Luke 11:2- 4. “And he said unto them, When ye pray, say, Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in heaven, so in earth. Give us day by day our daily bread. And forgive us our sins; for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us, And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil.”
This is not the so called “Lord’s Prayer,” but a model prayer for the disciples then, and for us today.
From the disciples we see the need to learn to pray. They didn’t ask to be taught to preach, perform miracles nor to build a church, but to pray. They wanted what Jesus had, a relationship with the Father and a line of communication that would produce results. It’s what we need to learn as well.
From the Lord Jesus Christ we not only have a model, but life to learn from. He was and is the teacher come from God. His life demonstrated the need, time and how of prayer. He prayed early in the morning, all night, before great temptations and decisions and even in his death. Nothing distracted Him from His prayer time.
He showed us the spirit of prayer, “Our Father,” his is the first time we are told to address God as our Father. In the model prayer we hear the voice of a son, saint, subject, servant, suppliant, sinner, and sojourner. When we follow this model prayer we will recognize His holiness and His righteous love. Then we are told to watch and pray for His return and for His will to be done. Now we enter the asking mode. We are to ask for our daily bread not weekly bread. That means every day we must forgive others who have wronged us so that we can go to our Father and ask Him to forgive us our sins.
This is a must to keep us from bitterness and to assure us of unbroken fellowship with our Father. In a spiritual warfare we need protection, so we are reminded to ask for deliverance from temptation and evil.
All the asking so far has been for us now we are to move on to ask for others. Our first request would be for their salvation and then according to their needs, there would be no limit to our asking.
When we ask, we believe God for it, when we seek, we expect it from God and when we knock, we go about to get it. Thank God for our prayer partner the Holy Spirit given to us from the heavenly Father.
This model prayer given to us is simple enough for a child and thorough enough to do God’s work.
Anchor Baptist Church
456 Jamison Rd
Washington Court House, OH 43160
(740) 333-7777
