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9 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. ~ Matthew 6:9-11
Today, we continue our study of the sermon on the Mount found in Matthew 5-7. Today, we will begin our study of the Lord's Prayer which is really the Disciples Prayer, but suffice it to say, the Lord Jesus was instructing His disciples on how we should pray. This is a prayer the Lord Jesus taught us to pray. It is not a prayer that He himself recited. It is a prayer comprised of an address to God (Our Father in heaven), followed by a series of petitions or requests. The first three requests are vertical; the second three requests are horizontal.
In v.9 of today's passage we read, "In this manner, therefore, pray: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name."
Earlier, the Lord Jesus said that the Father knows what we need before we ask Him. In saying this, the Lord Jesus led us to focus first on Our Father, not upon our needs. The idea of God as the Father is one that takes on several connotations in Scripture. He is the Father of creation and, thus, humanity, all of humanity. The Lord Jesus taught this prayer again on a different occasion. In fact, once they noticed Him praying, one of the disciples approached Him and said, "Lord, teach us to pray." The disciple didn't say, "Lord, teach us a prayer." He said "Lord, teach us to pray." In response, the Lord Jesus gave us a prayer not to memorize or recite. This prayer is a template not meant for us to repeat it word for word, otherwise our hearts are likely tore removed from the process.
This prayer begins with "Our Father in heaven." He is "our" Father with whom a filial bond exists because of our faith placed in the work of His Son on the cross. The pronoun "our" is a word that indicates possession. It informs us to whom or what something or someone belongs. Due to this bond, which rightly calls out for a son to humble himself before his Father, the Lord Jesus instructs us, "hallowed be Your name." The word "hallow" means to sanctify or to make holy. It involves the act of setting something or someone apart for a sacred purpose. In the New Testament, it is used to describe the process by which believers are made complete through the work of the Holy Spirit, aligning us with God’s will and character. It also refers to the consecration of objects or places for divine use. In this case, it is a hallowing of the name of the Father, treating it with absolute holiness as well as expecting it to be treated in this manner by others.
In v.10 of today's passage we read, "Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven."
This verse includes two separate requests: "Your kingdom come," and "Your will be done." While these requests may have slightly different nuances, they are actually getting at the same thing. The kingdom of God points us to the One in
charge. The kingdom of God is the area in which God is King. You're probably thinking, that sounds like heaven and you would be right. In heaven everything is exactly the way that God wants it to be. Heaven is full of love, joy, peace, righteousness, justice, and truth. Our problem is that we skip the first part and immediately go to the second part. But, that is out of balance. The best way to pray is to begin with God and His rule and then work our way toward our needs. When we begin with worship of God, we gain His perspective.
I've discovered when I approach God with the right perspective, I realize He sees what I don't see. He knows what I don't know. I find that when I pray with that perspective, I am granted more faith and a broader perspective. As a result, I tend to pray with more faith. Faith is the heart's ability to see God. When I preoccupy myself with Him, I begin to see my problems and my needs from a different vantage point. I find from this transcendent perspective that my problems are not obstacles but opportunities, opportunities for my Father to reveal Himself to me more fully as He deals with my issues.
When we pray, "Your kingdom come, Your will be
done, on earth as it is in heaven," we are asking that
heaven would come to earth. We are asking that earth
would begin to look like heaven. We are asking that just
as everything in heaven is exactly the way God wants it
to be, so too everything on earth would be just the way
God wants it to be.
In Matthew 4:17, the Lord Jesus said, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." In that statement, the Lord Jesus announced that He came to earth to bring heaven. When He came, He only brought the kingdom in part. He only brought the rule of God to earth in part. When the Lord Jesus came to earth, he brought with Him love, joy, peace, righteousness, justice, and truth. He did this by granting to the repentant ones His Spirit so that His blessings might be known by them.
In v.11 of today's passage we read, "Give us this day our daily bread."
The change from "yours" to "us" clearly reveals that since we are children of God through believing in the Lord Jesus, God promises to take care of our needs. Whatever we need in life, God promises to care it for us. He doesn't promise to take care of our greeds, He promises to meet our daily needs like our need for food.
In James 1:17 we read, "Every good and perfect gift cometh down from above, from the Father of lights, in whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning."
Knowing such verses hasn't yet graduated any of us to total trust of God. We all struggle to varying degrees at trusting Him, but, when we have experienced enough of His faithfulness we will know a certain measure of trust in Him. A necessary evil in the whole process is the fact that we must go through trials. There is no growth of our faith in Him without the unwanted moments that force us to turn to and to depend upon Him. As He shows Himself faithful to us, we will grow in our trust of Him.
The root of all sin is the suspicion that God is not good. The enemy has riveted this lie so very deeply into our souls that we find it most difficult to trust God. This is why we yet struggle trusting Him, even though we have developed somewhat of a pattern of trusting Him in the past. This is why prayer or the habit of conversing with God is so very important. In time, we recognize that prayer focuses us upon God as the only One who provides for our needs.
God tells us to set our affections on things above which means that our hearts must be engaged with Him and directed by Him. Under His direction we will recognize His track record of faithfulness over time. Of course, the trials are a must in order for Him to develop a track record of faithfulness with us. We must be patient and endure the trials rather than running from the trials. When we run from the trials, we will find that we have been running from Him. This is why He implores us to seek His Kingdom first, and let Him take care of the rest.
