Kingdom-Seeking Prayer

February 16, 2020 Background Scripture: Matthew 6: 9 – 15 Lesson Passage: Matthew 6:9 – 15 In today’s lesson, Jesus teaches us how believers should offer prayer to God. This passage of scripture is sometimes called the Lord’s Prayer or the Model Prayer. There are several prayers of Jesus recorded in the four accounts of the gospel. It is worth noting that none of those prayers use the same words as the words recorded here. That is not to say that Jesus never prayed this specific prayer. If one were to pray these specific words, that prayer would likely be offered in private rather than public—just as the recorded prayers of Jesus were heard by his disciples. There were occasions when Jesus separated himself from his disciples and spent the night in private prayer. So, what are we to make of this prayer? Over the years, children have been taught to memorize this prayer and to repeat it in unison—even in the public schools at one time. It is not clear if, or how often, the prayer was explained to the children who had to memorize it. Let’s take a closer look at what Jesus was teaching his followers with this prayer. From the context of the surrounding scriptures we see that Jesus was teaching them about praying in private. He even told them to avoid being hypocritical and praying in public just to be heard or seen by others. Note, he did not tell them to avoid praying in public. He spoke to them concerning their motive for praying in public—noting that the motive could be a hypocritical one. The beginning of the prayer sets the tone for the rest of it. The believer is to address God as Father. This makes the relationship between the believer and God very intimate. A believer does not pray to the unknown god. By addressing God as Father, believers acknowledge that we are God’s children. Believers should expect our prayers to be heard and answered by God because we are part of His spiritual family. A believer doesn’t pray as though he/she is an only child. We recognize that our Father has many children and we pray on behalf of all. So, we pray concerning “our”, “us”, and “we”. This would be a worse world to live in if God only forgave and helped one person and not all who come to know Him as personal Savior. When all believers can have the assurance of forgiveness by God, then forgiving others is reciprocation for having been forgiven by our Father. When our Father meets our daily needs, then there is no cause for which we should have to resort to taking from others what they have received. I should not pray just to have God meet my daily needs, but I should pray that all believers receive what we need daily. As believers mature spiritually, we become acutely aware of our spiritual weaknesses. For this cause, we petition God to not lead us into situations to be tested by evil. We cannot handle the temptation without falling. Jesus knew all too well what it was like to be led by the Spirit to the evil one to face temptation. It is not for spiritual wimps such as we are. But we do go astray on our own. When we do go astray, we need our Father to deliver us from the evil situations we get ourselves into. We close the prayer even as we opened it, by acknowledging the one and only eternal kingdom—that is the kingdom of our Father. We experience and learn of some of His power and we have heard about His eternal glory. Robert C. Hudson January 30, 2020