Daily Archives: November 4, 2013

Prayer: Lesson 5 – The Pattern For Prayer – The Lord’s Prayer Part 2

Prayer

LESSON 5

THE PATTERN FOR PRAYER – THE LORD’S PRAYER

PART TWO

4. GIVE US TODAY OUR DAILY BREAD

Let your word feed and nourish me every day.

Again we have to read this in the whole context of Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 5-7. Prayer is not about needs, so what is this request all about?

The Hebrew mind would automatically connect with the concept of bread in the Torah. There were two kinds of bread in the experience of the Israelites as they went through the desert into the Promised Land. “Daily bread” would refer to the manna which they gathered in the wilderness daily, while the second kind of bread was the “showbread” which was placed on the table in the Holy Place in the tabernacle and was eaten weekly by the priests.

The manna which they gathered daily except on the Sabbath, had to be processed before they could eat it. It appeared on the ground as hard seed which had to be pounded or ground into flour before they could cook it. Grinding it would release both its palatability and its nourishment.

“…that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.” Deuteronomy 8 (NIV).

God’s word is like manna. Its value is locked within the seed and needs to be worked before it releases it flavour and nourishment. Jesus is God’s word made flesh.

“The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us…”John 1:14 (NIV).

He is our nourishment.

What are we praying when we ask for daily bread? We are asking for revelation truth about Jesus, whom the Holy Spirit will reveal to us as we open our heart to Him.

Only the Holy Spirit can give us accurate understanding of God’s truth.

“But when He, the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all truth.” John 16:13a (NIV).

Question: Why do we need the Holy Spirit to reveal the truth about Jesus to us?

The Holy Spirit is the author of the Word and we need His help to understand it. If we trust our own understanding, we will be open to error and deception because the devil trades on our ignorance.

“…..The mystery of God, namely Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasure of wisdom and knowledge.” Colossians 2:2b-3.

God’s word is the manna which we have to process through prayer and meditation until the Holy Spirit unlocks its truths to our hearts and gives us insight into God’s heart for us and for the world over which we have an influence for the kingdom of God.

“Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practise (If you work these words into your lives – The Message),  is like a wise man who built his house on a rock.”  Matthew 7:24 (NIV).

“These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home, when you walk along th road, when you lie down and when you get up.” Deuteronomy 6:6-7 (NIV).

Question: Can we be part of God’s kingdom on earth if we neglect the study of God’s word and prayer?

Since these are our tools for governing on earth, without them we are useless and of no value in placing His kingdom over the kingdoms of this world.

5. FORGIVE US OUR DEBTS AS WE FORGIVE OUR DEBTORS

Cancel the debt of sin I owe you in exactly the same way as I cancel the debts of those who have sinned against me.

This is the only part of the prayer which Jesus comments on. Apart from blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, unforgiveness is the only sin for which a believer will be sent to hell. This is very serious.

Matthew 18 expands on this issue of forgiveness. Any sin, whether against God or another person, which is ultimately against God (Psalm 51:4), incurs a debt which demands payment to be made by the debtor. Once payment is made the debt is written off and no-one can demand payment a second time.

Since Jesus paid the debt for all sin for all time, when we demand payment for the debt someone owes us, we are going against God’s justice and incurring a debt of our own.

1.  Refusal to forgive places me above my debtor in an attitude of arrogance because I consider myself above God who has freely forgiven my sin because of Jesus. I make myself my own idol because I think I know better than God.

2.  Refusal to forgive is a misunderstanding of God’s grace.

3.  It sabotages ECHAD because it breaks unity, disrupts fellowship and fosters an attitude of bitterness.

4.  Refusal to forgive is a reversal of all the characteristics of God’s name which are the characteristics of kingdom citizens, humility, generosity and mercy.

This prayer invites God to treat us in exactly the same as we treat others.

Question: Has  Jesus forgiven all sin, even the sin of those who do not believe in Him?

His does paid for all sin for all people for all time. Those who do not believe have not received His gift of forgiveness and have not experienced it in their lives.

6. AND LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION BUT DELIVER US FROM THE EVIL ONE

Save me from myself.

