We take things in physically just as we do spiritually.  We take in concepts, we take others into our hearts as friends, we take in patterns of behavior as lifestyles.
    We are born into this world starved of Jesus.  Our natural tastes spit Him out .  The question is, Has He become appetizing to us?  Do we now savor His teachings?  Do we treasure His solace?  Do we crave His mercy?  If we do, then we certainly eat Him.

     Lord Jesus, thank You for offering Yourself for me to eat.  I was suffering from digestion of the fruit of the tree of determining good and evil for myself.  This made the gospel sour fruit.  You have changed that.  May I ever more and more demonstrate my new appetite by taking in more of You and Your truth.

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

    What is a Biblical example of God forgiving but not forgetting?
    Some will need such an example to allay their stern conscience, for they have been enslaved to remorse over old injuries that come back to mind, always triggering anger and resentment anew.  They can't help the old offense returning to their minds; then they can't help their old anger rising.  They dutifully forgive the offense in God's presence once more, but they feel spiritually deficient because they can't keep it away.  Perhaps they just stop forgiving because they feel they have failed completely.
    The fact is, we are spiritually deficient, and there's no harm in having fresh evidence of it every day, especially in an area that simply requires a return to Christ's cross for renewed wholeness.
    But in terms of actual cases, God does not put our offenses out of His mind, even though He puts them out of His prosecutor's case book.  Case in point:  David.  When his sin with Bathsheba was finally uncovered, God told David:

2 Samuel 12:10 - 13  And therefore, the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised Me and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife.  So says Jehovah, Behold, I will raise up evil against you out of your own house, and I will take your wives before your eyes and give them to your neighbor. And he shall lie with your wives in the sight of this sun.  For you did it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel and before the sun.  And David said to Nathan, I have sinned against Jehovah. And Nathan said to David, Jehovah also has put away your sin; you shall not die.

    Notice that God forgave David.  He "put away his sin."  Yet He promised that death would never depart from David's house for what he did.  That's a fairly obvious sign that God would continue to bear David's sin in mind.  He was even going to bear it in mind for generations of David's house.  Murder would become part of David's legacy.  God would see to it.
    So there is no contradiction between God forgiving us and His remembering our evil deeds.  He forgives- He does not prosecute the case; and He remembers- He holds us accountable for our actions and teaches us lessons through His discipline.
    With our forgiveness of others it is a bit different.  We don't necessarily have any lessons to teach, so our remembrance of others' offenses is for making us wiser in dealing with them.  In extreme cases, God even intends to use us to teach lessons:

2 Thessalonians 3:14  And if anyone does not obey our word by this letter, mark that one and have no company with him, that he may be ashamed.

    How can we break off fellowship with someone if we have made ourselves oblivious to his error?  Obviously peoples' faults may be borne in mind even though we forgive them from the heart.  In some cases we must bear their faults in mind.

    Jesus, thank You for delivering us from a false standard of holiness.  Help me to forgive others' offenses completely, but help me to forgive anew if a grudge resurfaces.  Thank You that this is only an occasion for me to return to Your cross to remember what a huge load You freely forgave me.

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

    God can lead His people into temptation; yet I am the source of my own sin:   Two established facts (per the previous devotion on the sixth request).
    So what is God doing when He leads me into temptation?  He is not making me sin; He is not reaching into my soul and causing it to desire sin.  What IS He doing?  This is a truly critical question if we are going to intelligently and successfully pray the sixth request Jesus gave us.  It is critical in simply knowing how God deals with us!  How little confidence we can have in life if we fear that God is undermining us.
    Before defining being led into temptation, we first need to understand what temptation is.  Probably the most pivotal factor in defining temptation is the distinction between OUTWARD and INWARD temptation.  Again, of inward temptation we read:

James 1:14  But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire.

    INWARD temptation is the crucial one.  Our inner being is where sin is actually created.
    OUTWARD temptation, on the other hand, merely refers to circumstances that confront us daily.
    All OUTWARD circumstances are tests of our INNER selves.  Our response to any outward circumstance, good or bad, is a proof of what resides in our hearts.  Was God's glory the chief objective in our hearts?  Then we had sufficient strength to avoid sin in a circumstance.  Did our own glory rule us inwardly?  Then any outward circumstance would be one that led to sin.  Inward and outward temptations are therefore ALWAYS OCCURRING and are ALWAYS LINKED to one another.
    What is an example of outward temptation?

Genesis 22:1  And it came to pass after these things, that God tempted Abraham, and said to him, Abraham: and he said, Behold, here I am.*

    We all know the story of God asking Abraham to offer Isaac up as a sacrifice.  God put this outward circumstance before Abraham, testing his inward response.  Here is our question, then:  Did God violate James 1:13 when He tempted Abraham?

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.

    This is where we must distinguish between outward temptation and inward.  God does not do the inward kind of tempting.  That's what James 1:13 says.  Outward temptation simply means an outward circumstance for the purpose of testing.  God certainly does that.  Witness Genesis 22:1.  These two verses, then, force us to recognize two separate categories of temptation.
    These two categories of temptation, both amply and plainly testified in Scripture, give us a promising foundation for understanding the sixth request of the Disciple's Prayer.

