"Disciples' Prayer" by John MacArthur

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"Disciples' Prayer" by John MacArthur

The Purpose of Prayer
During time of prayer, we are truly broken, submissive and yielding, and we can really be shaped as steel in the fire. All prayer begins with submission. It's about God's name, will and kingdom.
Matthew 6:9-15 is usually known as the Lord's Prayer. It is more than something to be recited, and if that is what it is to you, you have missed the point. The believer must learn how to pray to know the fullness of God and His blessings. This pattern of prayer will teach us that. We are to "pray without ceasing," but if we don't know how to pray or what to pray for, our prayers will do us little good.
Matthew is presenting Jesus as King, and in Matthew 5-7 the King is giving the standards of his kingdom in contrast to the supposed standards of the day. The Jews thought that they had a system that was adequate to get themselves into the kingdom, but it wasn't. In chapter 5, He says that their theology is not adequate, in chapter 6 He says that their material views and religious activities are not adequate and gives the illustrations of their giving, praying and fasting. Then He reaffirms God's true standards. The greater emphasis is placed on praying, because the other two will be done properly only through proper prayer and communion with God. Prayer is basic to all giving and all fasting, so prayer is most concentrated on. Prayer is vital to a kingdom citizen and for one who follows the King. Man is at his greatest and highest when he is on his knees to God.
What message does this have to us today? Our religion and our prayer are also substandard and inadequate. We don't know how or what, so the Holy Spirit makes intercession for us. Jesus corrects the substandard prayer, and affirms the pattern for proper prayer in 66 brief words, a masterpiece!
There are two tests of spirituality. One is studying the Bible, and the other is prayer. It is more important to study the Bible first, so we know about God, his will, our lives and our problems and how he desires that we would pray. If we don't know these things than many of our prayers will be meaningless. Jesus gave us a pattern for prayer, and when we pray, it does not matter how long the prayer is, but rather whether it touches on the necessary elements.
Bible study is first, because we often ask for things that the Bible says that we already have. Unless we understand the truth of the word of God we don't know how to prayer. We must pray after comprehending God's truth. The opening up of his word drives us to communion with God. Jesus spent much time in prayer and often prayed all night long. In Luke 11:1, the disciples ask Jesus to teach them to pray. The pattern here is similar to that of Matthew.
The Jews had a tradition of prayer as a priority, but in the course of time they had abandoned the purity of genuine prayer and forsaken real prayer for routine and ritual. They were just carrying out formulas and set prayers at set times. They had forgotten the true meaning of prayer. Jesus reminded them of what prayer was really supposed to be, and reaffirmed what had been previously taught by God in the Old Testament. They should have known these things, and Jesus reminds them of them.
Historically, Jews believed that they had a right to come to God and to pray. They came to God because they believed that God wanted them to come, and not like pagans who came to their Gods in fear or panic or because of some emergency. (Psalm 145:18, Psalm 91:15, Psalm 65:2) God really wanted to hear their prayers, and no Jew ever doubted the importance of prayer. They also considered it a weapon that released the power of God on their behalf. They believed God heard their prayers. Remember the story of Elijah and the prophets of Baal and the difference in attitudes of those who did the praying. The prophets of Baal were not confident that their god was listening, and tried desperately to get his attention and irritate him into a response.
The Jewish Misdrash says that all men may pray to God, and God is never weary of the prayers. Jewish teaching also said that prayer should be constant and not reserved in case of emergencies like a parachute that one hopes one never has to use. The Talmud says, "Honor the physician before you have need of him." Anticipate and pray before misfortune comes. We are to pray always, not just in times of prosperity. God sends his the blessings of his common grace down upon all people every day, and we need to return the favor by continually offering up prayers of thanks to God for all of his blessings. Prayer should be an unbroken conversation with a living, loving God. The traditional Jewish tradition had the right perspective.
The Jews also thought that prayer should incorporate certain elements such as praise, a sense of God's worthiness and loving adoration. (Psalm 34:2, Psalm 51:17) Gratitude and thanksgiving were also vital elements. The rabbis said that "all prayers will someday be discontinued except prayers of thanksgiving." We will have no more to ask for and everything to be thankful for.
Another important element was a sense of God's holiness, and the Jews approached God not flippantly, but with reverence and awe. They realized that they were coming face to face with God, and did not treat him as if he were a man. Look at the attitude if Isaiah in Isaiah 6. David's prayers reflect this too. Before he comes to God with his requests, he affirms the character, nature, majesty, and holiness of God.
Another element of prayer was a desire to obey God, and one was not to pray unless their heart was really right before God.   Don't pray if there is not a commitment to respond in obedience to the communion with God in prayer. Psalm 119 affirms that responding to God is proper. We don't go and give God our marching orders and they do what we like if we don't like the answers that we get. There are no conditions in prayer, and we must approach God with a spirit of obedience, a desire to please God and a willingness to see that God's will truly be done in my response.
Jewish prayers also included confession of sin.   They knew they were unclean and needed purging, and they had, as Isaiah, a sense that they were going into God's presence as unclean people. David also had to deal with his sins in prayer before going to God's presence. Psalm 26:6 He does not come into God's presence until he has dealt with his sin and cleaned up his life. The Jews believed that the prayers of a righteous man would turn God's wrath into mercy, and James also says this that God would hear the prayers of a righteous man.
The Jews also believed that prayer was to be unselfish. Prayers were not isolated out to the individual, but were extended to include the entire community.   Most of us come to the Lord in the first person, "I," but Jesus' prayer is "our" oriented. God is in heaven with a master plan for his kingdom that encompasses his entire kingdom, and we sometimes have to sacrifice what seems best to our limited vision, because God has a greater plan for the whole. God does not answer prayers for the "needs" of one individual unrelated to how the community of faith is affected.
Another element of prayer was perseverance. Paul prayed several times for the removal for his thorn in the flesh. Moses also prayed for forty consecutive days after Israel's sin of the golden calf.
Humility is another element of prayer. A true Jew was coming into the presence of God to submit himself to God's will. The greatest illustration of this was the prayer of Christ in the garden of Gethsemane when he set aside the comfortable to line himself up with God's will and submit by saying, "Your will be done." Prayer is not asking God to do my will. It is aligning myself with and conforming to his will. It is asking God to do his will and to give me the grace to enjoy it.
These were the traditional elements or prayer, but something went wrong, and the prayer perspective became hypocritical, in that the Jews were praying to be seen by men. They were selfish phonies who were not even really talking to God anymore. They were interested in their own ends and in public display. They had even become like the pagans with their vain repetitions, and they had pride to think that they needed to inform God about things.
Jesus said that this hypocrisy was wrong, and reaffirmed the original Jewish traditions and what right praying really is. We also need to reaffirm correct prayer, because we often don't pray any better than they did. We also make a mistake in merely repeating the Lord's Prayer in that we merely recite it rather than using it as a model for prayer. It is not a prayer to be recited. First, this prayer is recorded only twice in the Bible, in Matthew 6 and in Luke 11, and it differs slightly in both places. If Jesus had meant for this prayer to be recited as is, he would have given it exactly the same both times. It is not prayed any other place in the Bible. We also have warnings against repeating rote prayers in vain. It is a model, an outline, a skeleton on which we are to put flesh. We have to develop it to make it meaningful in every situation.
This prayer tells of our relationship with God, "our Father." We have a father - child relationship. It says "hallowed be thy name." We have a deity - worshipper relationship. It says "thy kingdom come." We have a sovereign - subject relationship. "Thy will be done." This is a master - servant relationship. "Give us this day our daily bread" is a benefactor - beneficiary relationship. "Forgive us our trespasses," is a savior - sinner relationship. "Lead us not into temptation" is a guide - pilgrim relationship.
This prayer defines the spirit in which we are to pray. What is to be our attitude? "Our" indicates an unselfish spirit. "Father" is a family spirit. "Hallowed be thy name" is a reverent spirit. "Thy kingdom come" is a loyal spirit. "Thy will be done" is a submissive spirit. "Give us our daily bread" is a dependent spirit. "Forgive us our trespasses" is a penitent spirit. "Lead us not into temptation" is a humble spirit. "Thine is the Kingdom" is a confident spirit. "...and the power and the glory" is triumphant and an exultant spirit.
The prayer could also be divided into three elements each, dealing with God and man, God's glory and man's need.   When we pray, we must first set God in his rightful place, and when God is first, prayer makes sense. The first three elements show the purpose in prayer: to hallow the name of God, to bring in his kingdom and to do his will. What are God's means to do this? To give us our daily bread (provision), to forgive us our trespasses (pardon) and to lead us not into temptation (protection). As God does this, he is exalted in his glory, his kingdom and his will.
First, God is a father, then a king and then a master. As a father, he is the source of our daily bread. As a king, he forgives our debts and pardons us. As a master he leads us not into temptation.
Prayer is never an attempt to bend the will of God to fulfill my desire. Prayer bends me to fit the will of God. When I acknowledge God as sovereign, I ask for my daily bread do it only if it gives God his hallowed name.   May my sins be pardoned only if it exalts his kingdom, and may I not be led into temptation if that lets you be the master in my life. The purpose of all prayer is God's kingdom and power and glory forever.
This prayer encompasses all dimensions of time. The protection of my daily bread is for the present.  Our past pardon is in the forgiveness of our sins. Lead us not into temptation is protection for our future. Bread is physical, guilt-relieving forgiveness is mental and leading not into temptation is the maintenance of spiritual life.
When we think that prayer is for us, we have missed the point. We are just praying for ourselves without thinking about the entire community of faith or the whole will of God and the parameters of his kingdom. Jesus said in John 14 that we may ask anything in his name and he will do it, that the father may be glorified in the Son. The reason we pray and the reason God answers is to put himself and his glory on display.
When we pray for someone to be saved it is so that God can show the power of salvation. When we pray for a need, God answers not so we get what we want, it is so that we can discover that God meets needs. His glory is the issue. When we pray, we are not informing God, because he already knows. We are not forcing, irritating conning or badgering God. We are submitting to his sovereignty.
"Our Father" The Paternity of Prayer
"After this manner, therefore, pray ye: Our Father, who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen." Matthew 6
The two important spiritual activities in which we are to be continually involved are Bible study and prayer. When we read the Bible, God speaks to us. When we pray, we speak to God. A kind of conversation takes place. In the Old Testament, the law was to be the subject of constant thought, and the New Testament urges us to pray without ceasing. We are always to be praying, and always to be studying God's Word. If prayer is so important that we are always to be engaged in it, it is vital that we understand how to do it properly, so Jesus gave us a model.
Jesus did not teach that any particular posture is necessary, and in the Bible we can read that people prayed standing, lifting up their hands, sitting, kneeling, lifting up their eyes, bowing down and so on. Jesus did not assign any specific place or time for prayer. It can be done anywhere, any time, under any circumstance and in any attire, because constantly talking to God it is a total way of life.
It is important to remember that prayer is not an attempt to convince God to agree with me, rather it is me, upon realizing God's sovereignty, coming in submission and agreement to do his will. Because God answers our prayers to glorify himself, and put his greatness on display, all prayers must focus on God and not on ourselves.