Jesus ends this pattern prayer with the indication that He is aware of our biggest problem – not the Evil One but the evil eye – the “Yetzer Harah”. It is the inborn greed, selfishness, self-absorption and wickedness in our hearts, more than the devil, that is the cause of the mess man has created on earth. The devil plays on these things to lure us away from God’s best way to live.

If our biggest problem were the devil, we would be victims and God could not hold us responsible for our behaviour. However, together with God’s gift to us of free will comes the responsibility to choose His way and the consequences of the choices we make.

It is not in the devil’s power to make us do anything, but his capacity to deceive us is where we fall into His trap. As believers, God has given us His own nature and His indwelling presence to deliver us from the evil eye, but we are subject to deception when we do not know the truth.

Hence the prayer “Give us today our daily bread.”  Without the diligent study of God’s word to reinforce our souls with God’s truth, we will be easily caught up in Satan’s deception and the bondage to our old nature which comes with it.

And so we ask God to save us from ourselves because our selfishness and greed makes us easy prey for the devil’s deception.

Question: Where does the greatest battle against the devil take place?

In our own hearts because we still have the old nature against which we contend. Our real enemy is ourselves upon which the devil preys through his lies. We will be easy picking for him if we are not fortified by the truth.

SUMMARY – YOURS IS THE KINGDOM, THE POWER AND THE GLORY

Although this is not part of the original text, it summarises and takes us back to the first thought in this prayer. Prayer is much more about God than about us. It must be a focus on Him, on the awareness of who He is and what His will is for us within the bigger picture of His kingdom and His will for the earth.

It’s all about awareness of and dependence on Him first.  He will take care of our needs as we place our attention on what He cares about and values first of all – the display of His splendour to the world that does not know Him so that His rule can be extended across the whole earth for the sake of His name and for the good of His creation.

CONCLUSION

Our study of the Lord’s pattern prayer leads us to the conclusion that our concept of prayer and Jesus’ understanding of prayer are poles apart.

1. God, His name, His kingdom and His will should be the focus of our prayers, not ourselves and our needs.

2. God is as near to us as our breath. We do not need to attract His attention or try to gain His interest. He is our Father – our life source and supply.

3. Prayer is not getting God to meet our needs – He told us that generosity towards others creates a current that comes back to us. That’s how the kingdom of God works.

4. Prayer is acknowledging that we need God’s grace to treat others the way He treats us – generously letting go of their debts as God has let go of ours.

5. Prayer is acknowledging our weak spot – the evil eye – where Satan can get in and trip us up and asking for God’s help to lean on Him.

 

Prayer – Lesson 4: The Pattern For Prayer – The Lord’s Prayer Part 1

Prayer, , ,

LESSON FOUR

THE PATTERN FOR PRAYER – THE LORD’S PRAYER

PART ONE

 INTRODUCTION

Jesus taught His disciples this pattern prayer not to be recited, but rather that the principles in it would be a guide for all prayer interaction with the Father. It forms part of the glimpse He gives us of life in the kingdom of God – Matthew 5-7.

THE LORD’S PRAYER – Why it is a pattern?

We have looked carefully, first of all, at what prayer is not. Now we need to examine what prayer is.

As we are discovering, prayer is more about awareness than about asking. What we are asking comes into line with a greater awareness of God, who He is and what His focus, His heart and concerns are rather than ours.  Because it is natural for us to be inward-looking and need-orientated, it is absolutely necessary for us to have a pattern that shows us how God envisions prayer rather than what we think it is or should be.

There are six facets to this prayer and each leads into the next. Having  explained that prayer is not about performance, words or needs – Matthew 6:5-8.Jesus proceeds to explain what prayer is:

1. OUR FATHER IN HEAVEN

Firstly, prayer is about changing our awareness from self-awareness to God-awareness. We are approaching a perfect Father who knows our needs better than we do and who has accepted full responsibility for His children.

God is our Life-Source (our Father)

Prayer is not unique to the Christian faith. There is an inborn need in every human being, no matter what god people believe in, to worship and serve someone or something greater than ourselves. Our first priority, therefore, is to identify who we are becoming aware of.

It is vitally important to know who we are becoming aware of, not some visible but dead idol or vague unknown being out there somewhere but:

1.  He is our Father, our life-source, our Creator, the one who breathed His own life into us and to whom our spirits are fused by faith, through the Holy Spirit, so that we are ECHAD (one) with Him.