    O Father, I know that You can tempt us by outward circumstance.  I see that You did so when you were ready to approve and reward Abraham, so let me not fear that You may mishandle my life in tempting me.

* Some Bible versions, instead of "tempted", have "tested", which is an equally suitable translation.  However, the Hebrew word used here for "tempted" is quoted in the New Testament, and the Greek word used is related to "tempted" in James 1:14 above.  Bible writers didn't use one word for inward temptation and another for outward.  If there is a difference, the context of a passage must determine which kind the writer is referencing.

]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]
~
 
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.

    Jesus taught us to bring six requests before God.
    The first three focus us on God:

 1)  that His name be magnified;
 2)  that He would reign;
 3)  that His commands would be obeyed on earth.

    The last three requests convey our needs to God:
 4)  to grant our earthly needs;
 5)  to forgive us;
 6)  to deliver us from our own evil rather than subjecting us to it.

    This general layout of prayer teaches one primary lesson.  Matters concerning God have priority in our prayers over matters of our own need.  Or you might say that the matter of our greatest concern should be God, not ourselves.
    It is amazing how even this simple insight impeaches most human prayer.  We naturally bring our own needs before God and then have no answering concern for God's name, kingdom or will.  Jesus turns the process completely around.
    Is this an unrealistic expectation, that we should be able to play down our own needs until we have addressed God's glory?  Only if our goal is to get what we want.  On the other hand, if it is our desire to rightly relate to God, Jesus' model is indispensable.

    Thank You, Jesus, for teaching me to put God first in prayer.

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

    When we ask that God's name be hallowed, we ask that His Word be treated reverently.  We ask this first for ourselves.  If we pray wisely, we realize our natural penchant to mishandle the Scriptures.  We must pray for grace to overcome our spiritual ignorance and clumsiness.
    A common way we misread Scriptures is to ADD to them factors which are not there:

Proverbs 30:6  Do not add to His Words, that He not reprove you, and you be found a liar.

    Adding to God's words simply means that I supply what is already in my head to what I read or study.  I have certain notions in my head; I read a passage which calls those notions forth.  I naturally paint the passage in my mind with the brush of my own notions.
    How easy is this to do?  It is so easy that it is virtually unavoidable for all but the very discerning.  Most men do not have time to consider the words they read carefully enough.  If they don't get it on first impression, they're not interested in digging any further.
    But is God making things unnecessarily hard on us?   Does He speak in ambiguous language to test our mental powers?
    No, God speaks very precisely, BUT He does not speak in "legal-ese" just to avoid imprecision.  (As we all know, "legal-ese" becomes the easiest language in which to find loopholes.)  Here is a sample text illustrating the problem:

John 3:17  For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but so that the world might be saved through Him.

    When we read the first phrase of this verse, our human minds furnish one of two concepts.  We either conceive of the Son not condemning the world 'immediately', or we conceive of Him not condemning the world 'at all'.  Either reading is grammatically permissible, but only one can be factually correct.
    Is this an ambiguity?  Could God have cleared it up by adding the words "immediately" or "at all"?  No, as we have said, such 'legal-ese' would only generate a whole new level of issues.  The question is whether or not God is clear in what He did say.  The fact is, yes, He is quite clear.  In the very next verse Jesus says:

John 3:18  He who believes on Him is not condemned, but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only-begotten Son of God.

    It is therefore impossible that the Son would not condemn men "at all".  They are already condemned.  So the meaning is plain.  Jesus did not come to 'collect' on men's bills immediately; He is deferring a day of reckoning until later.
    A lazy person will say, "That's just too much thinking.  If it's that involved to arrive at the truth, then God is just expecting too much."  The faithful soul will say, "God has spoken.  I can depend on His words to be absolutely accurate and consistent!  Any knowledge I attain at this sitting will aid me in my next deliberations.  I am on a sure road to wisdom!"

    Father, I would treat Your name reverently.  Will You help me?  Help me to rise above mere academia in the study of Your Word, but help me not to despise the academic aspect of 'cleaning out my ears' to hear Your wondrous voice.

]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]
 
Matthew 6:10  
May
Your kingdom
come

    God's kingdom comes in relation to all nations.  God's kingdom comes either in or over every nation, if you will.
    To come in a nation, God's kingdom is welcomed there.  To come over a nation, God's kingdom rolls in despite opposition.   We are to pray that, one way or the other, God's kingdom will come relative to all nations.  We are to pray for the final manifestation of His kingdom- His concluding conquest of the world.  We are also to pray for His rule to be advanced on a daily basis.
    The Church is a chief means by which God broadens his healthful control:

Matthew 5:13, 14  You are the salt of the earth, but if the salt becomes tasteless, with what shall it be salted? For it has strength for nothing any more but to be thrown out and to be trampled under by men.  You are the light of the world. A city situated on a mountain cannot be hidden.

