Pray Like This
Jesus taught us how to pray in Matthew 6:9-13 in a prayer we call “The Lord’s Prayer.” The Lord’s prayer is the perfect prayer. (Unsurprisingly, the prayer contains seven petitions with seven being the number of covenant and the number of perfection and completion.) That said, for much of my life, I didn’t think too much about the Lord’s Prayer. It felt old and common. But over the past few years, I have come to understand its immense power and have made it part of my daily prayer time. Like Jesus, I now love to pray, “let not my will but Your will be done.”
Teach us to Pray
The Lord’s Prayer begins by acknowledging that God is our Father and affirms His lordship. “Our” Father refers to all of God’s children, praying this prayer in unity to the Father. You can be guaranteed others around the world are praying at the same time and the great cloud of witnesses are also praying this with you. From there, it guides us to align ourselves with God’s purposes on earth as it is in heaven. It encourages us to thank God for His provision and to step into the forgiveness Jesus offers us and then offer it to others. Finally, it tells us to call on Him to rescue us and deliver us from the enemy. The prayer covers every base, from who God is (our Father) to who we are (His children). It explains how to partner with Him and how we can trust God to provide for us and to protect us. It also clarifies how we should treat others.
‘Our Beloved Father, dwelling in the heavenly realms,
may the glory of your name
be the center on which our lives turn.Manifest your kingdom realm,
and cause your every purpose to be fulfilled on earth,
just as it is in heaven.We acknowledge you as our Provider
of all we need each day.Forgive us the wrongs we have done as we ourselves
release forgiveness to those who have wronged us.Rescue us every time we face tribulation
and set us free from evil.
For you are the King who rules
with power and glory forever. Amen.’
(Matthew 6:9-13, TPT)
It is a beautiful prayer, a gift from the Father to us. (I am so grateful Jesus taught us how to pray!)
With that in mind, how often do we declare this prayer with the awe and reverence it deserves?
Our Father in Heaven
The Lord’s prayer is listed in the book of Matthew following the Sermon on the Mount in which Jesus revealed God as Father as the centerpiece of His sermon. Jesus begins by having us address God as “our beloved Father.” His first priority was to declare God as our Father. This lays the foundation for us to see and experience the Father just as Jesus does, as our perfect loving Father. Jesus came to the earth to make a way to the Father for us and to reveal the Father (the ultimate revelation of our awesome God!).
The Father sent His son for us to receive the spirit of sonship!
Through Jesus, we have reconciliation and redemption.
Through Jesus, we have full access to His Kingdom and His presence, heavenly treasures, and to the abundant eternal life of God.
Through Jesus, we have a hope and a future.
Through Jesus, we get to know the absolute truth of His word, experience His unconditional perfect love, and His perfect discipline to name a few. No good thing does He withhold from us and everything we have that is good is a gift from our Father.
Jesus redeemed all of creation and now, we get to partner with the Father to bring transformation and reformation to a lost and dying world, on earth as it is in heaven. All of creation is groaning for the sons and daughters of God to unveil the glory of Jesus coming into harmony with God’s perfect plan.
The Sum of All Things
“For out of him, the sustainer of everything, came everything, and now everything finds fulfillment in him. May all praise and honor be given to him forever! Amen!” (Romans 11:36, TPT)
Jesus is the model for the way we are to live on the earth. When you think about it, Jesus’ life was a continual prayer and worship offering to His Father. Jesus summed up all things to the Father (the things of heaven, the things in the earth, the entire church as one body and family, etc.). This was God’s plan from the beginning of time, to complete all things in Christ.
Jesus lived in perfect union with the Father and only said what He heard the Father saying and only did what He saw the Father doing. This is why all of His prayers were answered. We can clearly see that Jesus continually uttered the Father’s prayers. Jesus lived in the will of the Father. Jesus is life. Jesus is hope. Jesus is love. Jesus is all in all and we are in life union with Him, therefore in life union with the trinity.
Through intimacy, He was connected to the heart of the Father. As a son or daughter of the King, you get to enter into the same intimate and beautiful relationship. This is what we were made for, family! Our Father is good, perfect, faithful and trustworthy! He is our Father and our friend.
Praying the Lord’s prayer is not a religious obligation but the greatest privilege and honor we could ever have as a testimony of our innocence restored through the blood of Jesus. If you want to grow in your relationship with the Father, a great place to start is to make the Lord’s Prayer a part of your daily prayer life!