2.  He is the one on whom we are dependant for life and everything that our life involves.

“His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and goodness.” 2 Peter 1: 3ff (NIV).

3.  He is the only true God, the one who is described as “gracious, compassionate, slow to anger and full of love and faithfulness, forgiving sin…” He is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and not to be confused with any other god.

4. “Those who come to God must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him..”Hebrews 11:6 (NIV)

Secondly, prayer is about recognising that God is closer to us than our breath. We centre down into an awareness that He is here and that He is here in all the fulness of His deity. He is all-knowing and all powerful in His omnipresence. We do not call Him in to meet with us. We acknowledge and become aware that we are always with Him.

Whatever our situation or problem, He is already here, or there as we intercede for others.

God is as near to us as the breath we breathe

The God we address in prayer is unseen.  He is Spirit and we cannot and must not try to create Him in our imagination.

“God is spirit, and His worshippers must worship in spirit and in truth.” John 4:24

He has no physical form. We can know Him by what He does and where He has been.

The concept of heaven is confusing if we view heaven as some geographical place the whereabouts of which we do not know.  How do we pray to a God who lives in some place far away to which we have not access?

Just as we need to change our awareness from ourselves to God, we also need to change our awareness from God somewhere far away and inaccessible to a God who is as near to us as our breath.

“For in Him we live and move and have our being.” Acts 17:28.

Genesis 2:7 – God breathed into man the breath of life (His own ruach – breath, spirit) and man became a living being. Man has in his lungs the very breath of God.

Prayer is therefore, first of all, becoming aware that I live in the environment of God. He is spirit, He fills the entire universe and I am, therefore, immersed in His Presence like a fish in water.

Question: What can we do to develop an awareness of God?

We develop a God-awareness by putting Him in the centre of our lives and by changing our perspective on the things that happen. Jesus referred everything to God – e.g. Lazarus’ sickness and death

2. HALLOWED BE YOUR NAME

I hallow, acknowledge and become aware of Your Name

In Hebrew thought, a name was a prophetic utterance of character. Without going into detail, everything that God is, is encapsulated in His name. Therefore the God of whose presence I become aware, is not some vague, characterless being, but a God whose nature, character, values, standards, desires, intentions, plans and purposes are all summed up in His name.

Progressive revelation

God’s name was revealed progressively to His people.

To Abraham He was El Shaddai – God Almighty

To Moses and the people of Israel He was JHWH – the I AM – the intimate covenant name of God.

The understanding of individuals was enhanced and expanded through their personal experiences of God who was to them what they needed at that moment. eg, Jehovah Jireh, Jehovah Nissi, Jehovah Rapha, Jehovah Rohe, Jehovah Shalom, Jehovah Tsidkenu, Jehovah Shammah, etc.

Jesus – the name above all names

The clearest picture and demonstration of the name of God is to be found in Jesus. To see Him is to see the Father.

“I have revealed your name to those you gave me out of the world.” John 17:6 (NIV)..

To acknowledge and become aware of God’s name is to become aware of the character of Jesus as He went about doing good and healing all those who were oppressed by the devil (Acts 10:28), revealing and putting God’s name on display.

Question: How best can we hallow God’s name?

 

We hallow His name, not so much by what we say as how we live because as children of God, we wear His name.

3. YOUR KINGDOM COME, YOUR WILL BE DONE ON EARTH AS IT IS IN HEAVEN

Let me place your kingdom over the kingdoms of the world so that the world will know who you are.

This is not a vague hope for the future as much as it is the expression of a desire to be part of the future. In the unseen realm of the spirit, the government of God is implemented to perfection. God’s will, which is the expression of who He is, is perfectly done, which means that there is nothing broken, or imperfect where He rules. Only in the realm where sin has disrupted the perfection of God’s rule, is there need for restoration and renewal.

It is God’s design for us who are now representatives of His kingdom, to put God’s rule in place wherever we are as a foretaste of how His kingdom will ultimately replace all the corrupted kingdoms of this world.

Jesus is God’s appointed King –

“I have set my king on Zion, my holy hill...” Psalm 2:6(NIV)

In Matthew 5, Jesus has already explained how He kingdom rule works in the ungodly world system. As kingdom people we are not to conduct our lives the way the people in the world do. We are to live generously towards other people, treating them with love and mercy, not reacting but responding as our heavenly Father would respond. To be able to do this, we need God’s grace.