When one looks at prayers in the Old Testament, we see this pattern of worshipping God first. Jonah worships from the belly of the whale in Jonah 2. We read that Daniel does it in chapter 9. Jeremiah does it in Jeremiah 32. Psalm 86 is another example of praise offered first at a time of great trouble. Psalm 86:11 shows the writer attempting to align his will with God's when he says, "Teach me thy way, 0 LORD; I will walk in thy truth." In the next verse, the writer says that he will praise God no matter what the outcome of the prayer may be.
Every part of the Lord's Prayer focuses on God. "Our Father, who art in heaven," is God's paternity. "Hallowed be thy name" is God's priority. "Thy kingdom come" is God's program. "Thy will be done" is God's purpose. "Give us this day our daily bread" is God's provision. "Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors" is God's pardon. "And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil" is God's protection." For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen" is God's preeminence.
"Our Father, who art in heaven." Let's take a closer look at God's paternity.   All have been created by God, but not all can call God "Father." I John 3 makes it clear that there are two distinct families,  the children of God who obey the Father and do not continue to commit sin, and and the children of the devil, who do. Peter says in Second Peter 1:4 that only those who believe "have been made partakers of the divine nature." Only those of us who have been born again have been born in to the family of God. "Only as many as received him, have the right to be called the sons of God." John 1:12. There are two families. So the very statement of Jesus, "Our Father," eliminates a world of unbelieving people. The positive side of this is that "Our Father," expresses an wondrous intimacy with God. This is very different from the pagan gods who were remote and to be feared.
Sadly, there was a remoteness even in the Jewish thinking of Jesus' day. The Old Testament Jew, the saint of God in the Old Testament understood something of the Fatherhood of God, but in a national sense rather than in a personal sense. They had cut themselves off from true worship and redefined their religion as a mere set of rules and rituals, and had in a way lost the sense of God as their "Father." It may have been a shocking concept to people who were not even allowed to mention God's name that Jesus would address God as "our Father." It was a concept from their distant past, yet new in its sense of intimacy. Isaiah 64 is one example of the Jewish view of God as Father. He sorrows over Israel's son, but then in verse 8 he says, "But now, O LORD, you are our father." God is still Israel's Father, and even though the people have sinned, God continues to love them.
The original, proper, traditional Jewish concept of God as Father had five elements. First, God was their Father in the sense of begetting, in that God had established Israel as a nation.
Second, God was a father who was near. We can see this in Psalm 68. It praises God and says that he is a "father to the fatherless." God puts people in a family, and is very near to us.
Third, the Jews saw God's loving grace in their concept of God as Father, forgiving, tenderhearted, merciful, gentle and gracious. In Psalm 103, the writer says, "As a father pitieth his children, so the LORD pitieth them that fear him."
Fourth, the Jews saw God's fatherhood in terms of guidance. A father gives wisdom, instruction and direction. Jeremiah 31:9 says, "They will come with weeping, they will come with supplications and I will lead them; I will cause them to walk by the rivers of waters in a straight way, in which they shall not stumble; for I am a father to Israel."
There was a fifth aspect of God's Fatherhood that prevented the Jews from sentimentalizing God, and that was that God was a father that there were required to obey. It was God's part to beget, be near, be gracious and guide, but it was the part of the children to respond to God in respect and obedience (Deuteronomy 32). In Matthew 7 Jesus speaks about God as Father. "Of what man is there of you whom, if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he asks a fish, will he give him a serpent? If then, ye being evil know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father, who is in heaven, give good things to them that ask him?" They again are reminded that God is a beneficent, caring, loving, sustaining Father and that he takes care of the needs of his children. However, remoteness had taken the place if intimacy, and the relationship had become almost like that of the pagans to their gods. The Pharisees and the scribes had come to think of God as no more than a ruler or a king.
Jesus used the term "Father" in a new, rich, intimate way. He was the one who made the intimacy possible. Whenever he prayed, he always used the word "Father" except for the time that he hung on the cross when he prayed "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" He was temporarily separated from the Father only when he bore our sins on the cross.
When we speak of God as our Father, what do we really mean? The Greek and Romans of Christ's time had two philosophies, those of the Stoics and the Epicureans. The Stoics considered their gods to be apathetic, emotionless, passionless and indifferent. The Epicureans said that the gods were serene, completely calm, and at perfect peace. They could not maintain their serenity if they were to become involved in worldly affairs, so they remain detached. The modern philosopher sees God as the dark, dreaming, dumb thing that turns the handle of the idle show, and even the Jew of Jesus・time sees God as a Father only in a remote, distance, faded past sense with little meaning.
Jesus simply utters without explanation two words, "our Father" and in so doing cracks open a shell that empties upon us marvelous new dimensions of meaning.   He used the term "Abba" the endearing term used by a little child for its father. The Talmud says that the first thing a child ever learned was to say, Abba and Ema. In Mark 14:36 it says, 笛esus said, Abba, Father. Take away this cup from me.・In the beginning and the end of His ministry and all the way through I think Abba was His term, it means daddy. In Romans and Galatians 4:6 the Bible says that we can cry, Abba, Father, we come to God as an intimate Father, we use the term Abba.
What does it mean that God is our Father? First, it means the end of fear. Missionaries tell us that one of the greatest gifts that Christianity brings to heathen society is the certainty that God is a loving, caring Father. Heathen people live under the fear of their jealous, hostile, grudging and vengeful gods. When Jesus says, "our Father," you don稚 have to fear God; He's your Father through Christ.
Second, God as a Father settles the matter of hope in a hostile world. God as Father gives us hope in the spiritual realm as well. When you break God's laws, consequences come. The wages of sin is death. But in the midst of a hostile world that痴 falling apart God is our Father, and He'll take care of it. He has given us hope in the spiritual realm as well in the death of Christ on the cross. He has removed the consequences of sin and conquered death.
Third, it settles the matter of loneliness. The heart knows loneliness, bitterness, the loss of self worth, unworthiness and self‑despair. Is there anybody who knows and values us for what we are and who can lift us up and give us value? God can because He's our Father and says, "Lo, I am with you always." I'm a friend that sticks closer than a brother.
Fourth, this phrase here settles the matter of selfishness. It says "our Father" and not "my Father." Prayer embraces the entire community of faith, and is not centered on ourselves. Pray with your arms around everybody else. (Ephesians 6:18)
Fifth, God as a Father settles the matter of resources. It says, "Our Father, who is in heaven." When you go to your Father for resources, He has all of the supernatural domain at His disposal. All that heaven is, all that it means in Ephesians to be blessed in the heavens with all spiritual blessing is available in Him. You want satisfaction, fairness, peace, fellowship, knowledge, victory or boldness? I pray to a Father who has absolutely eternal resources.
Sixth, seeing God as a Father settles the matter of obedience. The commitment to obeying a human father was so important in the Old Testament that God said if you find a disobedient child stone him, because I want the world to know that the way one is go obey one's earthly father is an illustration of the way that one is to obey one's heavenly father. The whole point of the Fatherhood of God is that we are to obey. Jesus, obeyed the Father and said, "I didn't come to do my own will, but the will of him that sent me." He said, "My meat is to do the Father's will." "Nevertheless, not my will but yours be done." If He can assign Himself a place of subservience and perfection, certainly we can be subservient in our imperfection.
Finally, it settles the matter of wisdom. If God is a Father then He is infinitely wiser than we are. And we're right back where we started, submissive to His will because it is the best.
Prayer - Lord every time I say, our Father I know I'm not lost in the crowd. Every time I say that I know You're there, I know You're there removing my fear, providing hope, taking away loneliness, doing away with selfishness, providing vast and infinite heavenly resources, calling for my obedience and affirming Your absolute wisdom, oh what a thing it is to have You as a Father. In all our prayers dear Lord, may we come with a deep sense of gratitude that Your are a Father to whom we can say daddy, papa, Abba in intimacy, because You care. You didn't just make us subjects of Your Kingdom, You didn't just make us servants to Your will, You didn't just call us friends, You made us sons and daughters, Your children and told us to call You Father. And may we be obedient children, may we who are Your children live and walk as Your children should. For Your glory in Christ's name, Amen.

"Hallowed be thy Name"   The Priority of Prayer
In most cases we focus prayer on ourselves and our needs and wants. We use it like a parachute in an emergency, or like a pump on a leaking ship. We need to see prayer from God's side rather than our own. It is not for us, but for God. It is not a chance for us to get what we think we need, but an opportunity for us to submit ourselves to God and allow him to express his glory. We need to understand that in prayer we are allowed to enter the throne room to spend time with the creator of the universe who gives us his full, total, devoted attention, which is a truly amazing gift. If we were never to obtain anything from prayer but communion with God, that should be enough to make us want to do it constantly and forever.
But prayer is more than just the privilege of communing with God. It is submitting ourselves to become a vehicle through which he can display his glory. It allows him to demonstrate who he is and what he can do. "True prayer brings the mind into the immediate contemplation of God's character and holds it there until the believer痴 soul is properly impressed." Prayer is to impress you with God, much more than it is to impress God with you or your needs. The object of our prayers should be to put God's glory on display. This is why Jesus said in John "If you ask anything in my name, I will do it, in order that the Father may be glorified in the Son." God answers prayers that will glorify him. Prayer should always be a recognition of God's character and majesty and an act of our submission to it.
All our petitions, passions, requests, needs, trials, and problems must all be in submission to whatever will allow God to glorify himself according to his perfect will. Prayers should be about his kingdom and his will. We are also instructed to pray for provision, pardon and protection, but only after we have placed God in the proper place of priority.
If we are truly worshipping God we will forget about ourselves and focus on glorifying him. It is not about bringing God into line with our desires with the strength and demands of our own "faith." We can see that Jacob prayed this kind of prayer in Genesis 28. He give God a shopping list and says that if God does what he wants that he is willing to stick around. "He says, "You do what I want and you can be my God." This type of prayer is carnal and not spiritual. We cannot go into God demanding that he give us everything that we say we believe that we are going to get. This is playing mind games with God's sovereignty.
Prayer is uplifting God, setting him in his rightful place, and manifesting his majesty and sovereign will. Everything else must take second place. "Hallowed be thy name," is the priority of God. "Thy kingdom come," is the program of God. "Thy will be done," is the purpose of God. "Give us this day our daily bread," is the provision of God. "And forgive us our debts," is the pardon of God. "And lead us not into temptation," is the protection of God. "For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, forever. Amen." is the pre‑eminence of God. The whole of the model prayer focuses on God.
The Pharisees of Jesus' time had lost sight of the true purpose of prayer. For them it had become not an opportunity to put God on display, but an opportunity to put themselves on display. They used prayer to show how supposedly spiritual they were. They thought they were informing God of things he didn't know, and made vain repetions like the heathens did and thought that they could nag God into giving them what they demanded. Their prayer had become illegitimate, perverted, substandard and non‑scriptural, and Jesus draws their attention to the God's standard for prayer.
First, Jesus begins with God's paternity, "Our Father, who art in heaven."  God cares about us in a personal, family way. He is not a mean, capricious, immoral being who takes pleasure in stepping on us as a cruel child might step on ants. He is loving, tender and caring, and all of the treasures of heaven are at his disposal to glorify himself through his beloved children. God cares, and can meet any and all of our needs through his unlimited eternal resources. He cares and hears, and we don't have to badger and nag. We can see God's nature in the story of the prodigal son in Luke 15. This is actually not only about a prodigal son. It is the story of two sons and a loving father who forgives a son who stays home and is self‑righteous and a son who leaves home and is unrighteous. God is a Father who cares for all of His sons, religious or irreligious, moral or immoral, self‑righteous or unrighteous, All prayer begins with a recognition that God not only cares, but that he has the resources to fulfill his care.