    We are the salt- flavoring, preserving and healing our society.
    We are also the light- exposing our society:

Ephesians 5:13  But all things having their true character exposed by the light are made manifest; for that which makes everything manifest is light.

    A definition for light.  Light exposes.  And Christians are to be the light of the societies in which they live.  They are to bare the true nature of those societies.  We are like investigative journalists, serving the truth by discovering and telling it.
    The main function of uncovering our society to itself is baring its blunders, but specific blunders.  We are to charge our kinfolk with sin against God.  
    But there is another more obvious connection that we usually overlook.  It would seem that it is actually less obvious.  That is, the fact that we have to do with God at all is because we were made by Him.  We only sin against God because there is a tie between us and Him that we have broken.  We most often think of that broken tie in terms of God's Law, but it is just as important to consider the prior link of our creation.  God gave us a law because He made us.
    We are light when we remind men of this, when we politely insist on it.  When we tell men that they are obligated to God because He made them, we serve men well.  They may hate us, but by so speaking, we have loved them.
    So when we pray for God's empire to draw near, we must ask that the Church take on her luminous quality.  Control will only be wrested from men's hands when they are apprised of their unrighteous hold on it.  That report is the Church being light.  And we do not divulge in order to 'get the scoop', but because of love (of both God and our neighbor).

    Lord Jesus, cause Your bride to be light, radiant with Your love.  Enraptured with love of You, we will tell men what they need to know- that You made them.  You are bound to them and they to You.  You take responsibility for what You made; therefore, no creature will escape You.  Let my words tell them that.  Let me tell them that they need not escape You, but can find refuge in You, in Your sacrifice for man's misdeeds.  Let me expose all truth, and so let me be light.  Reveal truth to me, and be light to me.

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


    When we pray that God's will- His commands- be observed on earth, do we pray anything particular about the politics of earth?  Does our prayer touch on government procedure?  If so, do we pray for any particular kind of politics to be implemented on earth?
    The way most Christians think of politics, God's will only affects government operation by affecting individuals who run governments.  Our philosophy of government is guided by an INDIVIDUALIST theology.  That is, we see God working in individuals, NOT in organizations per se.  Or we see organizations merely as collections of individuals.
    There is a sense, of course, in which this is quite true.  Every man will stand alone before God in judgment.  Moment by moment as well, God considers each man's heart uniquely.
    But this does not discount the corresponding truth that God deals with nations.  Consider the following:

Jeremiah 18:9, 10  And the instant I speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it;  if it does evil in My eye, not to obey My voice, then I will repent of the good which I had said to do good to it.

    God is somehow able to judge nations.  This means two things:  1)  there is an average spiritual 'temperature' in a nation which characterizes its people as a whole;  2)  God is able to isolate and protect righteous men when He judges a wicked nation in which they live (remember Lot?).
    So God is not strictly an individualist.  He is able to deal justly with bodies of men as well.  Thus a Christian cannot afford to be strictly an individualist.  We must be able to pray for nations.
    One way we pray for nations is by making one focus of prayer government leaders:

1 Timothy 2:1, 2  First of all then, I exhort that petitions, prayers, supplications, and thanksgivings be made on behalf of all men, for kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a tranquil and quiet existence in all godliness and dignity.
    Kings and presidents are individuals, and we certainly should pray for them individually but also as instruments through whom nations are directed.  Paul directs prayer in the above verse towards kings as policy makers.  Their policies affect the Church; we want certain outcomes for the Church; we therefore pray that kings' policies effect those outcomes.  We don't have to pray in political terms; we don't even have to know much about government policies.  We simply pray that God would influence leaders for the good of His people and all men dwelling in their lands:

Proverbs 21:1  The king's heart is in the hand of Jehovah as the rivers of water; He turns it wherever He will.

    Lord, You are King over all kings, yet You have chosen to allow rebellion which You could have easily stopped.  I am only a forgiven rebel, thankful for Your patience, so hear my prayer for my nation.  God, bless my leaders.  Their job is large and difficult.  Strengthen them against unrighteous influences.  Bless them so that the course of this nation will be favorable for Your people.  Turn us from foolish choices that have set us on a course for sure destruction.


]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]
 
John 6:53  
Then Jesus said to them,
Truly, truly, I say to you,
Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His blood,
you do not have life in yourselves.



    When Jesus told us to dine upon Himself, He was only being consistent with lessons He had given in the Old Covenant:

Leviticus 11:2, 3  Speak to the sons of Israel, saying, These are the living things which you shall eat out of all the animals which are on the earth.  Any that divides the hoof and is wholly cloven-footed, bringing up the cud, among the living things, you may eat it.

    Then God made finned and scaled fish edible, gave a list of birds to avoid, and allowed four locust-type crawlers for food.
    Why did God restrict certain animals from the Jews' diet?  Were the banned animals unhealthy to eat?  No:

Acts 10:15  And again a voice came to him a second time, What things God made clean, you do not make common.