This is another piece in the puzzle about prayer. Prayer is not about us as much as it is about our part in the bigger picture of God’s kingdom – Matthew 6:33 – Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness…

As we put the pieces together, we are starting to see what prayer is all about. God is busy reestablishing His rule on earth, but He has chosen to do it through man. He does not act independently of man, His vice regent, but through him but, in turn, man must not rule independently of God.

He does this by revealing the pattern of His will to us through His word so that we can ask Him to do what He has already purposed. God does nothing on earth without us.

It is through prayer that we become aware of who God is and what He plans are for our world which is a small part of the whole world. As we put His reign in place in our world in cooperation with Him and through His power and grace, His kingdom comes and His will is done increasingly on the earth as it is done in heaven.  When Jesus returns, He will perfect what He has begun through us now.

God desires that we be partners with Him in bringing heaven to earth through our prayers and our lives as His sons and daughters.

Question: How does this teaching help you to understand your role in prayer?

 

 

Exposed!

Bible Study, , ,

EXPOSED!

“One of the Pharisees asked Him over for a meal. He went to the Pharisee’s house and sat down at the dinner table. Just then a woman of the village, the town harlot, having learned that Jesus was a guest in the home of the Pharisee, came with a bottle of very expensive perfume and stood as His feet, weeping, raining tears on His feet. Letting her hair down, she dried His feet, kissed them, and anointed them with perfume.

“When the Pharisee who had invited Him saw this, he said to himself, ‘If this man was the prophet I thought He was, He would have known what kind of woman this is who is falling all over Him.'” Luke 7:36-39 (The Message).

Talk about a hypocrite! Why on earth did this nameless Pharisee ever invite Jesus for a meal?

To share a meal in Jesus’ day and still today in some cultures, was much more than a gesture of hospitality. There was a great deal of symbolism in eating together.

The Hebrew word for a meal is shul, and for a table is shulkan. However, the word shulkan can also mean reconciliation or a lamb skin. What’s the connection? A lamb skin was sometimes used as a kind of picnic blanket where there was no table. The meaning becomes clearer when we go back to the first Passover in Egypt.

Before the children of Israel left Egypt, they were to eat the Passover meal which included the lamb they had killed for the blood which they painted onto the door frames of their houses. The blood was the symbol of reconciliation between themselves and God and between one another. They could not travel together on their long journey through the wilderness if they were at loggerheads with one another. The lamb was sacrificed and the skin used as a table for the meal they were to eat in haste before leaving.

Eating a meal together was a witness that they had no issues with one another. They would not sit down at the table if they had anything against each other. The Passover lamb was sacrificed on God’s instruction and the meal eaten in His presence because He wanted them to know that He had no issues with them. He had taken them as His people, and the blood of the lamb which foretold the sacrifice of Jesus, had reconciled them with Him.

Then why did this Pharisee invite Jesus to dinner? He was obviously putting on a show until something happened that made his unresolved antagonism rise to the surface. He was outraged when the prostitute showed up at his dinner party and washed and anointed Jesus’ feet. The same old holier-than-thou arrogance surfaced in his thoughts as was the attitude of all the Pharisees.

 

How dare she gate-crash his house during a meal and then actually touch this Jewish man, this prophet who was supposed to be aware of whom she was! So much for Jesus, the prophet! But this was all going on in his thoughts while on the outside he was smiling and eating with Jesus.

Reconciled? No way! He was just as hostile to Him as all the other Pharisees. This dinner deal was nothing but a show, as was the rest of his empty behaviour for the benefit of the people he was trying to impress.

Knowing the Pharisees, why did Jesus ever agree to accept his invitation? Once again we see the Father mirrored in the Son. Jesus had no animosity towards anyone, not even towards the Pharisees who were out to kill Him. He was willing to “smoke the peace pipe” with anyone who sincerely came to Him. Did He know what was in the heart of this Pharisee? He certainly did when the woman showed up and did what she did.

If there are any issues between you and Jesus, they are on your side, not His. His invitation still stands: “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and he with me.” Revelation 3:20 (NIV).