Pray like this

DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL OF LUKE

PRAY LIKE THIS

Luke 11:1-4

11:1 One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, "Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples." 2 He said to them, "When you pray, say:

"'Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come.   3 Give us each day our daily bread. 4 Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us. And lead us not into temptation.'" 

NIV

Although this is a very famous illustration of how we should pray, there are several different versions based on some other manuscripts. Some say” Our Father who is in heaven, hallowed be your name, may your kingdom be done on earth as it is in heaven, give us each day our daily bread, Forgive us our debts as we forgive everyone who is indebted to us, and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil one”. Yet the points of this prayer, no matter which manuscript is used for translation, are all the same. What Jesus was telling his disciples was not a prayer they should recite, which is what many believers have done, in fact, many churches have done. But this is not a prayer to recite but an illustration or an outline of points we should include when we pray. Jesus was in fact telling us that we should pray to his Father, who we have to know is in heaven, because where else would he be. Hallowed or holy is his name, in fact the Jews considered his name so holy they would not even speak his name, so Jesus tells them to call him Pater or Father. He is our Father in several ways. First he created us, as a father creates children, second he gave us new birth, spiritually. He is so extremely holy, and we should not get so comfortable or casual in our relationship with him. By admitting we want his kingdom here to be like his kingdom in heaven, we are confessing our absolute obedience as his servants, his slaves, so to speak. We cannot live our own lives, pursuing, fulfilling our own desires, for if we are asking for his kingdom to be here within us, then we must live for him instead of for us. In this type of living, which is living for him, we look to him, rather than to our own efforts for our daily food. Now that can be seen in two ways. The first is the daily bread or food we eat and the second is his very words. Of course Jesus is the bread of life, and that could be the meaning here as well. In either way we want to look at it we should be looking to God to supply our need, we cannot do it ourselves. Yes we work, and earn an income, and buy the food at the store, but it is he who provides us with the work. He also provides us with Jesus and we need to be full of him each and every day. The whole idea of forgiving is that fact we all have to come to grips with the fact all of us have sin in our lives. As we ask God to forgive us each and every day, not just one time when we become a Christian, but the fact is we still have sin, and need to ask daily for forgiveness. So do all our brothers and sisters in Christ, and some of them might well do or say something which either offends us or hurts our feelings, or whatever that would cause us to get upset, which in actually we shouldn’t, but when they do, we need to forgive them. That is if we want God to forgive us. This implies very strongly that if we do not forgive, if we hold a grudge, or want to revel in our hurt for a while, God is not going to forgive us. It is that simple. As to asking our Father not to lead us into temptation seems a little odd. God would never lead us into a temptation, only Satan would do that, and thus Jesus was telling them to seek God for deliverance from the temptations that Satan confronts us with. We cannot ever be completely free of all temptations, but we need to ask God to deliver us from them, even when we fall into their trap. God does not tempt nor can he be tempted. We can be and so we seek his help. This is the attitude with which we should pray, not simply recite the words.