Matthew 6:9-13 “In this manner, therefore, pray: Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name. (10) Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. (11) Give us this day our daily bread. (12) And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. (13) And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.”
In this section we want to discuss certain Holy Spirit inspired prayers that believers are encouraged to pray. We will open this discussion with the scriptural account which describes our Lord Jesus having just finished praying, and His disciples asking Him to teach them to pray (Luke 11:1). And so in response to their request Jesus gave us the above quoted broad outline of prayer, to show us what we should pray for when we come before our Heavenly Father. We all know that when our Lord Jesus taught us to pray in this manner, that He was not saying that every time we kneel before the Father in prayer that we should say these exact same words. But rather when Jesus said “In this manner therefore pray”, He was giving us a broad outline of the things that we need to be bringing before the Father in prayer. And so in the light of that truth we will now examine this manner of praying so that we can have a better understanding of the way in which the Lord taught us to pray.
Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name
Psalms 100:4 “Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, And into His courts with praise. Be thankful to Him, and bless His name.”
We have already seen that before we enter before the presence of the Lord that we are required to cleanse our sin in the blood of the Lamb. And so only once we are cleansed can we then come boldly before the throne of grace. In His teaching on prayer Jesus has taught us that before we begin to petition the Father in prayer, that we should first worship God for who He is. This is in line with that which the Holy Spirit taught us in the psalms, for in the above quoted passage of scripture He taught us to enter the gates of heaven with thanksgiving, and to enter the courts of heaven with praise, blessing the name of our God. And so we see that we do not enter the presence of God with our petitions, but rather that we enter with praise.
Your kingdom come
Luke 10:2 “Then He said to them, "The harvest truly is great, but the labourers are few; therefore, pray the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into His harvest.”
In His teaching on prayer Jesus has taught us to pray that the kingdom of God would come. So what did Jesus mean by that statement? The scriptures teach us that the kingdom of God comes through those who preach the gospel (Mark 1:14). That concept is in line with what the Lord taught us in the above quoted passage of scripture, for in this passage He taught us that the harvest is great and that the labourers are few, and that we must pray that God would send forth labourers into the harvest. And so we see that part of our daily prayers before God, must be for the gospel of salvation to be freely preached throughout the nations in which we live.
Michael E.B. Maher
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