    Here, some thousand years after pronouncing them unclean, God pronounced the same animals clean- edible.  God had put the unclean animals under a temporary ban, then, not because they were unhealthy.  God didn't transform the animals physically in Acts 10:15, He merely changed their label.  He had obviously been using them as object lessons for His people.*
    What kind of object lessons?  Simple ones.  Only scaly fish were to be eaten.  The same word for "scales" in Hebrew was used for military armor:

1 Samuel 17:5  And a bronze helmet was on his head, and he was armed with scaled armor. And the weight of the coat was five thousand shekels of bronze.

    This would have been one picture a fish's scales would have brought to mind.  As it swam in the sea surrounding it, it had protection.  As the Jews 'swam' as God's people with Gentile nations all around them, they needed spiritual armor to protect themselves from bad influences.
    Perhaps MOST importantly, such lessons remain as valid today as they were in the Old Covenant.  Even though we are not banned from physical consumption as they were, we ARE banned from the same spiritual type consumption.  There are still non-Christian lifestyles around us that we are to avoid.  The object lessons are just as present as, say, Lot's wife.  We don't need an actual mound of salt to remind us not to regret leaving worldly things behind.
    So eating is a common Scriptural way by which God teaches affiliation.  What we take in influences us.  Be careful what you take in.  Also note what you AVOID.  Why AREN'T you partaking of the Scriptures?  What is it inside you that makes them disagreeable?  If you aren't ingesting Scriptures, you aren't ingesting Jesus:

John 8:31  Then Jesus said to the Jews who believed on Him, If you continue in My Word, you are My disciples indeed.

    Lord Jesus, how could I tire of the taste of You?  You are dearer to Me than anyone.  You have done more for me than anyone.  You have loved me more than anyone.  If I believe these things, surely I will crave fellowship with You.  I will want to take in Your company.
    Thank you for the object lesson of food.  What I take in is what I become.  
    I am a starving man living among starving people.  There seems to be a muzzle on us preventing Your consumption.  It is a muzzle strapped on us by our idols.  Forgive us, Savior.  Forgive me.  Cleanse my lips to take You in again.

* Are there some animals on the banned list that are less healthy to eat?  Perhaps, but that is a separate issue.  God has left the distinguishing of healthy food to our good sense.  We are warned against men who go back to religiously banning certain foods, 1 Tim. 4:3.    


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

    There is a certain activity that accompanies real forgiveness from God:

Proverbs 28:13  He who covers his sins shall not be blessed; but whoever confesses and leaves them shall have mercy.

    Solomon was well acquainted with Israelites who hid their sins.  As a judge, he had to ferret out many such cases.  He knew, however, that many men would be able to hide many sins in the short term.  In this verse, he is saying that those sins would eventually catch up with them.  Anyway, covering a sin is the opposite of owning up to it.  Someone covering a sin was certainly not going to receive mercy from God.
    Solomon compared covering sin to someone confessing them.  Confession of sin would seem to be the real opposite of hiding sin, but that's slightly premature.  Confession is only half of the opposite of covering sin.  The other half is forsaking the sin.  And this is probably the most important insight in this devotion.
    Today, we tout a brand of mercy from God that is tied to confession alone.  Today's brand of Christianity offers men the assurance that confessing Christ's blood as their covering guarantees their forgiveness.  We just ask forgiveness, and He takes care of it.  Most of the time, this only amounts to another form of deceitfully covering up our sins.   There is no intention of departing from the sin or the opportunities that occasion it; yet the sinner carries certainly that he is alright with God.
    That is why our verse is so important.  It is he who "confesses and leaves" his sins who will find God's mercy.  This is only saying that real confession is more than just repeating the fact that we've sinned.  True confession agrees with God about the nature of our sin, the justice of our penalty, and necessity of a substitute.  Such a confession, truly made, cannot take sin lightly.  Taking sin lightly means that real confession was not made.
    "But I was sorry when I asked for forgiveness."  But did you remove the occasion for further sin?  You do not see sin as God does if you continue to give yourself opportunities to sin, nor are you really sorry for it.  God sees sin as destructive.  We see sin as a plaything if we do anything short of seeking its destruction.  Such recreation will find us well short of locating God's mercy.

    God, thank You for this definition of mercy.  Mercy is only found by those who seek to leave off with sin.  I am easily discouraged by my ease of sinning.  I know I have asked Your forgiveness before without real intention of abandoning my sin.  Renew my sincerity, Lord.  Renew my belief that You can bring me closer to holiness and further from the grips of sins that plague me.

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

    The Bible uses two definitions for temptation.  This simply means that the Bible uses words in a normal way, according to human communication as God designed it.  There aren't too many significant words we use whose dictionary definitions don't have at least two entries.  In fact, an English dictionary divides "tempt" into categories very similar to those at which we have arrived.
    Our two categories for temptation are inward and outward.  The sole source for inward temptation is man.  Our own hearts manufacture all the real pull towards sin that exists.  Outward temptation, then, is circumstances in life: that's all.  No outward circumstance can cause an inward temptation.  Someone in the circumstance of prayer and Bible reading can still experience inward temptation.  Conversely, someone being coaxed to commit some pleasant sin by a very persuasive seducer can completely resist the inward pull to sin.
    So much for temptation.  What, then, is BEING LED INTO TEMPTATION, for this is what we have been trying to discover in order to know how to pray.  
    Is the temptation we ask to avoid outward circumstance?  Seemingly it cannot be outward circumstance, since God obviously DOES lead us into testing circumstances, as He did Abraham:  

Genesis 22:1  And it came to pass after these things, that God tempted Abraham, and said to him, Abraham: and he said, Behold, here I am.

