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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?

 

 

Who Gets The Washcloth?

Bible Study, , , ,

WHO GETS THE WASHCLOTH?

“He quoted a proverb: ‘Can a blind man guide a blind man?’ Wouldn’t they both end up in a ditch? An apprentice doesn’t lecture the master. The point is to be careful who you follow as your teacher.

“It’s easy to see a smudge on your neighbour’s face and be oblivious to the ugly sneer on your own. Do you have the nerve to say, ‘Let me wash your face for you,’ when your own face is distorted by contempt? It’s this I-know-better-than-you mentality again, playing a holier-than-thou part instead of just living your own part. Wipe that ugly sneer off your own face and you might be fit to offer a washcloth to your neighbour.'” Luke 6:39-42 (The Message).

Isn’t it amazing how right we all think we are! The world is full of blind guides who think they can see, and are leading blind people into ditches everywhere.

Jesus warned His hearers to be careful who they followed. The scribes and Pharisees,  the religious “experts” of His day, fitted His description very well — blind guides who thought they were right, so right in fact that they were ready to destroy truth for the sake of their right-ness.

Take, for example, the scientific fraternity that teaches the ridiculous theory of evolution as proven fact when every intricate detail of creation (a word they freely use, yet deny the Creator), screams out the truth that there has to be a Designer. Yet most of the people in the educated world believe they are right!

And where has that got us? Into the ditch of utter moral darkness! To accept evolution as fact and follow its ramifications is to be just like the apes we are supposed to have evolved from, devoid of common sense and reason. It takes a huge leap of faith into a deep, dark void of foolishness to believe that, in spite of the fact that every simple thing humans make needs a design, the whole of creation just “happened” by chance! Really?

How can we be safeguarded from the boffins who insist they are right regardless of the facts? Weigh up the evidence! In the Apostle Paul’s day, the Bereans were applauded for their good sense. “Now the Bereans were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.” Acts 17:11 (NIV).

What does it take to weigh up the evidence and come to an informed conclusion? It takes a humble admission that I don’t know everything, I can’t explain everything but someone else does, and I’ll take the trouble to find out from an authoritative source.

Jesus laid the problem at the door of our innate human pride. We are so blind to our own pitiful ignorance that we dare to sneer at others and offer to wash the spots off their faces when our own are blotched with contempt because we think we know better.

Test your own heart. What lies underneath those judgmental, critical thoughts, even if they are never uttered? “I’m not like that! I don’t do that! I’m better than you! I know more than you do! I’m right and you’re wrong!”

Humility is a great leveller and it opens the door to many things that pride excludes us from — wisdom, knowledge and understanding, friendship, peace and harmony with others, just for a start and, most important of all, God’s grace. “All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another because, “God opposes the proud but shows favour to the humble.” 1 Peter 5:5b (NIV).

There is one source of truth upon which we can stand with great confidence, the Word of God. Truth needs no defence. It needs only to be spoken. It will endure while lies, false teaching, and wrong thinking will all disappear because they have no substance. The Scriptures admonish us to test everything and to hold fast to that which is good.

Are you a fool or do you do that?

Like a Child

Pastor's Desk, ,

Dear Family

Quite often in the Scriptures, we find patterns of thought which are so contrary to the way we see things. We read stuff and wonder what on earth God was thinking to say what He does. For example, read this crazy stuff from Luke 6:34 & 35: “And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even ‘sinners’ lend to ‘sinners,’ expecting to be repaid in full. But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back…” Lend without expecting anything back?! Taken out of context we could end up in real trouble. Just imagine how long your business would survive with that one!

Likewise, the Master once said, “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” What? This is nearly as wacked as “I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again” Some really interesting stuff!
How on earth do we become like “little children.? Surely we need to understand what we are doing, to grow up, to mature? After all, the Apostle Paul does say: “When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.” Why on earth would we then need to become “like little children” in order to enter the kingdom of heaven? Clearly Jesus means something else.

I loved the total trust I saw in the eyes of my children when they we little. The way they would just believe what I said, listen to what I said, and usually do what I said. I loved the way they would simple adore me because I was their dad. I loved their cuddles, their kisses, their reckless abandon in demonstrating just how they felt about me. I loved them running towards me, with arms opened wide, launching into the air just knowing that I would catch them, play with them, hold them and love them. I loved praying with them at night time and seeing their confidence that they could go to sleep without fear. I loved watching their reactions when they received gifts for any occasion or just because. I loved hearing them laugh and play. Oh yes, I just loved having little children around!

Mmmmm…. Makes more sense now, doesn’t it?

Paul

Enough for Everyone

Christian Life, , ,

ENOUGH FOR EVERYONE

“Again He asked, ‘What shall I compare the kingdom of God to? It is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into a large amount of flour until it worked all through the dough.'” Luke 13:20, 21 (NIV).

When two or more parables appear together, called a ‘chain’, to interpret them correctly one must look for the common theme. This story follows the one about the smallest of seeds, the mustard seed, which grows into a tree large enough to shelter the birds. This story tells about a small amount of yeast that leavens a large amount of dough. So what’s the point?