Second, Jesus affirms God's priority with the first request which is made in God's behalf, "Hallowed be thy name."  We and our needs are secondary, and God must be given first place in our thoughts and hearts. God is a loving father who meets our needs, but he does it to his own glory. Do we really understand the meaning of "Hallowed be thy name?" It includes all of God's nature and the respect, awe, appreciation, honor, glory, adoration and worship that he deserves, and the human response to God's nature.
Let's examine the Hebrew concept of God's name. The Jews had created a system to honor the written letters of God's name. They were overly concerned with not pronouncing his name, but they were at the same time dishonoring His person, disobeying His Word and destroying His truths. In the Old Testament we often run across the name Jehovah, but there is actually no such word in Hebrew. In Exodus, God calls himself "I AM THAT I AM," which is Yahweh. The other familiar name for God is Adonai, which means Lord.  The consonants were taken out of Yahweh, and the consonants for Adonai were inserted to come up with Jehovah.  A rule was made to prevent God's name from being uttered to prevent disrespect while God's person, character, position and will were ignored. Respect for God's name is more than respecting the letters. It is an all encompassing concept that respects God for who he is.
A name is also more than mere letters. A name is an identity. If one's name is esteemed, it means that the person is esteemed; that there is something worthy about that person. The name stands for the whole character of the person revealed; the name is the personal and incommunicable character of the individual.
In Exodus 34, Moses asks to see God's glory, and God grants the request, and "proclaims his name." He says that he is the LORD God, and adds "merciful, gracious, long‑suffering, abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, who will by no means clear the guilty." The name of God includes all of His attributes.   Hallowing his name is not a restriction on speaking the word God. It is realizing and hallowing all that God is: his character, his nature and his attributes. Psalm 9:10 tells us that if we really understand God's character, we will trust him. See also Psalm 7:17, Psalm 102:15 Psalm 113, Psalm 20:7. All that God is is cause for praise.
But the key verse to understanding the concept of name is John 17:6 where Jesus said, "I have manifested thy name to the men whom thou hast given me." He meant, "I have revealed who You are." In John 1:14, "The Word became flesh, and dwelt among us and we beheld his glory, the glory of the only begotten of he Father, full of grace and truth." Jesus then is the embodiment of the name of God, He is the manifestation, the human disclosure of all that God is. That's what His name means.
So we might begin to pray this prayer this way, "Our Father, who loves us and cares for us, and who has in heaven supplies to meet our every need, may Your person, Your identity, Your character, Your nature, Your attributes, Your reputation, Your very being itself be hallowed." There are other names used in the Bible that help us to understand what God is. Elohim is used in Genesis to God as creator. He is also called El Elyon, in Genesis 14: 18-19 "Blessed be Abraham of the most high God, (El Elyon) possessor of heaven and earth." He is possessor God, sovereign ruler over all the universe. The Old Testament calls Him Jahovah‑Jireh, the Lord will provide, Jehovah‑Nissi, the Lord our Banner, Jehovah‑Rapha, the Lord that healeth, Jehovah-Salaom, the Lord our peace, Jehovah‑Tsidkenu, the Lord our righteousness, Jehovah‑Sabaoth, the Lord of hosts, Jehovah‑Shama, the Lord is near, is present, the Lord Jehovah‑Maqoieshkim, which means the Lord sanctifieth thee.
The greatest name that God ever took in history is the name the Lord Jesus Christ, which means the Lord, Savior, King. That's His greatest name. And as the Lord Jesus Christ He had many other names, the Bread of Life, the Living Water, the Way, the Truth, the Life, the Resurrection, the Good Shepherd, the Branch, the Bright and Morning Star, the Lamb of God, and on and on. Isaiah 9 says, "A child shall be born; his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The Mighty God, The Prince of Peace, The Father of Eternity."
What does it mean to "Hallow God's Name?" It means to perceive the fullness of all that God is as far as possible. It means to make it holy, and in Greek it covers two ideas. It can men to make a common thing uncommon by bringing it into contact with something extraordinary and uncommon, as in Peter 1:16, "Be ye holy."  We're unholy to start with but by coming in contact with one who is holy we can be made holy. The second way it's used is in reference to treating something or someone as sacred, to hold something or someone as set apart and holy. We don't make God holy, we simply petition that He be revered and regarded as holy.
What does it mean to be holy? It means being in a different sphere, a different quality of being. Holy means to be set apart, to be different, to have another sphere of living, to exist in another quality. God lives in another sphere at a different level, separated from us, God is uncommon, extraordinary, unearthly, separated from sinners, holy and undefiled.
When we say "Hallowed be thy Name, we actually say "Your person be reverenced." In Numbers 20 the nation of Israel is in the wilderness and the people have no water and begin blaming their leaders. God instructed Moses to speak to a large rock out of which God would cause water to pour forth. The water came, but it was after Moses had struck the rock with his staff rather than speaking as commanded. In doing so he failed to present God as one to be revered, honored, glorified, set apart and obeyed. He stole God's glory by drawing attention to himself by making the people associate power with the arm of Moses or his staff. He didn't pay God His due honor by his unbelief, disobedience and irreverence. To hallow God's name means that I believe and obey what he says. It can also mean to glorify, honor, exhalt or lift high.
We should be careful not to sentimentalize "Our Father." The Jews and Jesus were aware of this, so after "Our Father," Abba, He says, hallowed, holy, reverenced is Your name. When a Jew called God Father he added another title, such as "0 Lord, Father and Ruler of my life. 0 Lord, Father and God of my life. 0 Father, King of great power, Most High and Almighty God. I Peter 31:15 says, "Sanctify the Lord God in your heart," which is to set apart from everything common and profane, to esteem, to prize, to honor, to reverence, to adore as divinely and infinitely blessed the true and only God.
How do we hallow God's name? We ask God to hallow his name in our life. First, to hallow God's name we must believe that he exists. Hebrews 11:6 "He that cometh to God must believe that he is." The Bible never tries to prove the existence of God, because God is self‑evident and axiomatic. He does not need to be proven and everything else is proven as it relates to him.
Second, we must also know the kind of God that He is. True doctrine about God and true teaching from God are reverence for God. False doctrine about God and false teaching about God are irreverence. Taking God's name in vain is more than swearing. Every time you think a thought about God that is not true of Him, when you doubt God, disbelieve and question God you are taking His name in vain. Pagan gods were cruel, capricious, indifferent and capable of wrongdoing.  We have no business saying that the God or the Bible is like this.
Some say when God drowned Pharaoh's army He was a savage God, that when God did what He did to the Canaanites He was a savage God, that when God punished certain nations He was very cruel, vindictive and harsh. God is accused of being unloving, God is accused of indiscriminately banishing people to an eternal hell, God is seen as a national ally of Israel who goes around slaughtering other people whimsically. When you think wrong thoughts like that about God you have not hallowed His name.  Ir you are ignorant of what God is like then you are going to doubt, question, not trust, disobey and cause others to be repelled from God.
Third, we need to be constantly aware of His presence. Psalm 16:8: "I have set the LORD always before me." I see everything through God, God is my vision. To reverence God is to live in His consciousness; to draw conscious thoughts of God into every thought, word, and action.
Fourth, we hallow God's name when we live a life of obedience to him. We cannot say that we believe God is, believe what the Bible says he is, be aware of his presence and then refuse to obey him. To hallow God's name we are required to submit as vehicles for his holiness. Before we making requests of God we need to be sure that we are what we should be before him.
Luther's Catechism asked, "How is God's name hallowed among us?" The answer, when both our doctrine (right thoughts) and our life (right deeds) are truly Christian. We need to pray, "God, teach me the truth, and help me live it. God be on display through me. "let the light shine through me so that they may glorify You.  We do this by living in obedience to His Word. We glorify God by confessing Him as Lord, by confessing sin, by faith, by bearing fruit, by praise, by contentment, by proclamation of His truth, by evangelism, we by sexual physical purity, by unity and it on and on. These are all ways we demonstrate the majesty and the glory of God so that others in seeing us will make the right judgment about who God is and be drawn to Him.

"Thy Kingdom Come" The Program of Prayer
The exaltation of the Lord Jesus Christ is what that prayer is about. It is impossible to comprehend the depth or meaning in these three simple words "Thy Kingdom Come." It is expressed to Jesus Christ, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, who has a right to rule and a right to reign.
Praying is not letting God in on your plans; it is calling for God to fulfill His own. It takes a great change in the life of a Christian to come to the place where he can say "thy kingdom come" instead of "my kingdom come." We get involved in building our own castles, our own reign, our own plans, and don't really consider our places in God's eternal plans. All of history is moving towards the redemption of creation, the second coming of Christ, and it is God's cause, program and plan that should occupy our thoughts. Our human nature really resists this, because we naturally want to put ourselves first. We are used to hearing that we are king of our castle and that we determine our destiny. Human society is selfish, and prefers I, me and mine to "Thy name be hallowed" and "Thy will be done," and "Thy kingdom come." All that God has ever designed to do in human history and that is to glorify His own name, His own cause and His own will in His own Son, Jesus Christ.
When I sincerely believe and confess Christ as my personal savior, I must also confess him as my Lord and King. (Romans 18)  The new direction of your life is to exalt Jesus Christ, and your own plans are important only as they are in harmony with God's eternal plans. "Thy kingdom come" means that I get off the throne of my heart and give God total control in my life to do what he will for his glory. Human nature does not want to do this, but when we give all to God he gives us things that no one can ever take away from us. If we have truly crowned Christ as the Lord of our lives, then we must be preoccupied with his causes and plans and not our own.  Prayer is about God's will and God's glory, not our own.  Jesus teaches that we are not to pray based on our own needs, ends, gain and pride. It is God and his program that should be central in our minds and hearts.
We have studied God's paternity, God's priority, and now we turn to God's program, which is to exalt Christ. The consummation of history is be in the reign and the rule of the Jesus Christ. The Talmud teaches that a prayer in which does not mention the Kingdom of God is no prayer at all. The Kingdom is the heart of the matter, the Kingdom is that for which God has planned history, that He may rule and that He may reign, and that He may be supreme. He comes first in our prayers, before you go blurting into His presence with all your petitions stop long enough to consider His causes, His Kingdom, and affirm your yearning that He be glorified in His purposes, and reiterate that your requests are only requests insofar as they are in accord with His purpose.
But, as soon as we desire to live a holy life, we run right into the dark kingdom of Satan and this world. We cannot hallow God's name without God ruling in our life, and his kingdom cannot come until His will is done, because His Kingdom and His will is one and the same. Here we see a logical progression. His will cannot be done until He is acknowledged as King, no one will submit to His will until they submit to His Lordship, and until they submit to His will He can't be Lord, and until He is Lord you have no capacity to hallow His name because He must energize that. And so it wouldn't be enough to say, "Hallowed be thy name," unless we said, "Thy kingdom come," and we can't say, "Thy kingdom come," apart from saying, "Thy will be done." His Kingdom is the right to rule which gives Him the privilege of expressing His will to which we submit.