    Abraham would not have wisely asked to avoid the kind of test God gave him.
    Is the temptation we ask to avoid inward desire?  We already know that God can tempt no one in this way:

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.

    If the prayer was, "Father, do not tempt me," we know that this would be an unwarranted prayer.  It would be like saying, "Father, please don't lie."  He cannot do it anyway, so it would be senseless and disrespectful to ask.  But the prayer is, "Father, do not LEAD me INTO temptation."  Could the Father lead me into an inward temptation without tempting me inwardly?  If so, why would He do it?
    Let us consider for the moment:  what kind of difference could there be between God tempting us on the one hand and His leading us into temptation on the other?  The phrases themselves might imply direct activity versus indirect activity.  God tempting us would be His direct activity on our heart; God leading us into temptation would be His activity which did not directly affect our heart.
    How might we illustrate this?  You have probably heard the saying, "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink."  The two halves of that adage suggest the two activities.  Making a horse drink would be DIRECT activity.  Leading it to water would only affect its drinking INDIRECTLY.
    Adapting this maxim to the Lord's Prayer, we might say, "God can lead a man into temptation, but He won't actually tempt him."  To further develop the idea, we could say, "God can face a man's heart with the idols he has been choosing, but He won't make the man bow to them."  Stating it this way also answers the question:  "Why would God do this?"  He would face our hearts with their sinful desires BECAUSE we have already been longing for them.  Our reward for sinful desires is greater exposure to them.
    In a way, this seems very shocking.  How could God expose my heart to idolatry?  On the other hand, it simply seems just.  Why would God not let me taste the consequences for my own choices?

    Lord, Jesus, You can lead me into temptation.  You will lead me into temptation if that is the right thing to do.  But it will only be the right thing if I am choosing the wrong thing.  This, then, is obviously what You are teaching me to pray:  that my wrong desires will be exposed for what they are.  O Lord, please show me idols I am following, now while I am in Your presence.


]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]
~
 
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.

    When we use the word "our" in the Lord's Prayer, does this mean that we must ask forgiveness for others' sins?
    Yes, praying "forgive us", as we are instructed, means that in addition to praying for my own forgiveness, I must also pray for the forgiveness of the whole body of Christ.
    Isn't this taking on more than I am really able?  How can I presume to know every Christian's sins in order to pray for them?
    Actually, our corporate prayer for forgiveness is only a prayer for sins that we, as a body of Christians, have committed together.
    Take Daniel's prayer, for instance:

Daniel 9:5   we have sinned and have committed iniquity, and have done wickedly, and have rebelled, even by departing from Your commandments and from Your judgments.
Dan 9:6  Neither have we listened to Your servants the prophets, who spoke in Your name to our kings, our rulers, and our fathers, and to all the people of the land.
Dan 9:7  O Lord, righteousness belongs to You, but to us the shame of our faces, as it is today to the men of Judah and to the people of Jerusalem, and to all Israel who are near and who are afar off, through all the countries where You have driven them because of their sin which they have sinned against You.
Dan 9:8  O Lord, shame of face belongs to us, to our kings, to our rulers, and to our fathers, because we have sinned against You.


    Then take Isaiah's reference to his own sin right along with all the other Israelites:

Isaiah 6:5  Then I said, Woe is me! For I am cut off; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live amongst a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, Jehovah of Hosts.

    God will not hold us accountable for sins we haven't committed, but we are always subject to the spirit of the generation in which we live.  There will always be sins that are in common between us and all other Christians of our day.  These are the sins for which we ask corporate forgiveness.

    Jesus, thank you for saving me as part of a body and cleansing me for sins committed with that body.


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

    "Father, may Your great Name be set apart from all created things.  May I, may all men, treat You as You are worthy of being treated.  Keep us from the great sin of regarding You as lesser than You truly are.  
    "But without a constant view of Your majesty, how can I keep from falling into idolatry, walking about as though the imposing eye of God were not upon me?  And how am I to maintain such a constant view?  It is not mine for the asking.  And however much I seem to attain it in private, once I cease thinking directly upon it, it is as though I create a universe of my own where You do not exist.  
    "Poor, miserable creature that I am!  How can I rise above my lying and inventing!  When will You have intruded upon my thoughts deeply enough to make a truly lasting impression?  When will I 'walk with God'?"


