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

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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?

 

 

Mission Accomplished!

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MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!

“The head man in that part of the island was Publius. He took us into his home as his guests, drying us out and putting us up in fine style for the next three days. Publius’ father was sick at the time, down with a high fever and dysentery. Paul went to the old man’s room, and when he laid hands on him and prayed, the man was healed. Word of the healing got around fast, and soon everyone on the island who was sick came and got healed.” Acts 28:7-9 (The Message).

Imagine a small community of islanders having to play host to 256 unexpected guests, and not just for a day!

But with Paul among them, they were not parasites. Through him, God repaid their hosts’ kindness and generosity in ways that were far beyond what money could buy. Wherever he went, you could count on it that Paul would share his priceless message and the mercy of God that reached out to all people. In the unshakeable knowledge of God’s grace, he gave away the gift of healing to people who were ignorant and undeserving but who needed to know Him as much as anyone else.

Once again the devil’s agenda was thwarted and what could have been a terrible disaster turned out to be another of God’s opportunities to share His love with an isolated community which might not have otherwise heard. Paul did it in a very practical way, dispensing healing through the power of the Holy Spirit to the whole island. I’m sure many of the people would have wished they were sick just to experience God’s healing power!

“We spent a wonderful three months on Malta. They treated us royally, took care of all our needs and outfitted us for the rest of the journey. When an Egyptian ship that wintered there in the harbour prepared to leave for Italy, we got on board. The ship had a carved Gemini for its figurehead: “The Heavenly Twins.”

“We put in at Syracuse for three days and then went up the coast to Rhegium. Two days later, with the wind out of the south, we sailed into the Bay of Naples. We found Christian friends there and stayed with them for a week.” Acts 28:10-14 (The Message).

Mission accomplished! The Roman centurion and soldiers must have breathed a sigh of relief when they placed their feet on Italian soil. Luke does not specify, but it seems that the centurion trusted Paul enough to allow him to stay with friends until they could deliver him to Caesar. Perhaps he left him in the custody of one or two soldiers while he continued on to Rome to make arrangements for Paul.

One wonders why Luke commented on the figurehead on the Egyptian ship. Was he telling his reader that the ship sailed under the protection of “Gemini” until the moment that Paul and his little company of believers stepped on board? From then on, while they were on the ship, it sailed under the covering of Paul’s God. The company that boarded the ship after their own was wrecked had learned that anywhere was safe, even in a hurricane storm, where they were in the hands of God.

Would they ever forget their interlude in the company of Paul? Their time on Malta was no trial –they had experienced the bounty of God’s provision through the islanders, and all because God was showing them the care and favour of a loving Father. No doubt Paul took every opportunity to tell them the story of Jesus and demonstrate His resurrection power by healing sick people.

Wherever he went, Paul was a living, walking, breathing testimony to Jesus. He turned every disaster into an opportunity to put the glory of his Master on display. As turbulent and eventful as his life had been, it was all lived for and focussed on the one person who had captured his heart and transformed him from angry persecutor to passionate preacher. For Paul, God’s peace which was his priceless possession was all that mattered and came to him through his unassailable trust in God.

“You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in you.” Isaiah 26:3 (NIV).

Persistent Faith

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PERSISTENT FAITH

“Jesus told them a story showing that it was necessary for them to pray constantly and never quit. He said, “There was once a judge in some city who never gave God a thought and cared nothing for people. A widow in that city kept after him. ‘My rights are being violated. Protect me.’ ….After this went on and on he said to himself,…’Because the widow won’t quit badgering me, I’d better do something and see that she gets justice — otherwise I am going to end up beaten black and blue by her pounding.’

“Then the Master said, ‘Do you hear what that judge, corrupt as he is, is saying? So what makes you think that God won’t step in and work justice for His chosen people, who continue to cry out for help? Won’t He stick up for them? I assure you, He will. He will not drag His feet. But how much of that kind of persistent faith will the Son of Man find on the earth when He comes?'” Luke 18:1-8 (The Message).

Another story that reveals the character of God by contrast! A godless judge is moved to action by a shamelessly persistent ‘nobody’ widow to get her off his back. It was not her need or his compassion that drove him to action but her nagging that got him going.

We must not think for a moment that God is like that. He is, first and foremost, a Father. Does a father hold out against his child until the child’s persistent nagging gets him down? Not if he is a loving and caring father but, however loving and caring an earthly father he may be, he can never match the love of God for His children.

So why does God sometimes seem deaf or unmoved by the cries of His children? If I had the answer, I would be the first person in Christendom to solve this mystery! I can only make a few suggestions from the evidence of Scripture as to why God’s answers don’t come when we expect them.