"Thy kingdom come" could also have been translated as "thy reign come." We tend to think of a kingdom from a worldly perspective. Pilate said to Jesus, if he was a king, and what kind of king he was. Jesus said that his reign, his kingdom was not of this world. We are to pray for the rulership of Christ and that he reigns. The Greek tense implies that we pray for the kingdom to come immediately and completely. It's God痴 kingdom, not a human kingdom. This world is no longer our priority and our citizenship is not here.
In our prayer life and commitment to God it isn't our cause that matters. We should plan for whatever advances God's kingdom, rule and reign. Jesus said, "You seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness," and He will take care of adding all those other things that involve you. Your clothing and your housing and your food, all those things, He'll take care of if you seek His kingdom.
The kingdom of God and the kingdom of heaven are phases used very often by Jesus. is a phrase used more than any other by Jesus. Luke 4:43, "I must preach the kingdom of God; for therefore am I sent." The kingdom is the heart of His message, because it's the heart of the plan and of history, and the reign and the rule of Christ is at the apex. Nothing else matters except for this and those things which do matter, matter because they come into accord with this. Jesus spent all of his years teaching his disciples about the kingdom, and when he died and rose again he did so for forty days more.
Jesus spoke of the kingdom in three ways, past, present and future. He spoke of the kingdom as past for it embodied Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in Matthew 8:11. He spoke of the kingdom present because in Luke 17:21 He said, "The kingdom of God is in your midst." He spoke of the future because He says pray to "Thy kingdom come." What is this kingdom that exists in every tense? The Jews thought that the kingdom was to be a political one, with the Messiah driving out the Romans. Pilate, a Roman, also failed to understand the nature of the kingdom.
There are two elements to the kingdom, the universal and the earthly. God is the King of the entire universe in that he made it, runs it and will bring it to its consummation. (Psalm 145:1, I Chronicles 29, Jeremiah 10, Psalm 29:10, I Chronicles 29:11-12) He is the universal King, and He mediates that rulership through His Son, by Whom He made the worlds, who rules and is given the right to judge and reign.   That is the kingdom in a universal sense.
"Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.・That's a Hebrew parallelism, and I think we could take the second part and add it to the first part and get the sense of it. God's name is hallowed in heaven and his reign is established there. The prayer is let it come to this earth.
This speck of sand in an infinite universe that rebels against holy God, let it be brought into harmony with the rest. The universal kingdom is total and uninterrupted and eternal. What we're praying here is, "Oh God, stop the rebellion, turn it around, and may You be reigning here as You're reigning there." Although His name is hallowed in heaven it isn't always hallowed on earth, although His will is done in heaven it isn't always done on earth, and although His kingdom come in heaven it isn't come in all cases on earth, because there's rebellion. The purpose then of the prayer is to bring His kingdom to earth, that He might put down sin, rebellion and evil, that He might bring in God's hallowed name, God's kingdom, God's will. It's going to happen, and when it does there won't be anymore distinguishing between His universal and His  earthly kingdom, because they will blend into His eternal reign.
How does the kingdom come? The Greek says, let it come and let it come now, that would be the way to translate it. First, by conversion.    Christ in my life ruling and reigning in my life brings His reign to this earth and He mediates His kingdom through the believer.   The Bible says we are kings and priests. To say, "Thy kingdom come," is to pray that He may take up His reigning residence in the hearts and lives of those who yet are in rebellion. It's a prayer for salvation. When you receive Jesus Christ you did essentially what the hymn writer said, King of my life, I crown Thee now, Thine shall the glory be. He is King in a heart. That's His kingdom, His reign, His place of rule. He takes up residence. You are the only castle this King ever has, you are His holy palace. And so it's a petition for conversion, that He might reign in the hearts of men.
The reason we evangelize is not so much for their sake but for His because it is wrong that someone should not allow Him to reign, because He's worthy. And thus did Paul say in Romans 1 that we go out and we preach, "obedience to the faith among the nations, for the sake of his name." III John 7, says, "We went out preaching for the sake of his name." The reason to become a Christian is in order to glorify and exalt His name and His kingdom. So the kingdom of God then begins with an invitation. Jesus said in Matthew 22 that the kingdom of heaven is like a man having a big feast. He sends out invitations to the guests to come and they can either take the invitation and come or refuse it. My kingdom is here and I want you to come.
Second, in the conversion aspect the kingdom of God begins with an invitation and it includes repentance. Jesus said, "The kingdom of God is at hand; repent, and believe the good news." The kingdom comes when you repent; the kingdom comes when you believe. So it's an invitation that demands repentance.
Third, it demands an act of the will. Jesus told the scribe one time, "You're not far from the kingdom." He meant, "You've got the head knowledge you just haven稚 made the choice yet." If you want to enter the kingdom you not only have to have the head knowledge you have to make the choice. You can know about it, and you can make some effort toward it, but until you make that final complete commitment to a decision you don稚 enter the kingdom and the rule of Christ is not established in your heart. The kingdom is extended as an invitation, it is an invitation that demands repentance from sin, it demands an acceptance by an act of the will of the Lordship of Jesus Christ.
The kingdom is internal.  "My kingdom is not of this world." It is an internal one; it is in the heart and the life. It is offered by an invitation that demands repentance and a choice, turning away from sin, turning toward God is offered to every man. Jesus said, "Seek ye first the of God and his righteousness." If there is a kingdom you ought to seek it, if there is a reign and a rule of Christ you ought to seek it with all your heart. Receive the invitation, repent of your sin by an act of the will and affirm the Lordship of Christ. An internal miracle takes place; and you have to seek it with all your heart because you value it. So the kingdom comes by conversion.
Second, the kingdom comes by commitment. I say everyday, You are the Lord, and I choose my will or His will, my way or His way. I can pray, "Oh Lord, make me more righteous, more like Christ." As I give myself over to the virtues that the Spirit wants to produce in my life, I am asking that the fullness of Christ痴 reign be made manifest in me.
Third way the kingdom comes in consummation. One day the heavens will split wide open and Jesus Christ will descend and plant His feet on the Mount of Olives and in this world He will establish His kingdom. I believe that Revelation tells us it will be a thousand year millennial kingdom in which He will set things right and rule with a rod of iron, and the world will finally hear the answer to the prayer, may the universal kingdom become the earthly kingdom, and for a thousand years He will reign with a rod of iron in righteousness, justice, truth and peace, at the end of which time that kingdom will phase into the universal kingdom and never again will there be a distinction. But I believe this world will see a real reigning of Jesus Christ here, when the curse is reversed and it痴 like God meant it to be before the fall.
When will the kingdom will come? Jesus said it's not yet for you to know the time and the seasons; you just stay busy till it does. I believe Jesus is coming to set up His kingdom. We're praying not only that His reign would come in the hearts and lives of people who don稚 know Him, we're praying that His reign would come in our hearts to the fullness of which he is worthy. We're also praying for him to break the tyranny of sin and set this evil, ugly, cursed world right. That glorious day is coming beloved and in the meantime the kingdom is in your midst as He reigns and rules in the hearts of His people.

"Thy Will be Done"   The Plan of Prayer
Prayer is effective because there is a record of its effectiveness revealed in Scripture, and the Bible itself assures us that prayer is effective. James 5:16 says, "The effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much," and gives the prophet Elijah as an example. If God answered Elijah's prayer God will answer our prayers. We may not be able to pray the same things because we don't have revelation from God that that is His will.  We, in agreement with God's will, however, have the same right to expect God to move. Jesus said, we are to pray always and not to faint. Paul said we are to pray without ceasing, and with all prayer and supplication.
The phrase "Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven" brings a question into our minds. If God is sovereign why pray? If prayer is commanded, then how can God be sovereign?  This is certainly a paradox, but the mind of God is beyond human minds. It may be a problem for us, but it is no problem to God.
Another such quandary is the inspiration of scripture. Who wrote the Bible, man or God? Did they take turns writing verses alternately? Were the writers robots who took dictation? The Bible reflects the writers' vocabulary, feelings, hearts and souls, but it was written by the Holy Spirit, a 200% effort. Is Jesus God or man? 100% or each for a total of 200%. Who lives my Christian life, me or Christ in me? It's all of God and all or me, 200% . How did I become a Christian? The message is "whosoever will," but the conclusion is "chosen from the beginning." God is sovereign, has predetermined the flow of the universe, and knows the end from the beginning. On the other hand prayer works. God's mind is certainly far beyond the human mind, and none of these are a problem for him.
What about the prayer "Thy will be done?" Whenever we pray we are to pray in accord with God' will. The Greek says, "Your will, whatever You wish to happen, let it happen immediately, as in heaven, so in earth. (Psalm 40:8, John 4:34, John 6:38) Jesus is recorded praying in agony and saying, "Nevertheless, not my will, but thine, be done."
There are negative and positive aspects to "Thy will be done." Let's examine what praying "Thy will be done" does not mean. Sometimes this prayer is made with a wrong understanding. It is prayed in anger and bitterness by those who believe that they cannot escape from the inevitable. They have an improper image of God as oppressive, dictatorial, overbearing, selfish and cruel when he is actually loving, and caring to the point of death.
Other people pray this prayer in passive resignation out of a lack of faith. They think that their prayers are ineffective anyway, and just resign themselves in defeat to whatever they think God wants.  (If passive resignation can be changed to active commitment, this can become a positive process.) This type of prayer is joyless, and tinged with a gray acceptance. Prayer done in passive resignation is weak prayer. We say, "Thy will be done," and then assume that what we're asking for probably won't happen. Acts 12 is a classic illustration of this. Peter is in serious prison, and his friends are holding a prayer meeting for him, but don't believe it when Peter show up at the door to the house where the meeting is being held. They were all astonished that God actually answered their prayer!
To look at "thy will be done in earth" from another angle, if we are to pray that God's will be done, it must mean that not everything that happens is his will. There are times when God's name is not hallowed and when hearts reject his reign. God does not command us to repeat meaningless phrases. Things do happen that are not God's will, and they are the very things that Jesus came to stop. God's will may be done in heaven, but it is not always done on earth.
In order for bad things to happen, God has to allow them to happen, but that does not mean that they express his will. Jesus came to destroy death because it is not God's desire that people die. He died and provided a way to heaven because it is not his desire that people go to hell. God's holiness, justice and righteousness must provide for dealing with sin, but that is not God's will.(Jeremiah 13, II Peter 3:9, John 5:40)God allows sin and tolerates it, but that does not make him responsible for sin. God is sovereign, but he also allows man a choice. It is God's will that people be saved from judgment.
Then why did God allow sin? When a grown child leaves the house and goes out on their own, it is not the parent's will for the child to lead a life of sin. It would break the parent's heart. Just because the grown child has freedom does not mean that what he or she does is within the will of the parent. The parent might even have to deal with the consequences.