]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]
 
Matthew 6:10  
May
Your kingdom
come

    God's kingdom comes.  As it comes presently, God restrains sin in the world.  God contains sin by putting the salt and the light of the Church among men- when she is actually salty and luminous.  Another way that God curbs sin is by meeting people in their dreams:

Job 33:14-18   For God speaks once, yea, twice, but not one takes notice.  In a dream, a vision of the night, when deep sleep falls on men; while they slumber on the bed;  then He opens the ear of men and seals their teaching, so that He may turn man from his act, that He might hide pride from man.   He keeps back his soul from the Pit, and his life from perishing by the sword.

    In this utterly amazing passage, Elihu gives his first piece of argumentation to Job.  Everything to this point (Job 32:6 - 33:13) had been preparation, summarizing what Job had said.  Elihu is the real key to the book of Job, for he is the only person who speaks complete truth, beginning to end.  When God speaks after Elihu, He adds nothing essentially to Elihu's speech, but only picks up with Elihu's final subject (creation) and continues it, finishing with that theme (four wondrous chapters' worth).
    So what is it that Elihu wants to tell Job first in setting him straight?  Job had put God at arm's distance from man.  He said God wasn't keeping strict accounts, as Job's three friends had suggested; if He was, He had made a mistake by punishing Job, so Job contended.
    Ah, Job, Elihu says, God is very intimate with man, and ever so.  He meets with men on a nightly basis, perhaps every man every night, but at least when we dream (which we perhaps do every night, only remembering some dreams).  Furthermore, God shapes our dreams with the purpose of shaking our pride.  Pride is our undoing.  God is preserving us by disturbing our conceit.
    So that's what dreams are made of !*  And how universal this is!  Who among men is not unsettled by his dreams?  Many dreams are strangely shaped mirrors held before us.  Whatever else happens, we are given weighty stuff to ponder about ourselves.  We may just think it all strange, but we are still affected, still tilted in our perception of the world.  Perhaps reality is not so close to my daily perceptions as I thought.  This holds me back, even if only a little.  I do not run ahead with such confidence, thus amplifying the damage my natural foolishness causes.
    Imagine a God like that !  He molds the weirdness of dreams.  He shapes them in counter-proportion to our misshapen souls.**
    Thus we see one way God causes His kingdom to come, keeps the world's folly from consuming itself.
    How do I employ that in prayer?  One way is to thank God for correcting my pride by my own dreams;  another is to ask God for opportunities to tell men, when they relate their own dreams, God's purpose for dreams.

    Lord Jesus, sovereign whose craftsmanship supervises the courses of stars as it does the images of my slumber, thank You for my dreams.  Even when they are only manifestations of my sin, You are still showing me who I am, holding a mirror for my scrutiny.  Ah, mighty pride of mine, that takes such dynamites of exploration from within just to unsettle!  May I recognize and enlarge on your work, not shrugging off strange dreams, but agreeing with Your sanctifying work in them.


*  Even when dreams are merely distorted replays of the day's hectic activities (Eccl. 5:3), God still uses them to restrain our pride.
**  In prophetic dreams, God speaks directly against our pride, not indirectly through dreams' peculiarity.


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


    We are to pray that God's will be carried out on earth.  Human governments have a great affect on how men relate to God's commands.  God made it this way:

Acts 17:26  And He made every nation of men of one blood, to live on all the face of the earth, ordaining fore-appointed seasons and boundaries of their dwelling

    When God created earth and man, He already had the concept of nations in mind.  Even though one of the first nations, Babel, was built on revolt against God, nations themselves are a beneficial part of God's plan.  Nations even exist in the new heavens and earth:

Revelation 21:24  The nations will walk in its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it.

    It will probably seem strange to many that marriage does not exist in heaven, but nations will continue in the new heavens and earth.  But this should strengthen our concept of NATIONS as bodies recognized by God and entities therefore to be prayed for.
    What do we pray for nations in particular?  The key idea in praying for nations actually takes us to 'another' nation:

1 Timothy 2:1  First of all then, I exhort that petitions, prayers, supplications, and thanksgivings be made on behalf of all men, for kings and all the ones being in high position, that we may lead a tranquil and quiet existence in all godliness and dignity.

    What we pray for nations is so that "we" might receive a certain outcome.  The "we" that we pray for is the Church- God's people.  The Church is a nation too:

1 Peter 2:9  But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for possession, so that you might speak of the praises of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light

    So we are to pray that our national leaders make decisions that benefit the spiritual nation God is calling out from among all nations.

    Jesus, King over nations, hear my prayer for my country.  Bless my leaders.  Grant them wisdom for their difficult decisions.  Grant them strength to uphold the right.  Brace them against inducements to do wrong.  So may our land be a favored place.  So may Your sheep feed in pleasant pastures.  
    Also help me to be a good citizen, a blessing to my land and leaders.

]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]
 
Matthew 6:11  
Give us today
our necessary bread.

