Saturday, June 15, 2013
Matthew 6:9-13 Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done On earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, As we forgive our debtors. And do not lead us into temptation, But deliver us from the evil one. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.
AS LUTHER TAUGHT: THE LORD'S PRAYER
The sixth and final part of Luther's Catechism speaks about the Lord's Prayer. During Jesus' ministry, His disciples asked Him to teach them how to pray. Jesus responded by giving them what we call "The Lord's Prayer".
The Lord's Prayer is both a prayer that we can pray, and a template to use in constructing our own prayers.
First of all, this prayer is directed to God. Nowhere in the Bible are we taught to pray to dead relatives, past Christians, angels, or anyone other than to the Triune God. Prayer is a heart to heart talk with God, and God only.
Jesus' prayer also teaches us to get to the point. It's just about impossible to condense the Lord's Prayer. It has no flowery church words, no rambling and empty phrases, it gets right to the point. This too is how we should endeavor to pray.
Jesus' prayer also teaches us to focus on spiritual things. Of the seven petitions found in the Lord's Prayer, only ONE of them is about physical things: "give us this day our daily bread." In this way Jesus reminds us that when we seek first the things of God's kingdom, we can be sure that He will take care of all the smaller details that we humans so often fret and worry about (see Matthew 6:25-34).