Why did God allows sin is a difficult question to answer. When Lucifer (Satan) sinned and rebelled against God, God had two options, immediately destruction, or allowing evil to run its full course. The immediate destruction alternative might have encouraged other angels to try rebellion, and perhaps God would have spent all of history and all of eternity doing nothing but wiping out rebellious angels. On the other hand, when Lucifer sinned God could say, "I will allow evil to run its full course, so that it will literally spend itself, and if it has a point to prove let it be proven." Rather than have the constant possibility of another rebellion He let the rebellion go full blast until it ultimately runs itself out never to rise again. God sees the bigger picture of all eternity. During this time when evil is running the gamut, the existance of sin and evil is certainly not the will of God. He tolerated it only that it might be destroyed.   So one cannot say, "Thy will be done," in bitter resentment or in passive resignation, because everything is not God's will.
Thirdly, there are some that say "Thy will be done," with theological reservation. They think that they don't need to pray because God's big and up there running everything. God's going to do what He's going to do and He runs everything and it's all cut and dried and so one shouldn't worry about it. There is no pleading, no intensity, no passion, and not much of a prayer life. When we say, "Thy will be done," we're not just fatalistically giving up to God's overarching will with have absolutely no choice or alternative.
We do, however, have a choice. Jesus gave a parable in Luke 18 of a widow and a dishonest judge. The widow persistently badgered the judge to avenge he of an adversary, and the judge finally did it just to be rid of the nagging. Jesus taught that we never want to become weary of or quit praying. We are to be persistent in prayer.   If a dishonest judge will give in to the badgering of persistent widow, how much more will God, a totally honest and righteous judge, hear our prayers. The parallel Jesus drew was obviously not between God and the judge there is no parallel at all, but between the widow and the petitioner.
There are two things to learn here. The woman that woman refused to accept an unjust situation and she persisted with her case. We have a right to reject situations that are clearly not God's will, and should pray persistently that God correct the situation to fit his will. We should rebel against the fallenness of the world, the inevitability of sin and the consequences of sin. Do we pray, "Thy will be done in earth," because it isn稚 always being done? Are we persisting, not for some private or a personal thing to gain but because we cry out for God to be glorified?
Jesus attacks the prayers of the prayers of the Pharisees because they are self centered. The prayers that they made were not private, but public prayers that put themselves on display. They behaved like pagans, badgering God with vain, repetitious prayers. They egotistically tried to tell an omniscient God things they supposed that he did not know. Jesus turns this around and teaches that prayer should be God centered. Prayer begins with God, his holy name, his kingdom and his will. Even the petitions that relate to us all really depend on God's pardon, provision and protection. The entire prayer is an act of worship. It is not to change God, it is to change us.We never desire to usurp His will; we never desire to change His will, to force His will, to be conformed to some thought of ours.
How is God's will done in Heaven? How do the angels do God's will? They do it without wavering, immediately, completely, sincerely, eagerly, willingly, fervently, swiftly and constantly. To do God's will in this way means that we have died to self, because when self dominates we are not truly praying. His will is done in Heaven, and should be done here.
Let's examine what "Thy will be done" does mean. When we say this, what does it actually mean? First, we mean God's will of purpose, which encompasses the vastness of God's all inclusive, comprehensive, tolerating will. This is the consummation of everything, the will that absolutely embodies all of the earth, all of heaven, all of hell, and in all of this His will is being done. In this massive concept of His will of purpose is encompassed the allowing of sin and sin running its course, the consummation of the ages, the establishing of the kingdom, the eternal state, and everything encompassed from heaven to hell and everything in-between, this massive comprehension of God's will of purpose.  (Jeremiah 51:29, Isaiah 14) God has massive purposes that are coming to pass, that do happen.
For example, it is not God's directive will for people to be ill but it is within His purpose to allow that illness to accomplish His own ends, it is not God's directive will that death enter the human stream and people die but it is within His comprehensive purpose that He use death for His own end and His own glory. This is the broadest term, God's will of purpose. We know that "All things work together for good to them that love God, and are called according to his purpose." In other words though God doesn't will evil, God takes the things that happen in our lives, puts them together for good because that's His purpose. It's the all encompassing concept.Ephesians 1:9 says, "Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good purpose which he purposeth in himself." He is talking about salvation, the incredible forgiveness, redemption which is in part of God's great encompassing purpose, then be goes on to talk about the Jew and the Gentile being one, the dispensation of the fullness of time, gathering in all together in one in Christ, in heaven, and earth. Which is according to the purpose of him who works all things after the counsel of his own will.・God's great purpose is for a redeemed people, for a unified church, for a body of saints for eternity.
How do we pray in accord with His will of purpose? By joyously getting involved in the anticipation of the accomplishment of His own divine ends. "Oh Lord, I know someday You're going to call out Your church and You're going to bring back Jesus Christ to take us to be with Him, may it be Lord!" It's going to happen, it's inevitable.  God thought it and purposed it. It's in the plan, it'll happen, the sooner the better. That's praying according to the will of purpose.
Second, God has a will which we can call the will of desire.  Rather than an all encompassing plan we're narrowing down to a heart's desire. It is a desire within the big plan, but  there are things that God wills that just don't seem to happen, they're His desires but men reject them. It is the desire of God that all men dwell with him in heaven forever, but not all will. This is the mystery of an absolutely sovereign God who allows man to have volition. Jesus even wept over people that He knew would never be redeemed. His tears show His desire. His will of desire relates to unbelievers, and is that longing in the heart of God that the Gospel be taken to the world.
God has a third will, the will of command. which is related to Christians, because unbelievers have no capacity to do God's will. The will of command, it is the ardent desire of the heart of God that we who are His children obey Him completely and immediately with a willing heart. So when we say, "Thy will be done,・we are saying, "God, fulfill Your purpose in the world, bring it to consummation, God take every struggle and trail in my life, every pain and anxiety, every sorrow, every sickness, every death and somehow reverse those things that are the result of sin and fit them into Your eternal plan by Your infinite mind. And when I say, "Thy will be done," I'm also saying, "Oh God, there are people in my life and people around this globe that don't know You; I pray that somehow the Gospel would penetrate their hearts.  That's hie will of desire.
To follow God's will of command I must pray that I might be obedient. Before we discussed three ways to bring in the kingdom, through conversion, through commitment and through the second coming. We can see the same three things here. His will of purpose embraces the ultimate end and the coming again and the setting up of an eternal kingdom. His will of desire embraces conversion, and His will of obedience embraces the idea of commitment in my life. (Acts 5:29, Romans 6, Psalm 119)
It is difficult to pray this way, because there are two wills at work, God and mine. We are all guilty of the first sin of pride. The fall of Lucifer came after he said, "I will, I will, I will, I will, I will..." (Isaiah 14) For the first time in history there were two wills, Satan's and God's, and Satan has deceived the human race into siding with him, making the contest of wills at least four billion to one. Only one of those wills is righteous and all others are corrupt. There is one will that is done in heaven, and pride keeps it from being done on earth.  How do we deal with pride? Romans 12 tells us to present ourselves as a living sacrifice to God, which means self denial and humility. Until we lay our lives on the altar, until we are living sacrifices, until our will is dead, God's will cannot be made manifest. A living sacrifice is made by one who has crucified all his own dreams, hopes, ambitions, goals, desires. The question is not can you die for Christ, the question is can you live selflessly for Him? If you can then you can know His good will.
The thing that stands in the way of praying for God's will is our own will, and when you learn to pray like you should pray in conformity with His will, you'll find you'll change dramatically. Prayer is a sanctifying grace, it changes us. The end of prayer is not so much tangible answers as a deepening life of dependency.  The answers will come but the dependency is the issue. The call to prayer is a call to love, submission and obedience and the avenue of sweet intimate and intense fellowship of the soul with the infinite Creator.
"Give us this Day our Daily Bread" The Provision of Prayer
Given a situation where most of us can buy any kind or bread anywhere and many of us need to loose weight anyway, what does this actually mean? Should we just preach a sermon and say, well you're going to have to imagine that you didn't have any and that you're desperate and praying for some.
In the Lord's Prayer, first we see God's name, kingdom and will, and then we move to man's need. The second part of the prayer it doesn't set God aside. The fact that God gives us our daily bread, forgives our debts, and leads us not into temptation is an expression of His power and His grace. How does God hallow His name, bring His kingdom, and do His will in the earth? By giving us our daily bread, by forgiving us our debts and by leading us in our lives. We are saying, God, glorify Yourself in our daily provision, in our constant forgiveness and in the leading and the directing of Your Spirit in our lives. God, be on display in Your world, that Your kingdom may come to earth. This is very different from flattering God and presenting our list of demands.
If prayer is self‑centered it ceases to be the kind of prayer our Lord said should be characteristic of His kingdom. And yet so many people approach God that way. We plead with God for what we want, and when we don't get it then we begin to question God, which is a serious sin. If we just allowed God the right to make the choice as to how He would reveal His glory no matter what He did we would then say, so let it be for Your glory.
Three petitions that give God opportunity to glorify Himself are "Give us this day our daily bread," (present physical provision) "Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors" (past mental pardon - the freeing of our minds from anxiety and guilt) and "Lead us not into temptation, deliver us from evil"s (future spiritual protection). Bread, that's our physical life. Forgiveness, that frees our mind from the anxiety and the pain of guilt, and the burden of sin. God's marvelous care extends over us in all areas and tenses.
Each and every one of our prayers is to be done to God's glory. Even when we eat, it is to be for God's glory. I Corinthians 10:31 says, "Whatever you do, whether, you eat, or drink, do it all to the glory of God." We are to be thankful for the source of the food, that we can enjoy the flavor and that we can be nourished. We are to ask for everything to God's glory and not our own gain. We are never badgering God to change his mind for us.
The substance being discussed here is bread. We cannot exist spiritually unless we exist physically first. It is truly a thrilling thought that the eternal holy God who created the universe is concerned with whether I have food, clothing and a place to rest. He provides all of our necessities, and also luxuries as extra blessings. Psalm 30 says, " Lord, don't give me so much that I forget You, and don't give me so little that I steal and dishonor Your name." It isn't self‑seeking, it only asks God to give us what we need. God also knows that we would not survive without these things, and that would render us useless in seeing that his will be done.
What if we feel that we don't really have any needs? Do we still need to pray? God promises not to willfully withhold provisions from a righteous child. He also is generous enouth to provide items of common grace to everyone, but expecially to the righteous if they are within his will. So the prayer is really an affirmation that all or our substance comes from God, and God loves to hear us when we glorify him in this way.   We are saying "God, I realize and am thankful that you are the source of my food, clothing, shelter and life." we may not always be on the edge of hunger we are always to be thankful for all of it comes from Him.
The second thought in this phrase is God as the source of all that we need. We often tend to think that we provide our own needs all by ourselves. God wants us to stop and thank him that we have food to eat, clothes to wear and a bed in which to rest. He wants us to be thankful that we have physical strength and the mental ability to know him. God knows, controls and orders everything in the world, and for this we should also be thankful.
People today are very fearful of what they might loose in this world. We are afraid of what we may be doing to the environment, of overpopulation, of exhausting our resources and so on. But man never makes the jump to the fact that if it weren't for the fact that God upholds all things by the word of His power, everything would fall apart and man also fails to realize that the Book of Revelation predicts an end to all of life on earth as we know it.
Now where did it all come from? You don't have, eat anything, or wear anything, and you don't live in anything that didn't come from this earth, and every element of it came from the creative hand of God. And it is the height of indifference and ingratitude not to be daily recognizing that, and affirming that God is a God who is active daily in upholding His world so that it supports our physical needs. How grateful we should be for God's gracious daily loving provision.   He set the food chain into action, and provides it all with rain. Anything that we could ever give back to God was his to begin with.