    When we ask for our required bread, we ask for both physical and spiritual nourishment.  God has always used physical consumption to teach us about spiritual consumption.  Taking in communion bread and wine is to bring our consumption of Christ to mind.  The clean and unclean animals were lessons about which spiritual influences it is safe to take in.
    The very first lesson God gave mankind was based on consumption.  There were two trees in the middle of the Garden of Eden.  Eating one brought immortality.  Eating the other was forbidden, because it brought the knowledge of good and evil.  Eating was the basis of the first moral lesson.
    Now what was the knowledge of good and evil that it should have been forbidden?  This is really a crucial question, and most people tacitly hold God to be unfair for testing Man when he couldn't tell good from evil in the first place.
    The answer to this dilemma lies in the word "knowledge".  The Biblical concept of knowledge goes much deeper than our common understanding of the word:

Genesis 4:1  And Adam knew Eve his wife. And she conceived and bore Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from Jehovah.

    "Knowledge" was a word of intimacy.  It was used for the union of man and woman in reproduction.
    How does this apply to the knowledge of good and evil?  Adam and Eve had no intimate union with morality in that they had not determined what was good and evil.  To partake of that tree would be to choose personal determination of what is right over God's definition of it.  By staying away from that tree, Adam was saying that God's definition of right and wrong was good enough.
    That tree was a tree of death in that it would separate man from God.  Man would be launching out on his own to be his own seat of morality.
    What kind of test, then, did the two trees present?  A test mirroring reality.  God made us in His image, so we possessed the concept of morality.  We stood in possible defiance of God if we disagreed with His concept of morality OR His prerogative to define it.  This was the angle Satan used to insert a wedge between us and God.  God was being miserly, hoarding this fountain of knowledge to himself, so Satan suggested.  The fruit was a way to dig our own well and cheat God at His own game.
    It is important to remember that this distrust is our inheritance today.  You and I naturally relate to God with suspicion.  That is what the fruit finalized.  We naturally feel God is holding out on us.  We naturally suspect whatever He does give us.
    Christ invites us to dine with Him.  He invites us to dine upon Him.  But to ingest Christ, the poison affects of the fruit of self-government* must be eliminated.

    Jesus, only You can reverse the course of my independence.  Only You can change my mind to receive Your counsel where I had preferred my own.  Only the blessed Spirit can minister Your submission to me, that I comply with Your call on what's good or bad.  Otherwise I'm stuck, ever trusting myself, ever suspecting You, ever assuming that my stance on morality is superior to Yours.
    Change me, then, merciful Savior.  Save me from myself.  Change me in ways I couldn't even hope to expect, but which are absolutely necessary.  Make me a child, fully, contentedly trusting in You- in Your call in every area.

*  There is a proper type of self-government, under the government of God.

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

    What is the meaning of 1 John 1:9?

1 John 1:9  if we are confessing the sins of ours, steadfast He is and righteous that He may forgive us the sins, and cleanse us from every unrighteousness

    Since most of us have heard this verse before, this more literal translation might help us recapture some of its robustness.
    Proverbs 28:13 told us that if we "confess and forsake" our sins we will locate mercy.  1 John 1:9 seems to say that we only have to confess, no forsaking necessary.  This is more consistent to the modern ear, tuned as it is to unrestricted grace.  But our generation must learn the meaning of the verse,

Galatians 5:13  ... Only do not use the liberty for an opportunity to the flesh

    False teachers were training the Galatians to shape the Gospel into a more desirable form.  Their form was legalism, ours is lawlessness.  Both cater to the flesh- to what is humanly appealing.  We have made grace, God's means of liberation, into a mere acknowledgment on man's part- no further effort required.  I simply say I'm a sinner in need of Christ as Savior and all is done.
    But 1 John 1:9 will not allow this.  "Confess" is a compound word meaning "say the same".  If we truly confess, we "say the same" thing about sin that God says.  Now here's the kind of thing God says about sin:

James 4:8, 9  Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, sinners! And purify your hearts, double minded ones!  Be distressed, and mourn, and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy into shame.

    And yet our generation assures men that they have "drawn near to God" by simply agreeing with the fact of their sinfulness and their need of salvation.  But where's the sincerity if we haven't really agreed with God about what sin is?  True agreement would mean that we were "distressed", etc., etc., as above.  Yet our contemporaries would deem any great show of sorrow a lack of faith in God's forgiveness.  "Get up from your sobbing, man!  We don't earn salvation by groveling!"  No, but we don't understand salvation without being deeply disturbed by our sin- disturbed to the point of tears.
    And anything that moves us to tears will also move us to "leave off" with that activity.  So the call to confess our sins entails a call to forsake them.

    O merciful Savior, even if I become a fountain of tears over my sins, I will still not loathe sin enough.  Yet I am not moved to tears over my transgressions.  Why not?  If I read James 4:9 as a simple command, I must be so moved.  There has to be some path to closer agreement with Your feelings about sin.  Please put me on that path today.  I will know I am closer to arrival when my mourning can produce tears put to their truest use.

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

    There is a prayer in Scriptures which parallels the sixth request of the Lord's Prayer very closely:

Psalm 119:36  Bow my heart to Your testimonies, and not to unjust gain.

