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In our culture, prayer seems to be equal parts completely natural and totally alien. We find it easy to call out to God during distress and heartache, while at the same time struggle to last more than a minute in our daily prayers. This may be because, in the midst of trial, we clearly see our inability to do anything without God. So how should we pray on those days when things seem less out of control?
Following the master
Throughout His earthly ministry, we are told that Christ prayed regularly. We aren’t often told what the God-man said to the Father, but it’s interesting to note that He did pray often. Christ lived a perfect life, walking in absolute faith and trust in God. He never had to run to the Father in repentance, yet He still turned to Him regularly. Christ understood our dependence on the almighty God of the universe, and He set that example for us.
It happened that while Jesus was praying in a certain place, after He had finished, one of His disciples said to Him, “Lord, teach us to pray just as John also taught his disciples.” (Luke 11:1)
It’s obvious that prayer should be a regular part of our lives, just as it was for Christ’s. Yet despite knowing it in our heads, we rarely understand the weight of what it means to have permission to approach such a holy and righteous God. Even those who followed Christ and heard His public prayers didn’t understand what they were supposed to do with it.
Christ then gave them an outline that, when properly understood, can shape our hearts as we prepare to approach the throne of God without fear. Although a longer version of this prayer is recorded in Matthew 6, we’ll look at Luke’s shorter recording.
And He said to them, “When you pray, say:
‘Father, hallowed be Your name.
Your kingdom come.
Give us each day our daily bread.
And forgive us our sins,
For we ourselves also forgive everyone who is indebted to us.
And lead us not into temptation.’” (Luke 11:2-4)
Let’s take this prayer line-by-line, but with a specific purpose in mind. If we’re struggling with prayer, the answer may be found in one of the ways The Lord’s Prayer reveals where our heart should be. As we examine this, keep one question in mind: Does this describe my heart when I pray?
Father
Christ begins with an intimate term for God. Not “sir,” but “Father.” Christ knows that God is not only near and approachable but loves His people as only a perfect Father can.
Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time, casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you. (1 Peter 5:6-7)
Our Father wants us to approach Him in prayer because He cares about our joy and sorrow. He’s not a distant being who wound up the universe and walked away from it. Ever since Genesis 1:1, God has been intimately and lovingly involved with His creation. The fact that He sent Christ to pay the penalty of our crimes against Him is all the proof we need that God isn’t a cold, distant deity.
We can approach God as a child can approach their father, directly and with full trust that He loves and cares for us.
Hallowed be Your name
Although Christ spoke to God with an intimate title, He didn’t treat God as a dude-bro that just wants to hang out with us. Christ recognized that God’s name is hallowed – set apart and unique from anything else. Christ held a reverence for who God is, knowing that talking to God was unlike talking to anyone else.
Who is like You among the gods, O Lord? Who is like You, majestic in holiness, awesome in praises, working wonders? (Exodus 15:11)
Christ, who had a perfect relationship with the Father, still held awe for God’s power, righteousness, justice, and everything else that makes God who He is. When we approach God, we do so knowing that we are given access to our very creator. Our encounter with God isn’t meant to feel like talking to another human being, but the very God of Heaven and Earth.
When we pray, we speak to a holy and amazing God. Nothing in this universe is like Him, and He is worthy of our worship and honor.
Your kingdom come
Christ’s first focus in His example of prayer is the same focus He had on Earth. Christ didn’t start out with His requests or praises. Instead, Christ begins His prayer with a primary focus on the will of God. As we pray, we must always remember that God is God, and we are not.
And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. (Romans 8:28)
From creation, God has always had a plan of redemption for the world. From Adam until us, God has always been working toward His perfect plan of saving people who could never save themselves. Yet it’s always for God’s glory, not our own happiness.
As we pray, our focus is on God’s will being done. We have the incredible privilege of getting to be an instrument in His hands, and the greatest life we can possibly live is one spent pursuing Christ and living in the will of God. God working things for His good may mean suffering for us, but such momentary suffering is worth it for God’s glorious purposes.
Our prayers, like our lives, must be centered on the will of God. Although we can make our requests known to Him, we must ultimately remember that God’s glory is our greatest desire, rather than our own happiness.
Give us each day our daily bread
When we approach our Father in awe and humility, we know that He does much more than care about us. This infinite God, whose justice demands that we be punished without the saving grace of Jesus Christ, loves us so deeply and specifically that He is our source of survival.
Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they? (Matthew 6:26)
God doesn’t just want us to recognize our dependence on Him when disaster strikes. He doesn’t screen our prayers to make sure we’re coming to Him with something worthwhile. God wants us to realize we depend on HIm for the smallest, most insignificant things.