Having examined the first two features, the substance requested - bread - our physical needs of food, clothing and shelter) and the source of the bread, God, we turn to three more features.
Supplication is seen in "give." What right do we have to ask God for anything? It is because God has promised to meet our physical needs. God is not bound to do anything, and Psalm 37 shows us that there are some conditions. "Trust in the Lord and do good," implies salvation, believing and good works that are the result of true faith. If we fulfill these conditions, then God's promise is ours. (II Corinthians 9) We see examples in the Old Testament that show God refused to provide for Israel when they were engaged in idol worship. Yet in the story of Elijah and the widow of Zarephath, the widow's flour and oil did not run out in the midst of famine because God was bound by his promise to provide for his beloved who trusted in Him. We hear of starvation happening in the world. Although he does sometimes make a gracious and sovereign choice to feed those who do not believe in him, he is not bound to do this.
The resources to feed the world are actually available, but what cuts people off from these resources is a spiritual issue. (Psalm 33-34, Proverbs 3, 10) God makes it clear that he is committed to the care of his people. (Matthew 7 - What man gives his child a stone when asked for bread? If evil men give good things to their children, how much more will God care for us? Our responsiblity it to seek first the kingdom of God.)
Sometimes God provides needs supernaturally, but most often he uses other people. We should not only seek to have our own needs met. We should also seek to meet the needs of others. (James 2:16, I John 3) One who knows the God that supplies need will naturally supply the needs of others.
Places in the world that have Christian heritage have a high view of human life as being created in God's image and the object of divine redemption.  Those that do not have a low view of human life, along with famine and poverty. This may not always be the case, but the tendency can be generally observed. Let's look at the example of Hinduism, whose legacy is deprivation. Man is not created in God's image and is low and insignificant. They believe that their gods are sinful. Cows, which are worshipped eat 20% of the food supply and mice which also cannot be killed eat 15%.
How is one saved in the Hindu system? When one can move to the highest level, stop being reincarnated and enter Nirvana. One is constantly being recycled, so that no animal is allowed to be killed for fear sinning by interfering with the karma of another. This has devestating social effects as well, because if one meets the need of a poverty stricken person, one is interfering with his karma and preventing him from doing pennance and advancing to the next level. There is no actual regard for human life. There will never be enough food for a world of people who don't know God, who is the source.
God does not want us to be preoccupied with the lowest level pf need, the physical, and tells us not to worry about what we will eat or wear as pagans do, because he promises to provide it. We are to seek the kingdom or God first, have our minds on the spiritual and let God take care or the physical things. If we will acknowledge that God is the source of our daily needs, then he can be trusted to take over this area. We are then free to invest out lives in the promotion of his kingdom. How does God supply our needs?
One way is by allowing us to work. We are valuable enough to be obedient to God and work, and do what we need to do to feed ourselves and our families and remain healthy. (Genesis 3:19, I Timothy 5:8, II Thessalonians 3:10) If one does not work, one does not eat. We are to work and eat our own bread, but if we are unable to work, balance is given when God supplies our needs through the generosity and kindness of others sharing their excess blessings with those in need.
But what about Hebrews 11, where saints of the highest order were destitute, forsaken and naked? Is this a contradiction? No, because God will supply our physical needs until we die. He may choose for us to go home to him as a result of the lack, but until that time he promises that within his sovereign plan, all of our needs will be met. When physical life ends, we enter into eternal life, and an abundance that is inconceivable.
Who are the seekers of the bread? It us "us," not "me," because this prayer embodies the Christian community. I should not have an abundance when someone else does not have enough, but should share.
Next is the schedule. We accept and are thankful for God's provision one day at a time. Most of us worry about what has not happened, and this is to doubt God's word. This does not mean that we are not to plan for the future or save, but it does mean that we should be content to trust God to meet our needs in the future.
It is good to feed the hungry, but perhaps it is better to provide them with the Gospel so that they can enter into a relationship with a loving heavenly Father who is able to take care of them in this life and into eternity.
Prayer:  Father, we realize our total dependence on You. We realize that if You so willed it we would have no daily bread. You could withhold the sun and stop the rain. We are absolutely in Your hand. We think that we have of knowledge and are independent, but we can't live a day without You. Nothing would continue were it not sustained and kept by You. Teach us to remind ourselves that our times, health, home, clothes and food are all gifts from Your gracious hand that come constantly to the one who trusts in the Lord and does good. And so teach us to give ourselves to the spiritual and know You'll meet that other dimension. And may we know that even that work that we do is a spiritual offering to You when it's done for Your glory. Amen.

"Forgive us our Debts" - The Pardon of Prayer
This section focuses on sin and forgiveness, another vital part of prayer. "Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors, For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses."
Forgiveness of sin is essential because it keeps us from eternal hell and gives us joy even in this life. It blessed because it introduces us into a fellowship with God that goes on forever. It is most difficult because it cost the Son of God His life on a cross. It is the greatest need of the human heart. Sin brings immediate consequences, guilt and the loss of meaningfulness, peace and joy and life and the future consequence of eternal damnation.  It it man's biggest problem.
When God gives us our daily bread, he provides for our physical needs that we may live out spiritual principles. The forgiveness of sin is man's greatest spiritual need, because before God can ever lead or deliver us we must have a relationship to Him which is possible only when our sins have been dealt with. There is no way that a holy God can have a relationship with sinful men. If we are to have any relationship with God, the forgiveness of sins.
First, sin makes man guilty and brings judgment. That's the human dilemma, man is a sinner. Now the Bible says sin is breaking God's law and violating God's standard. Romans 6 says, "Because we are guilty, the wages of our sin, or the penalty or the sentence, is death." In breaking God's laws he becomes guilty and the judgment for guilt is death. So, sin makes us guilty and brings judgment. All men across the face of the earth stand in judgment before God for their sin.
Second, forgiveness is offered by God on the ground of Christ's death. God is holy and cannot overlook sin but God is also a merciful, loving and forgiving, so forgiveness is offered to sinful man. Though he is guilty and stands in judgment, God is a forgiving God. The Bible says He will remember our sin no more, and promises forgiveness. He wants to forgive us our sins. Now He can't just do that, He has to take the penalty for our sins and bring it to its fullness. A just, righteous, holy God cannot forgive sin unless sin's penalty is paid. So Christ took our place. Forgiveness then is offered by God on the ground of Christ's death.
Third, confession of sin is necessary to receive that forgiveness from God. The forgiveness is available. The penalty has been paid and we need only receive the gift. It is only a matter of receiving the gift. To receive the gift we must confess our sin. (Acts 20, I John 1:9) When you come to God you come as a sinner. God is eager and anxious to forgive the one who confesses.
Fourth, forgiving one another is an essential part of receiving forgiveness for ourselves.
Let's examine the first word again, "sin," which is the problem of every man. begin with the first word ... sin. "And forgive us our debts," verse 15 uses the word trespass. Both words describe what sin is. Romans 3:10 says, "As it is written there is none righteous, no not one," no, not even you. There's no defense, you have nothing to say to justify yourself, "and all the world may become guilty before God."
Everybody is confirmed in sin. Sin disturbs every relationship in the human realm. Sin is the first lord of the soul. Sin makes man susceptible to disease, illness, death and hell. It is the cause of all broken relationships. It is compared to the stench of death. Tragically, human resources can do nothing about it. It's hopeless. Sin dominates the mind. Sin brings people under divine wrath. And it's a deeper problem than his need for bread or anything else It must be dealt with.
Let's look at the words "debt" and "trespass." There are five words in the New Testament for sin. First is the archery term harmartia, to miss the You shoot the arrow and miss the target because your arrow falls short, for all have sinned and fall short. No matter how far you try to shoot it it never quite gets there. So there are differences on how well we approach the problem but everybody's arrows fall short. Matthew 5:4: "Be ye perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect."
Second is parabasis, to step across a line. God draws a line and the line is between right and wrong, when you sin you step across the line. It is doing what is a forbidden thing in thought, in word or in act.
Third is anomia based on the word nomos which is the word for law in the Greek. This is a flagrant breaking of God's law, a rebellion against God. There is a progression in these words. Harmartia, the word which has to do with missing the mark speaks more of our basic incapacity, our nature, we just can't hit it. We just fall short. It speaks of the incapacity of our nature. The second word, parabasis, is the idea that we just step across a line, because we can't restrain ourselves from going into the forbidden area. It's more self-directed, planned and premeditated. But when you come to anomia that is open, flagrant rebellion against God.
There are two more Greek words for sin, the word "trespass," paraptoma. It means to slip or fall. And again it's kind of like harmartia, and emphasizes our incapacities. You just kind of can't help it. The idea of paraptoma is the passion of the moment or the loss of self‑control where you're just swept away.
There is another word "debt," ophileema, the idea is that sin is a debt. When you sin you owe to God a consequence for your sin. You have violated His holiness and you owe Him for that. Record is kept of your debt, and Revelation says that at the great White Throne Judgment, God will judge the ungodly out of the books in which the unpaid debts are recorded, and those owing will be sentenced to an eternal hell to pay that debt.
Among the Jews of Matthew's day the most common word used for sin was the word "koba," which means "debt." To a Jew the primary responsibility in life was to obey God and when you disobeyed God you owed Him a debt for your disobedience. We are sinners who owe a debt that is so monstrous, it's inconceivable that we could pay it. If all men are to pray it then all men are to admit it's their problem. And that's why the Holy Spirit came into the world in John 16 to convict the world of sin.
The next word is forgiveness, if sin is the problem forgiveness is the provision."Forgive us our debts." There is a sense of communitity here, because we are all in the same boat and all need forgiveness. Forgiveness is available because of Christ's death. Forgiveness is God passing by our sin and wiping our sin off the record. It is God setting us free from punishment and guilt.
Forgiveness is taking away our sin, covering our sin, blotting out our sin and forgetting our sin. (Isaiah 53:6, Psalm 85:2, Isaiah 43:25) God literally eliminates our sin. This is only possible because of Christ. God couldn't just pass by your sin unless He placed the punishment for it on someone else and that is exactly why Christ Jesus died.
There are two kinds of forgiveness: judicial forgiveness and parental forgiveness. Judicial forgiveness views God in his position as a judge who must say that sinners are guilty, have broken the law, are under judgment and condemnation, and are deserving of punishment. But then that same judge says, on the basis of Christ's death, He bore your punishment, took your guilt and paid for your sin. The price is accomplished, I declare you to be forgiven. That is a judicial act by which And by that act of judicial act by which all your sins, past, present, future, committed, being committed, and uncommitted are totally, completely and forever forgiven and you are justified from all things forever.
It happens the moment you invite Jesus Christ into your life. The moment you are redeemed. The moment you place your faith in Christ, your sin is put on Him, His righteousness is put on you and God judicially declares you to be justified. That痴 Romans 3. Declared righteous. Positionally and forever all sin is covered, passed over, blotted out and forgotten because of what Christ did on the cross. (Matthew 26:28, Ephesians 1:7, I John 2:12, Ephesians 4:32) Christ took all our sins and paid the penalty. When we believe in Christ and accept His sacrifice, God appropriates it on our behalf, judicially we are declared righteous and just forever and forgiven for sins past, present and future.
