In the articles “And When You Pray…” and ”And When You Pray – It's an Attitude, we learned the proper attitude for prayer.
We have remembered Who we are speaking to and we honored His name.
We humans, when left to our own resources, tend to construct important and regal sounding prayers. It has always been that way. That’s why Jesus gave us a simple pattern for prayer. So, let’s continue our study with Matthew 6:9.
Your Kingdom come
We invite Jesus Himself to walk into our world with all its imperfections and troubles. We ask Him to bring His kingdom into our home. This gives Him full authority over our life. Over our marriages, our families, our businesses and our recreation.
Your will be done .
We acknowledge that God knows what is best and we surrender our will to His. This means His will for our life, but also for our city and our country as well. This is not as easy as it sounds. It is not easy to give up our own will, even to that of our Creator,
When we spend time with God, often, in prayer and in studying His word, we can know His will. Our will, begins to conform to His.
1 John 5:14On earth as it is in heaven
tells us that we can be confident that He will listen to us whenever we ask Him for anything in line with His will.
We know that God’s will is supreme in heaven and we pray that the same conditions might exist on earth .
The Kingdom of Heaven will begin to become a reality to us as soon as we invite Jesus Christ into our lives.
When Jesus began His ministry He went into Galilee and announced that the time had come. He said that the Kingdom of God was near and urged people to turn from their sins and believe the Good News. Matthew 6:11
Give us today our daily bread.
Since God is the creator, everything belongs to Him and He provides for our everyday needs. In this context, “daily’ means ‘sufficient for today.’ Jesus expects us to ask Him to care for personal needs, such as daily food. We are to ask and to trust Him to sufficiently supply us.
In Matthew 6:31-33 Jesus said not to worry, saying, ‘What are we to eat?’ or ‘What are we to drink?’ or ‘What are we to wear?’You are asking your Creator to make His Kingdom a reality in your life. Ask Him to work in you until your will conforms to His. Trust Him to supply your daily needs because you know that He, in His perfect wisdom, knows exactly what you need.
The unbelievers seek all of these things. He said, “Your heavenly Father knows that you need them all.” When we seek the kingdom of God and his righteousness, first, all these things will be given to us as well.
Look for the article, “And When You Pray … Conclusion next week.
This is one of my all time favorite books. Using the Lord's Prayer as a floor plan, Max Lucado introduces us to a God who desires his children to draw close to him.
The Great House Of God