    This request asks God to do two things.  Perhaps more accurately, it asks God TO do one thing and NOT to do another.  In either case, both requests ask God to perform an action on my heart.  They are asking God to "bow" or "incline" my heart.
    The Hebrew word for "bow" means to stretch or bend.  If I ask God to bend my heart, I am asking that MY OWN INCLINATIONS come under God's guiding hand.  Such a request says, in effect, that I do not want my own choices to have free reign.  I actually want limitations on my free will.  I do not freely choose good very well, so I want God to help me do so.  My heart stretches its 'hand' toward forbidden objects so easily, I need God to step in and incline my heart differently.
    Now here is a very, very interesting observation.  Most men accommodate themselves fairly comfortably to the idea of God stepping in to help their hearts do right.  But now suggest that God might also incline their hearts to do wrong and-  WELL!  -that simply will not do!
    Yet that is exactly what the psalmist suggests.
    By asking God not to bow his heart to unjust gain, the psalmist acknowledged that God does engage in that activity.  Out of nowhere?  No, only in response to the psalmist's initial pursuit of unjust gain.  And that is the crucial point.  We are not awaiting the flip of a cosmic coin.  God does nothing arbitrarily.  Righteousness absolutely guides His every decision.  He would only give us over into the hands of idols we had already begun serving.  Therefore, the psalmist was asking that God would expose to his perception any unjust gain he had already begun following.  And that is exactly the principle we are to follow in praying the sixth request.  "God, search out my heart for subtle movements towards sins I haven't noticed or haven't acknowledged."

    Jesus, thank You for the sixth request.  Thank You for parallel requests elsewhere in Scriptures.  Help me to wisely seek Your interior searchlight.  Exposing my wrong inclinations is the first step in ridding me of them.  Please do both, O merciful one.

]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]
~
 
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.

    When we call God our father in prayer, we are denoting primarily one thing: that He has given us spiritual birth.  All other aspects of God's fatherhood flow from this basic truth.  The facts that He cares compassionately for us and that He disciplines us sternly both arise from our birth ties to Him.
    John writes a whole book examining the supposition that we are born of God.  We call the book First John.  There he uses the phrase "of God", meaning 'having God as our origin', twelve times.  He uses the phrase "born of God" another seven times.  All of these are in the context of examining whether or not we come from God.  After all, what good is any other information about God if we are not even connected to Him?
    In a way, our whole Christian life is an examination of this question:  am I born of God?  Unlike the modern Church, John does not ask what we did to begin our spiritual life.  He does not ask if we received Christ or any such thing.  He knows that if we are born again, there is real spiritual life in us today.  That life has just as much evidence as an oak tree has that it is an oak or a mouse that it is a mouse.  One only has to know what to look for as evidence.  
    That's why John takes five jam-packed chapters (as the book has subsequently been divided) to examine the issue.  It is information of which we know nothing by nature.
    We won't presently discuss John's evidences for the "life of the ages" dwelling in us.  We only want to apply the idea that there are evidences.  There are evidences which tell whether we are really related as children to God.
    It should be a humbling, soul-searching matter to call God Father, then.

    O Father, if I may call you such, make me always eager to be Your child, and humble to examine whether it is so.

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

    "Father, may Your Name, Your self-revelation, be held in proper regard, by me and by all men.  May I 'press my ear' to the written word, listening for Your very voice, knowing I am hearing that voice whether I directly perceive it or not."
    Well, can we avoid hearing God's voice when we come to Scriptures?  

Hebrews 4:12  For the Word of God is living and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing apart of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.  Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in His sight, but all things are naked and opened to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.

    No, we cannot avoid hearing God's voice when we come to the Scriptures.  He is speaking, and He is speaking powerfully.  Yes, even the unbeliever is being penetrated to his core in the presence of God's Word.  He is in communication with God, normally at an intuitive level.
    All men naturally respond to God, but in a suppressive way:

Romans 1:18, 19  For the wrath of God is revealed from Heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because the thing which may be known of God is clearly revealed within them, for God revealed it to them.

    Men hear and see God all around them through what He has made.  They suppress the knowledge.  Their consciences testify of accountability for their misdeeds.  They suppress their consciences.
    Unless they are converted, their suppression will become the greatest of shocks on Judgment Day:

Romans 3:19    But we know that whatever things the Law says, it says to those who are under the Law; so that every mouth may be stopped and all the world may be under judgment before God

    Men will stand mute, finally unable to suppress God's presence any longer.  There He is, before them!
    But what about believers?  Will we be mute, too?  Yes, wherever we failed to give God's words appropriate attention, we will be ashamed:

1 John 2:28  And now, little children, abide in Him, so that when He is revealed, we may have confidence and not be ashamed before Him in His coming.

    Lord Jesus, Your Word, a sword, invisibly pierces me any time or way in which it contacts me.  How could I be unaware of that?  Is that how dull I am spiritually?  Let me rise above the numbness of the unbeliever, at least!  Help me, every time I read or hear Your Word, to seek Your work of exposing my inward parts.  Maybe then I will be more aware of it while it is happening.  Maybe then I will be more cooperative with it.