This reaches back into the Old Testament. From the moment that Abraham believed, from then on throughout his life God never imputed sin to him again because his sins were placed on Christ just as much as yours are. We池e post‑Christ he was pre‑Christ but all the sins of all the saints of all those ages at the moment they believed were put on Christ. Christ is the apex of history. Whether a person lived on the front side or the back side, He still bore their sins. And by an act of faith at that point, the value of Christ痴 redemption applies to them. They knew judicial redemption in the Old Testament and I believe their sins were nailed to the cross just as much as ours when they believed God.
Colossians 2:13 explains further. As we write the books of our own lives, they just get worse and the debt gets bigger. There is nothing that we can do to stop the list from growing longer and nothing we can do to erase it.   Then Christ goes to the cross for us, and we who were deas in our sins have now been made alive in Him. We have been forgiven and our sins have been blotted out and forgotten. When a criminal was crucified, a record of his crimes was nailed there for the world to see.  When Jesus died on the cross God pulled all the pages out of the books that belonged to all that would believe throughout history, stacked them all together, nailed them to the cross as if they were the crimes of Jesus and when Jesus died He paid the penalty for every crime that was nailed to His cross and God blotted them out.  If God is the highest court in the universe and He declares me there is no one or nothing that can condemn me.
Hebrews 10:10 compares the sacrificial system of Israel with the sacrifice of Christ. "We are sanctified by the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all." Sanctified means to be made pure, holy and set apart by the one sacrifice of Christ. We don't have to continue to bring animal sacrifices to God because on the cross Jesus said, "It is finished." The sacrifice never needs to be made again, and all our sins are forgiven because of Christ if we believe. That is judicial positional forgiveness.
Matthew 6 also says "And if you forgive men their trespasses your heavenly Father will forgive you and if you forgive not men their trespasses neither will your Father forgive your trespasses." What is meant by this?  Why won稚 I get forgiveness unless I give it to somebody else? It's not a prayer for an unbeliever who cannot begin his prayer "Our Father." This brings us to parental forgiveness. Judicial forgiveness deals with your position before God forever, and parental forgiveness deals with the joy of your fellowship day by day.
When you become a Christian you don't all suddenly stop sinning. You don't lose your sensitivity to sin. When you become a believer you become more sensitive to sin. And as you mature as a Christian and in your maturing experience there is a decreasing frequency of sin, along with a decreasing frequency of sin, but it is still a problem. A Christian who says he doesn't sin is doesn't seek the solution. There are some who teach that a Christian could reach a certain level in his life where he doesn't sin anymore, which is not true. He'll continue to sin but will not seek forgiveness and will lose the meaning of his relationship to God.
Now we are not dealing with God as a righteous judge we are dealing here with God as a loving father. When we sin something happens in the intimacy of the relationship. This is true of human relationships as well. Intimacy cannot be restored until one asks for forgiveness. David had to ask for it in Psalm 51. Judicial forgiveness had taken care of David's salvation, but he had no joy after his sin until he asked for and received parental forgiveness.  One can be forgiven, but if one is sinful and unconfessing and unrepentant in that sinfulness, one forfeits the joy of the fullness of that relationship.
Look with me for a moment at 1 John 1 says that we preach to bring others into the fellowship and into God's family, which is a matter of judicial forgiveness. Then he goes a step further to say that being saved puts you in the fellowship and being obedient makes you know the joy of that fellowship.
In John 13 Jesus washes the disciples' feet. They had been  having an ugly discussion about who would be the greatest in the kingdom. They were self‑centered, selfish, possessive, indifferent to Christ, unconcerned about His pending death, arguing, proud, egotistical, but Jesus puts a towel about His waist and starts to wash their feet. It was humiliating, to Him and to them, for they should have done it for Him.
Peter's turn comes and he refuses to let Jesus wash his feet.  Peter was faced with his own sin, but Jesus tells him that if he really wants a full relationship with him, that it is necessary. Then Peter wants a whole bath, but he is missing the point. "Peter, just be quiet. I'm only interested in your feet because there is a tremendous spiritual truth here. You池e sitting around this table sinning, but you are already clean. You've already been redeemed, and you don't need to undergo the process again, ever. What I'm interested in is keeping the dirt off your feet."
He is saying to them, simply this: "You've already had judicial forgiveness and a spiritual bath when you believed. All that's necessary for Me to do to keep the fullness of our relationship open is to wash your feet. As we walk through the world we collect dust and commit sins. Positional judicial forgiveness never needs to be repeated, but practical parental forgiveness needs to be repeated every day. It is wonderful that God is a Father who is so eager to forgive. He loves to forgive, and will forgive us as often as we come. This kind of love does not encourage sinning, but rather keeps us from it, because we don't want to betray that kind of love.
The problem is sin, the provision is forgiveness and the plea is confession. We received His forgiveness by confession of sin. You can know about sin and know about forgiveness but if you don't confess your sin you will never receive it. There is a barrier and you can never know the joy of fellowship with God. Confessing sin isn't easy but it痴 necessary to gain the intended joy that comes with parental forgiveness. Don't conceal your sin. Confess your sin. John Stott says, "One of the surest antidotes to the process of moral hardening is the disciplined practice of uncovering our sins of thought and outlook as well as word and deed and the repentant forsaking of the same." If you don稚 do that it will harden. We must not block out joy with a barricade of unconfessed sin.
Forgiveness is a vital part of love, and man's deepest spiritual need. Without it, man pays for his own sin eternally in hell and never enters into a relationship with God. He needs it if he is to enjoy heaven and be free of guilt and worry.
Have you experienced the forgiveness that comes in Christ? Even as a Christian as you walk through the world are you bringing your sins to the Lord for cleansing day by day? How about forgiving others?
There are several reasons why we are to forgive one another. First, we are to forgive one another because Christians are characterized as those who forgive. The traditional Jewish rabbis taught "love thy neighbor hate your enemy." But Jesus said in Matthew 5:43, "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you. Do good to them that hate you. Pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you. That you may manifest that you are the sons of your Father." Have we so soon forgotten what has been forgiven us that we would not forgive someone else? If a Christian when fails to forgive he sets himself up as a higher court than God, which is idolatry since he is worshipping himself as if he were God.
Second, we are to forgive because it follows the example of Christ, who walked in forgiveness.  I John 2:6 says, "If we say we abide in Him we ought to walk as He walked."   Ephesians 4:32 it says that we are to forgive one another even as God for Christ's sake has forgiven us. Christ is our model of forgiveness. On the cross he prayed "forgive them." The severity of any offense toward us cannot match what Christ suffered.
Third, forgiving expresses the highest virtue of man. Man most manifests the majesty of his creation in the image of God when he expresses forgiveness. Proverbs 19:11 says: "The discretion of a man differeth his anger, and it is his glory to pass over a transgression.・nbsp;
Fourth, forgiving frees the conscience from guilt. We can see that David suffered physical problems from the guilt that he felt over his relationship with Bathsheba. In II Corinthians 2 we can read that a root of bitterness that creates of binding of the conscience. People who carry grudges and bitternesses are actually wounding themselves.
Fifth, it delivers us from chastening.  A sinful, unforgiving spirit will be chastened. (Hebrews 12, I Corinthians)
But there is another more important reason: we are to forgive because if we don't we don't get forgiven either. It is joy, usefulness, productivity and your spiritual welfare that is the issue here. And a believer when he becomes saved judicially redeemed and all is covered doesn't then stop facing sin, become insensitive to sin or ignore sin but rather keeps on confessing sin as a way of life. 1 John 1:9. We entered by faith and we continue to walk by faith. We enter by confessing sin, and we continue to confess it as a way of life. I John 2 says that if we love God and we will continue to love our brother. We will continue to be obedient to God痴 laws. Before you were saved you walked in darkness and nothing was revealed. When you became a Christian you walk in the light and everything is made visible, even your sin.
If we do not continue to acknowlege our sins to God we sabotage our own spiritual effectiveness. The Greek word for confession of sin is homologeō, which means "to say the same." It is to agree with God about your sin. It is to acknowledge, repent of, and forsake sin. And then it is to thank God for forgiving it. God wants us to do this as part of our daily life.
Many Christians never confess their sins as they should. We kind of throw it to God in a big general ball, but we are to be dealing with our specific sins. If we are specific, there is something difficult about picking sin back up again and doing it.
"Forgive us our debts as we have forgiven" is a another possible translation. Before we ask forgiveness for our own ophileema, for our own sin against God for which we are indebted, it is assumed that we already have forgiven those who have sinned against us. First we forgive then we are forgiven. An unbeliever has no capacity, no spiritual virtue to do an act of forgiveness by which he would earn forgiveness. It痴 talking about a believer.
Some people don't have joy and miss out on being used by God. It could be because they are not confessing their sins or forgiving others. Maybe confession isn't cutting it because God won't give you release from those sins because you haven't forgiven. You have short circuited your own spiritual welfare. Oswald Saunders says, "Jesus is here stating a principle and God痴 dealing with His children." He measures us by the yardstick we use on others. The prayer is not forgive us because we forgive others but forgive us even as we have already forgiven others. He's going to deal with us as we deal with Him. Jesus said, "Give and it shall be given to you." Sow sparingly, reap sparingly. Sow bountifully reap bountifully. Whatever we invest in His kingdom we receive a return on. If we harbor sins and grudges and so forth we cut ourselves off from the blessedness that can accrue to us because of those things.
In 200 B.C. the Jews said that forgiveness of your neighbor's wrongdoing means that when you pray your sins will be forgiven too. The Talmud, the rabbinical commentary on the Old Testament says, "He who is indulgent toward others faults will be mercifully dealt with by the supreme judge Himself." If we don't forgive, God痴 not going to forgive us and we will go through life muddy feet. Judicially we are justified and the righteousness of Christ is imputed to us but the joy is gone and the usefulness disappears.
How is a grudge to be dealt with? First, take it to God as sin. "Lord, there is this person and this is the way I feel and it's a sin, I admit it, I'm sorry, I acknowledge it, I repent of it and I forsake it. Second, go to the person. It may be tough, but it is the only way to know spiritual joy. Third, give the person something you value very highly. Jesus said, "Where your treasure is, that's where your heart will be also." When you put something of value something that is precious to you in their hand and your heart will go with it and it will change the way you feel about them.
Matthew 5:7 says "Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy." People in Christ's kingdom are merciful. They will bear the insults of evil men and their hearts will reach out in compassion. You want mercy, you give mercy. You cannot come offering to the Lord some sacrifice to deal with your own spiritual life until you've gotten it right with somebody else.    I have to have mercy all my life long because I sin, and who am I to be unmerciful to anyone.
In Matthew 18 Peter asks, "Well, Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him?" The rabbis taught three times. Peter was extra generous and said seven, doubling tradition plus one. But Jesus said we are to forgive seventy times seven, indefinitely, infinitely, unendingly as God has forgiven us. Check out the parable in Matthew 18 for an example of forgiveness and what God expects of us. We cannot take all of the forgiveness that God offers us and yet refuse it to someone else.