Yeast is often used in Scripture to illustrate the permeating power of evil. During the period of the Passover celebration, the people of God had to remove all yeast from their homes. The apostle Paul picked up on this when he was dealing with the Corinthian church’s failure to deal with a member who had fallen into gross sexual sin.

“…Don’t you know that a little yeast works through a whole batch of dough? Get rid of the old yeast that you may be a new batch without yeast – as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb has been sacrificed.” 1 Corinthians 5:6, 7 (NIV).

In Jesus’ parable, however, yeast is not about evil but about the power of a small amount to permeate a large amount of dough. Such is the power of God’s kingdom to spread its influence across the entire globe. God does not work by force but by influence. Other religions tend to equate power with force. “Believe what we tell you or suffer the consequences.” God’s Spirit works by persuading and convincing, by appealing to the mind and conscience.

There have been times in history when people have turned to the Lord en masse in unusual circumstances like, for example, when the Holy Spirit fell on the believers on the day of Pentecost, and during great spiritual revivals. However, God’s way is also the slow but sure way of people influencing people one by one. Great revivals have swept people into the kingdom of God by the thousands, as have huge evangelistic campaigns all over the world. But the witness of a transformed life is able to influence the mind and convince the heart that Jesus is Lord.

Look, for example, at the experience of the Apostle Paul, a one-time Pharisee and religious fanatic, persecuting believers to the death because he thought he was right. When he was faced with the courageous witness of Stephen, the first of many who laid down their lives for the truth of the gospel, Saul of Tarsus was profoundly moved, although he was only finally convinced on the Damascus road when Jesus Himself confronted him.

The influence of Jesus’ love-slave, Paul, just one man, has touched the entire world throughout all the generations through his preaching and writings, a small amount of yeast permeating the lives of millions of people for two thousand years.

Evil produces revulsion in the hearts of sane-thinking people. Threats of death may manipulate behaviour but only the powerful influence of the gospel of Jesus can transform hearts, change behaviour and redirect destinies towards unselfish service, usefulness and eternal life in the presence of the Most High God.

This simple truth gives great encouragement to God’s children. However insignificant we may feel, however little we may be able to do, there is enough power in our little to influence those around us and to change our environment. As people see the kingdom in action, those who have a heart to respond receive the King and experience His gracious transforming power that slowly affects those around them.

And so on, and so on…

When You Pray, Say…

Prayer, , ,

WHEN YOU PRAY, SAY…

“Then He said to them, “When you pray, say, ‘Father, hallowed be your name; your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread. Forgive us our sins for we also forgive everyone who sins against us. And lead us not into temptation.'” Luke 11:2-4

I wonder how well the disciples understood what Jesus was teaching them about prayer. Did they grasp the underlying truth of God as their Father?

Unlike Matthew 6, there is no preamble to this version of the prayer. Although Jesus taught them that prayer is not about words, words are used to express the thoughts and emotions of the heart. What a world of meaning is wrapped up in the word ‘Father’! There is no prayer outside of this relationship which was made possible through Jesus. “Yet to all who received Him, to all who believed in His name, He gave the right to be called children of God…” John 1:12.

Prayer is the way sons communicate with their heavenly Father. Prayer is the conscious turning of the attention away from self to the One who is our source and sustainer, changing the focus of our attention from self and its issues to God and His attributes. Whatever words it might take to do this are only the vehicle through which this change of awareness is effected. Therefore, when a son focuses his attention on Father God, that is prayer.

This Father with whom human beings are privileged to have a relationship because of Jesus, is not outside our realm of existence and experience. Heaven is not a place up there or out there but a dimension that completely saturates the physical realm as air saturates the earth. God is everywhere and He is therefore as near to us as our breath.

Prayer is therefore, firstly, a change from my environment to the environment of God, of His presence and nearness. Secondly, it is an awareness of who He is. To hallow His name is to concentrate on His glory, “the sum of His magnificent attributes and the eternal fame of His mysterious works”. Where my attention was taken up by the issues of my life, I deliberately change my focus to the greatness of the God with whom I am engaging in love and trust as a son.

To engage with Him in this way is to put my personal concerns into the context of the bigger picture of His kingdom and will. It is also to put my failures into the context of His mercy. Since He has dealt with my load of guilt and the barrier of sin that separated me from Him, I dare not hang onto the offences that separate me from my fellow man.

Just as I am dependent upon Him for every crumb that passes my lips as a little child, I too, I depend on Him for the “bread” of heaven that nourishes my soul. And, knowing how tainted I am with the self-centred greed that has infiltrated my soul from birth, I look to Him to save me from my self-destructive ways that would ensnare and destroy me without the grace of His Spirit who is constantly at work in me.

This simple pattern prayer teaches me the essence of the attitude and disposition of a son to the Father, submitting to Him and being involved in the things that are on His heart. This is not about putting God first. This is about putting Him in the centre of my thinking and living.