A Summary of the Lord's Prayer
Matthew 6:9-13  
                             
Below is both a guide to prayer and a summary of my messages on what we refer to as the “Lord’s Prayer”. This prayer is actually how Jesus responded when his disciples asked him to teach them to pray (Luke 11:1,2). He said, ”pray like this.”

I have assembled this guide to prayer with the hope that it will be of help to you as you “cover all the bases” of your life with prayer. You may want to offer this guide to others who would benefit from an expanded outline of Jesus’ teaching on prayer.  

The Lord's Prayer: Keeping it Real"
A Guide to Praying as Jesus Taught

"The Disciples asked, 'Lord, teach us to pray.'
Jesus responded, 'Here's how". . . . Luke 11:2

“Our”

I am only one of 7 billion currently living on earth. Ponder this.

God wants his children to share. Those of us who have must share with those who have not.

I am “my brother’s keeper”.

Christianity is a “team sport”. I must live it “together” and “with”.

Be “all there” when talking to others: cell phone and TV off, lap top lid down, eyes and ears focused.

Every Christian must be an integral part of an intentional small group of believers.

Therefore we begin the Lord’s with other people, not ourselves.

“Father”

God asks us to call Him “Father”, “Abba”, which means Dad or Daddy.

God is good. God is the consummately good Father. God loves you and is faithful. You can trust Him.

He who has God and everything else has no more than he who has God as Daddy alone.

God, your Father, loves it when you tell Him all that’s going on in your life and ask him for help. He loves to provide the best for you.

“in heaven”

Heaven is not just “up there”. It is also “here”. God occupies all the space surrounding each of us.

This means that God is as close to us as the air we breathe.

God is always “with us”, encouraging, guiding and disciplining.

Heaven is also “up there”. God in Jesus Christ is Creator and Sustainer of all that is and must therefore be respected, honored and obeyed. Never, never, never take God for granted. 

“Hallowed be Your name”

I give my all to The One who first gave His All for us, for me.

I will live today in such a way that others sense through my attitude, words and actions that God is good.

My body is a temple of the Holy Spirit.

God’s name must be hallowed by way of my decisions regarding my sexual choices.

My body was made for physical intimacy within marriage between a man and a woman.

I must honor God with my TV viewing, internet browsing, what I teach my children and how I live my life.

“Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven”

The kingdom of God is the kingdom of right relationships. Are your relationships right?

The kingdom of God is where God’s will is done. Tell God you want to do His will. 
“Lord, today it is my will to do your will”.

The highest and most important prayer in the Bible is, “not my will but thy will be done”. This was Jesus’ prayer hours before he was crucified.

I can pray this prayer because I know that the outcome of trusting God is ultimately good, very good. “Seek First His Kingdom and all else will be added” Matthew 6:33

Yet beware of “Catch 22”. To seek His Kingdom in order to get the other stuff doesn’t work. To simply seek first His Kingdom regardless of what comes in return, always results in a return that is eternal.

Think GPS. The satellite which guides you through the voice of the GPS knows what it’s doing! It sees what you cannot see. God sees far more than a satellite. There are times that you will need to believe that God’s guidance, like the GPS’s, is better than your own, especially when that guidance doesn’t makes sense to you.

“Give us this day our daily bread’

We are among the richest 2% of the world’s population.

I am part of God’s supply chain to the rest of the world.

God is my supplier. My job, boss, and employer are just the delivery system.

My body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. Gluttony is a sin. I have been given the power to moderate my intake and increase the giving of “bread” to others.

Bread is also a metaphor for all my needs. “I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances”.

I have enough!

It was Jesus who said, “do not worry about tomorrow . . . seek first the Kingdom of God and all these things will be added to you

”And forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us"

Christians end the cycle of revenge and retribution by forgiving.

If I don’t forgive, I grow into a hardened person who himself cannot receive forgiveness. In that way Jesus’ teaching that he cannot forgive those who do not choose to forgive comes true.

Forgiveness is a decision carried out over a long period of time. The emotional release may not come until years after the decision.

When Jesus forgave me, he took on the pain that I have caused. That’s what He did on the cross. That’s love. I too must “take up my cross”, take on the pain of what others have done to me and forgive. All true forgiveness means absorbing undeserved pain. Yet, that’s what Christians do.

Step one? Receive the unmerited, undeserved, unearned love and forgiveness of God unto yourself. Not to do so is to miss the freedom in Christ for which you were saved (Romans 8:1) and also to break God’s heart for the heart of a Father is that his children know that he loves them.

And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.

There is “land between” (between loss of job, marriage, health, or child and what the future might hold) which is fertile ground for the temptations of discouragement, defeat, anger, blame and complaint.

It is also fertile ground for God to grow real trust, real faith, real joy. You must choose. James 1:2

There is always a way out. 1 Corinthians 10:13

If you think your Christian character is so solid that you cannot be overcome by temptation, then you are in a danger zone. “If you think you are standing firm, be careful, lest you fall”. 1 Corinthians 10:12

Some things can ONLY grow in the “land between”. Real faith and trust grow only when one has to trust, has to have faith, has to believe, against all odds, that God is good.

Open your hands. Release all to God. Receive whatever he wants to give. Then Obey.

Lean into Christian friends. It the rare, rare person who is capable of overcoming temptation alone.

For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen”.  (in the King James Version only)

The 21st century is a world of Kingdoms in Conflict.

Jesus is the one and the only ruler of the universe.

Jesus is spreading his kingdom through the worldwide church working from bottom up, from the edges in.

Jesus’ is a Kingdom of peace, right relationships and holiness.

Other “kingdoms” such as radical Islam are violent opponents of Jesus’ kingdom.

Followers of Jesus, on the other hand, to love their enemies, turn the other cheek and take up their cross.

Followers of Jesus bless those who persecute them and repay evil for good in order to change the hearts of others and to turn enemies into friends.

In the end all people, everyone who ever lived, will come face to face with Jesus as Lord of peaceful Kingdom which will have no end.

“Jesus, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
but made himself nothing,
taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself and became obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father."
Philippians 2:6-11(NIV)

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