We need to acknowledge and confess our sins by name on a constant basis to remind ourselves that we are sinners and God constantly forgives us. If we don't deal with our own sin, we loose joy and become unuseful in God's hand, because if we don't forgive others we are not being honest about the fact that God has forgiven us. An unforgiving Christian is a contradiction, a proud, selfish, creature who has forgotten that his sins have been washed away. Learn to confess, and before you confess learn to forgive.
"Lead us not into Temptation" The Protection of Prayer
This is the last lesson in the Lord's Prayer series. Our teacher has been Jesus himself, who pointed out the failings of the prayer that has been going on in his time. He deals with two groups, the Pharisees and the pagans.    The prayers of the Pharisees were hypocritical and selfish, because they were praying for their own glory and not for the glory of God. The prayers of the ritualistic pagans were mindless, mechanical repetitions meant to nag their gods into responding. Neither of these approached to prayer show a proper understanding of God.
If we say the Lord's Prayer we must be careful not to use it in either of these two ways. We should not pray it if our hearts are not right before God or as something chanted in mindless repitition. We should focus only on God and exalt Him, His person, His character and His wonderful works. We should acknowlege that we are totally submissive and dependent on Him. Prayer should be God centered and truth centered, and to be truth centered, we need to allow the Bible for form our knowledge of God.
It is interesting that every request made in this prayer is something that God has already promised to provide. We are not begging God for what he does not really want to give us, but rather we are simply claiming what is already ours through the death of Jesus Christ on the cross.
It is God's desire that his name be hallowed and that his kingcom come. He has promised to give us our daily bread, total forgiveness, guidance and protection. What we are really doing is gaining a deeper understanding of these promises and how we fulfil the conditions to claim them.
When we pray "hallowed be thy name," we must be sure that our lives are pure and without unholiness. If his name is hallowed, his kingdom is made manifest. If I submit to his will, then it is done. If I am living as I should, he will take care of my daily needs. If I have forgiven others, God will forgive me. If it is my desire to walk on the right path, then God will lead me away from temptation and into the things that are good. As we meet the conditions we may claim the promises. In the entire prayer there are six requests. The first three are about God and His glory, and the last three relate to man and his need.   God provides man's spiritual need with daily bread, his spiritual need with forgiveness and his moral need with protection.
And now let's move on to the main topic, "Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil." This is God's protection. God takes care of the moral standard of our life by guiding us away from sin. Forgiveness takes care of our past sins. Protection takes care of our future sins. We are now to avoid sin and need God's guidance to help us do so. We should be just as concerned about avoiding future sin as we are about having our past sins forgiven. God has graciously forgiven our sins. Let us not tread on that grace by continuing in sin when we should be seeking sanctification. We need not only forgiveness for past sins, but deliverance from future sins. The prayer closes with a doxology that tells of God's preeminence.
What does "lead us not into temptation" mean? Would a holy, righteous, pure God lead us into temptation? Why should we have to ask for this? Or could the word be translated "trials?" But James tells us to rejoice when trials come upon us. Is it then contradictory to pray not to be led into temptation? Could this be the emotional request of a heart that hates the potential of sin and cries to God for deliverance? No one seeks to go through trials, yet we also know that they make us exercise spiritual muscles and become stronger. Even Jesus prayed "let this cup pass from me." There was something in his humanness that did not want the trial, but yet when it was through the world had been redeemed. We pray that we are spared the trials, but if we must endure them, we pray for deliverance from the evil potential that lurks there. It is a prayer based on distrust of self. I know that I am a sinner who lives in a fallen world filled with temptations, and that I will fail without God's deliverance and protection.
The world is indeed fallen. In the natural world we see volcanos, earthquakes, fires, floods, accidents, disease and death. In the intellectual world we see self-biased man in an unsuccessful search for relativistic truth.  His logic is ruled by pride and his intellect by lust, and he makes himself god. Opinions collide constantly. The emotional world is ruled by grief, care, anxiety, envy, hate and greed. Rich step on the poor and the poor want to dethrone the rich. The spiritual world is darkest of all. Man is out of moral harmony with God and outside of God's divine plan. He wants to do right, but knows that he is pulled down by the gravity of evil. Man is capable of anything, and history has shown us many monsters. We live in this totally fallen world, and need to pray that God would constantly protect us and give us deliverance from it.
God himself does not tempt. It is not his nature, but sometimes he does allow trials. Trials can come because we have been disobedient. Job's trials proved how righteous he was in that he trusted God in the good times and the bad. Evil does not touch God, and God does not touch evil. Men are tempted internally by their lust and externally by the enticement of Satan, and the result of this is death.
James says that "Every good and perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variableness neither shadow of turning." God gives only good and perfect gifts. God allows certain things that are not the expression of his mind, heart or character, but that is in God's choice. We will have to ask him why he allowed them when we see him face to face in heaven. God's desire is that we do not do evil, but that we use the free choice that he has given us to do right. (Matthew 26:41, I John 2) God's desire is that we pray not to enter into temptation.
The Greek word for "temptation" is pirasmos, a neutal word neither good not bad. The English word temptation means seduction to evil, and may not always be a good translation. The Greek word could also mean test, trial or prove. A test implies the possibility of passing or failing, and a trial carries the potential of becoming a temptation. In Genesis 50 Joseph tells his brothers that what they meant for evil God used for good.
Every trial can strengthen and mature us, but if we don't see it through God's eyes, commit it to him and stand in his strength, Satan can turn it into a temptation, entice our lust and draw us into sin. When we pray "lead us not into trials" perhaps we are praying that we will not undergo a trial that we can't handle and that becomes an irresistable temptation that would bring evil upon us. We ask God not to have us undergo any process, procedure, circumstance or situation that will draw us into irresistable sin.
James is assuming that God is not going to do this. God's purpose in any trial is for our good, but Satan tries to use it for evil. When Jesus was led into the wilderness to undergo a trial in Matthew 4, seen from God's eyes the trial was a chance to prove Christ's virtue, but Satan saw it as a chance to destroy Christ's virtue. This is the way that our trials are, too, and we must approach them in the right way if they are to have any maturing, perfecting value. Peter said, "In this you rejoice that now for a little while you have to suffer various (pirasmos) trials so that the genuineness of your faith more precious than gold may rebound to praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ."
This means that God works out our whole lives.  We need some trials to grow, but if they came at the wrong time when we were not mature enough to handle them we could fall to the temptation. God allows the trials to perfect us, help us strengthen others, teach us to trust him and drive us to the Word of God and to our knees. Satan comes in with his temptations, and our response determines the result. We need to be on guard against having a false sense of security and presuming to be able to handle anything. No one has arrived spiritually and all have the potential to fall.
How are we to deal with trials. We know that this is a time for growth, but Satan begins to hit at us and we start to become bitter and angry. James 4:7 says, "Submit yourselves, therefore, to God." How do we do this? We need to get under God's Lordship by living by Biblical principles. We need to order our responses, attitudes, actions, thoughts, deeds and lives according to God's will as revealed in the Bible.
This request faces the danger of living in a fallen, cursed world. It confesses our inadequacy to deal with evil, our fleshly weakness and our lack of resources. We are helpless and need to submit to the Word of our protecting heavenly Father.
When we are undergoing a trial, the first thing that we think of is getting out. Even though we know that they for our ultimate good, we do not enjoy them. Even Christ prayed that the ordeal of the cross might be avoided, but then he turned it around and declared that God's will be done, no matter what the cost to himself, because the trial fit God's wisdom, way, will and plan. In the OT book of Daniel we see his three friends survived the trial of the fiery furnace without even smelling like smoke. Daniel was also protected in the den of Lions. We cannot do things like this on our own. We need God's help. (I Corinthians 10) God will never allow a trial that is too much for us, and he will always make a way out, which is like a tunnel through the trial. He will always bring us through it, but we must be careful not to be derailed by temptation and sin.
Now comes the end of the prayer: "For thine is the kingdom, the power, the glory forever, Amen. (see also I Chronicles 29:11)
Prayer: Father, we echo this prayer in our own hearts. Deliver us from evil. Deliver us from sin's penalty, sin's dominion, sin's guilt. Deliver us from sin's consequences as affecting our intellects and our emotion. Deliver our wills from bondage, our judgments from perversion, our imaginations from falsehood. Deliver our memories from bitter reminisces. Deliver our instincts from sinful drifting. Deliver our affections from what is earthly. Deliver us from weakness that we may know the fullness of Your strength. Thank You for this time, Father, this morning. We bless Your name for it. Thank You for this prayer. Your name be Hallowed, Your kingdom come, Your will be done, continue to give us as abundantly You have in the past our daily bread. Help us to be forgiving others that we may know the fullness of Your paternal forgiveness. And thank You for the promise that You'll never lead us into something we can't handle. But, Lord, we can't handle any trial unless we submit to You and resist the devil. Help us meeting the conditions to know the fulfillment of the inestimable promises of this prayer and to pray as we ought for Your glory, for Yours is the Kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.

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Dear THEVOICE_1

It is impolite to leave one sided comments on the sites of others and then allow no comments to be left at your own site. It also indicates that you may be afraid of honest discussion. I have studied with Jehovah's Witnesses without feeling that my own beliefs were threatened, and I would encourage you to show similar courage. I had an open mind, and would hope that you would have an open website. If what you believe is really true, you should not be afraid of the comments of those who might think differently.
Jehovah is an artificial name made from the Hebrew YHWH with the vowels for Adonai (Lord) added. It was constructed as a hedge aroungd the Law so that the Jews would not have to actually say the name of God, but could have a safe substitute instead and thus avoid the danger of uttering God's name in vain. Jehovah is indeed a name that has been traditionally used for God and perhaps there is nothing wrong with using it, but you are mistaken if you think that you can put God's name in such a tiny box. At the burning bush in Exodus, Moses asks God's name, and God says that his name is "I AM", represented by the tenseless YHWH. God exists alone and eternally. There are no others. God is the sole creator and competes with no one. He was, is and is to be, outside of the dimension of time. Think about that and it will blow your little box totally away!
You cannot put God in your little Jehovah box and insist that it is the only name by which God is willing to be named. It is idolatry (making God in your own image and not as he expresses himself) and foolishness to attempt to limit God by doing so, and heresy to force it upon others. If you are not willling to think about or cannot deal with this or the real meaning of God's name or the implications of it, I am sorry. I have dealt with Jehovah's Witness brainwashing before. You take scripture and historical quotations out of context and twist them to say what you want.
You have missed the entire point of the notes. Jesus was reaffiming the proper pattern for prayer, because the prayers of the Pharisees had degenerated into something that was far from the kind of prayer for which God's heart yearned. Jesus taught us to pray to our heavenly Father, but Jesus was also God himself. He made this claim clearly when he told the Pharisees, "Before Abraham was, I AM". If this was not a claim to Godship, then why did the Pharisees want to stone Jesus? If he did not claim to be God, then why did the Pharisees want to kill him for blasphemy?
It is amazing that you can devote so much energy to defending an artificial rendering of a Hebrew word while missing all important point of the deity of Jesus Christ and his rich teachings on prayer.
- 9/17/2006 8:46 PM
- usalapinhazzer
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Ravings from Tokyo

September 6, 2006

"Disciples' Prayer" by John MacArthur

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usalapinhazzer

I can't find it, either!