God is painting His picture on a very big canvas. We often tend to think that we are the only people in the universe. When our need arises, God must step in and do something when we call. But He is working out His purposes, not only in our lives but also across communities, nations and the world.

He heard the cries of His slave people in Egypt but He had to prepare a Moses and a national and international situation that would be the right time to deliver His people from slavery and take them into the Promised Land. With a new dynasty in Egypt, He changed their status from pampered and protected people to slaves so that they would groan under their oppression and long for freedom. Then God was ready to take them out.

God gave sons to aged and childless couples like Abraham and Sarah, Manoah and his wife and Zachariah and Elizabeth to fulfil His greater purposes for His nation and for the eventual coming of His Messiah. God weaves the answers to our prayers into a much bigger picture in some mysterious way that is beyond our comprehension.

Jesus spoke of ‘persistent faith’. These two words are almost interchangeable. Real faith is confidence in God that does not give up, even when things seem really bad. Once again, Abraham is a good example. What father would deliberately take his own son, that one who was born to him in his old age, and raise a knife to kill him on a sacrificial altar? Only a man, whose confidence in God was unshakeable, would do that because his faith was tried and tested.

A statement I heard in a teaching long ago has helped me to understand why God’s delays seem like unanswered prayer: “God will not answer your prayers until He has put all the structures in place to maintain that answer,”

Now that makes a whole lot of sense. If He were to jump to attention every time we call, He would leave a string of disasters behind because every answer to prayer needs a supporting structure so that God’s work in our lives is not wasted.

Imagine if God had given Abraham his son when he first began to pray, or if God had delivered Israel when they first began to cry out. Abraham would not have grown a faith so strong that he trusted God for his son’s life. There would not have been a Moses, raised in the palace and honed in the desert to lead His people out of slavery.

So what’s the point? God is saying, “Will you trust me, even though nothing seems to be happening? Although you can’t see it yet, I am working and, if you believe, you will see your place in my great big picture.”

Can We Ask Too Much?

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CAN WE ASK TOO MUCH?

“If your little boy asks for a serving of fish, do you scare him with a live snake on his plate? If your little girl asks for an egg, do you trick her with a spider? As bad as you are, you wouldn’t think of such a thing – you’re at least decent to your own children. And don’t you think that the Father who conceived you in love will give the Holy Spirit when you ask Him.” Luke11:11-13, (The Message).

Again Jesus uses an exaggerated contrast to teach us the scope of God’s generosity to His children. Fathers give their children the simple things they ask for because it is within the scope of what they are able to do. They are generous to their children as good fathers because they are able to meet that need, and they do it because they love their children.

But what about our heavenly Father? How does He respond to the children to whom He gave spiritual birth through the sacrifice of His Son, Jesus? According to Romans 8:32, “If God didn’t hesitate to put everything on the line for us, embracing our condition and exposing Himself to the worst by sending His own Son, is there anything He wouldn’t gladly and freely do for us?” (The Message).

In this teaching on prayer in response to the disciples’ request, Jesus pins my attention on three questions:

1. Who and what is the focus of my prayer?

2. What is my attitude to Him?

3. What do I expect of Him?

If I can answer these three questions from His perspective, I have grasped the real meaning of prayer and can expect to nurture my fellowship with the Father as Jesus did.

In His model prayer, Jesus teaches me that prayer is primarily about who and what I must become aware of. Prayer is not prayer if it is all about me and my concerns. Prayer is the simple act of turning my head to face the One who can bear the burden. Why can I have confidence in Him to handle whatever my issues are? He is my Father, my life-source who is as near to me as my breath. He brought me to physical and spiritual birth and He has accepts full responsibility for me as His child.

Although He is unseen, He is real, more real than the world around me. He knows me more intimately than I know myself. I can hide nothing from Him; therefore I can best nurture my relationship with Him by being transparent and direct. As a tiny child comes to its father in dependence and trust, so I come to my Father with an open heart.

Although little children sometimes think that daddy can give them the world, they ask in innocence and ignorance, but there is nothing my Heavenly Father cannot supply according to my need. I have no need greater than the Holy Spirit and He has promised to give Him to me if I ask Him. He has already given me His Spirit and, because He leads me, I know that I am His son or daughter.

And so my understanding of prayer comes full circle back to the fundamental issue of sonship. Prayer is only prayer in the environment of God and me as Father and ‘son’. Prayer is not prayer unless it is the intimate interaction between Father and son.

When You Pray, Say…

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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.