No matter how Christ and His followers acquired their food each day, He recognized that it was always provided by a sovereign God. Yet notice that Christ is focusing on the very basics, knowing that God will always provide for our needs, even if He loves us too much to give us what our short-sighted hearts want.
We must remember that every good thing, even our food, is given by God’s goodness. We depend on Him for everything, and He loves us enough to hear our requests. We may not always get what we want, but He will always provide what we truly need.
And forgive us our sins
We are broken creatures who are constantly looking for satisfaction in things apart from God. We make idols out of food, children, money, relationships, popularity, and an infinite amount of other things. Although the Holy Spirit continually makes us more like Christ, we still regularly live like enemies of God. Although the blood of Christ removed God’s wrath, these daily decisions to sin still hurt our God.
If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:9)
Although we regularly use this verse in evangelism, it’s interesting to note who John was writing to. This was addressed to a group of Christians – those whose sins were already paid for. Even as Christians, we must acknowledge our constant war with our sin nature. Each sin is our own choice, with a single sinful action often being the result of a dozen sinful compromises.
The more we recognize our love for sin, the more we see our need for Christ. Just as we trust God to provide for us physically, He also sent His son to provide for us spiritually. By loving what God loves, we also hate what He hates. As we enter the presence of our holy and righteous Father, we regularly approach His pristine throne while covered in the filth of our sin. We don’t just feel bad about our bad choices – we hate them because they are against God.
We are broken and helpless sinners. Each day we must hate our sin, continually killing it through the power of the Holy Spirit. Although our wickedness can never outdo the power of the Cross, we still confess our sin because the things we love and hate are tied to the One we worship.
For we ourselves also forgive everyone who is indebted to us.
Because God forgives us for so much, we can live in harmony with others by forgiving them of so little. There’s no end to the sin that can occur between two sinners. Yet when our focus is on Jesus Christ and the cross, we start to view others as God does. We can forgive their handful of sins because God has forgiven our multitude.
For if you forgive others for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions. (Matthew 6:14-15)
We can only truly forgive others when we understand the depth of our own forgiveness. People will find all sorts of ways to sin against us. They’ll lie, steal, gossip, abuse, and manipulate us. Yet an entire world of people could never sin against us to the degree that we sin against God. If He can forgive us for so much, we can truly forgive others.
Just as our heart needs to be right with God, it also needs to be right with other people. We will be sinned against by our spouse, kids, friends, or coworkers. Although people can hurt us deeply, no one comes close to how much we sin against God. As we live in regular repentance from sin against Him, we must rely on His grace to show us how to live a life of forgiveness toward others.
And lead us not into temptation
We know our Father is holy, and to approach Him is a privilege we don’t deserve. We want our desire to be for His honor and glory, elevating God’s will above our own. Yet as we pursue a life of holiness, we still live in a fallen world that offers such alluring promises of satisfaction. We are tempted to make compromises, trying to balance our worship of an eternal God with our desire to find satisfaction in what the world offers.
You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. (James 4:4)
No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth. (Matthew 6:24)
Even in the Old Testament, we see God calling His people to be separate from the world around them. Those things around us that seem to make people so happy are loved by people who hate God. It’s no wonder that people are always chasing after love, power, money, entertainment, or sex. If they aren’t going to worship the perfect and eternal God of the universe, they must put their hope in things that are imperfect and incapable of bringing ultimate satisfaction.
As God’s people, we must recognize how tempted we are to take part in their worship. There’s no end to the flashy distractions in the world, yet each one we follow is a part of ourselves we aren’t dedicating to God. It’s one more way we aren’t pursuing the will of our holy Father, and in time we’ll realize it’s one more sin we’ve placed on Christ.
Every day, we must surrender ourselves to God. The more intimately we know Him, the more we see our own sinfulness. We must rely on Him every moment to give us the wisdom to see the temptation to sin, running to Him instead of toward the world.
As we continue to serve God in the world, we must keep our focus on Him. We know our satisfaction is in Him, and no good thing in the world could possibly offer what He can. The reason we pray, and indeed to anything in the Christian life, is for the glory of the one who is ultimately satisfying and completely unable to fail us. We want God and nothing else.
Prayer from the heart
This prayer of Christ isn’t meant to be simple words that we repeat in order to please God. It should be an accurate reflection of our heart. All of us can find a part of this prayer where our heart is lacking. It should come as no surprise, of course, that the remedy for this is found in God.
Wherever we’re weak, He gives us strength. Whatever we lack, He will provide. If there’s something about our prayer life that’s missing, then the first thing we must do is turn to Him in prayer and ask Him to draw us closer to Him. Only God can transform our hearts, making us more like Jesus Christ, both in how we pray and how we live.
