The Everyday Prayer

When we say OUR Father, prayer stops being private.  Every morning as we pray, the Lord intends us to invite others into our prayer closet.  They join us.  They are in our minds as we speak with Him.  God so loved the WORLD.  Our prayers are to reflect the same love.  We are to have a “list of 10” people for whom we are praying salvation.  We are to think of our “enemies”, the people to whom we offer forgiveness even as we seek it for ourselves.  Hungry people should be there with us and people who need God’s guidance. Our church should be there.  Our nation too.  It’s a convention!  If saying FATHER is the end of fear and saying HEAVEN is the end of despair, saying OUR is the end of selfishness.  May the Lord open our hearts to a wide world of need.  May He teach us to love.  May He teach us to pray.

After we say “Father” Jesus teaches us to say “Heaven”.  He insists that we think about the place of God’s power and perfection and presence.    Father makes everything personal.  Heaven makes everything possible.  Isaiah “saw the Lord, high and lifted up”(Isaiah 6).  We are to do the same through the eyes of faith.  One of the worst side effects of sin is cynicism–a deep distrust that victory or purity or joy is even possible.  While faith doesn’t deny injustice or pain, it does deny that these are normal or permanent to those who belong to God.  Looking at Heaven is to remind us of the goodness and power of the God who reigns there.  It is to remind us of the beauty and order at the center of the universe.  To pray, “Our Father which art in Heaven” should be the everyday end of despair.  Theology is psychology.  What we believe should impact how we think and what we feel.

No one is suprised that Jesus called God “Father”.  Born of a virgin, conscious early of His relationship, it was logical.  The suprise is that He told us to do the same.  Like the prodigal son,(Luke 15) most of us have lost hope long ago that we belong to God in any meaningful way.  Our sins have been too real.  Our hearts still unreliable.  Our best thought is that we could return home and be a “slave”, a second-class citizen.   A son?  No way!  But God’s “Fatherhood” is a statement of His character not ours.  He is Father because He is the source of life.  He is Father because He is the savior of sinners. “God does not take away life, but plans ways so that the banished one may not be cast out” (2 Samuel 14:14).  Today as you pray, don’t think about you.  Think about Him.  By faith, say “Father”.

True prayer is a circle.  It starts in heaven (Our Father, Thy kingdom, Thy will), descends to earth (give us, forgive us, lead us, deliver us), and then rises back to heaven to rest at the throne (for Thine is the kingdom, and the power and the glory).  The last sentence is the permanent form of our fellowship.  A day will come when we no longer need to ask for bread or protection.  So the day when we need not ask for His kingdom to come.  There will never be a day, however, when we will not gladly shout, “blessing and honor and glory and power be unto Him who sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb, forever and ever.”  (Revelation 5:13)  Those who start with trust, end with joy.  Every day’s prayer is a picture of life and where it is going.  It ends at a glorious throne.

Yesterday at the close of the worship service, a woman I had never seen came to me and said, “You seem burdened for this church.  I am going to pray for you.  Maybe the Lord will do something.”  I know what she mean’t.  She, was trying not to presume on the Lord.  I also know that had we been in a spiritually revived service that she would have spoken with more boldness.  He will answer! (her confident heart would have proclaimed)  The end of the Lord’s prayer gives us a reminder of our confidence.  “For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory”.  The ground of our confidence is the very character of God.  Nothing we ask is too difficult for Him.  Our confidence digs deep down to the rock. The kingdom is His, the power is His, the glory is His.  At the close of every prayer let us remember to whom we have spoken.   He is all the assurance we need.

It is a great gift when we are convicted of sin.  It is God’s love when we become conscious of the damage we have done to ourselves and to others by our deeds.  It is a painful but necessary moment.  Having found forgiveness, part of His gift is a holy horror of ever going back, a Spirit-given caution towards temptation. Sampson was arrogant with his powers. He did not fear temptation.   He trifled with sin and the Holy Spirit left him. (Judges 16)  We should fear lest this ever be said of us.  Having known the power of God, we forfeit it by drifting back into sin.  All of us will face temptation.  All of us will be tested, but we should never choose it!  We should move toward temptation only when it is the will of God for the battle to finally be faced.  Then it will be an opportunity for victory, not for failure.

Spurgeon says that the Lord’s prayer is like a ladder.  It starts at the top and moves downward.  It begins at the highest human possibility ( “Our Father”-sonship) and ends at the lowest (“Lead us not into temptation”-a sinner in danger of becoming a greater sinner).  The last petitions of the prayer are words from a humbled heart, conscious of past failure and fearful of it in the future.  It is a fair fear.  It is a wise prayer because sin is a very real danger.  “Let him who thinks he stand take heed lest he fall” says the scripture.  The burned child dreads the fire and wisely so.  The Lord teaches us who have learned our own weakness to daily ask for His guidance  so as to continue on the path.  What wisdom is here!  This may be the lowest prayer, but it rises from the most mature heart–one that can be honest about the continuing stuggle with sin.

Pardon is given without money and without price.  All that is required is that we should ask for it. “Ask and you shall receive.” (John 16:24)  The thief on the cross asked to be “remembered”.  He received much more.  All who come near with the same spirit receive the same grace. Why would you carry your burden any longer? Imagine hearing the Lord say, “Son, daughter, your sins are forgiven you. . .go in peace.” (Luke 7:48-50) Asking God is a great test of faith.  It requires us to believe in Him rather than “pay our own way”.  It is, however, the secret of all spiritual life.  We cannot purchase this great gift.  The only way we can have it by asking and receiving. “It is by grace we are saved, through faith, and this not of ourselves.  It is the gift of God”

” Come let us reason together, says the Lord.  Though your sins be as scarlet they shall be as white as snow.” (Isaiah 1:18)  Real forgiveness requires communication.  God calls us to “come and reason” with Him.  We have to talk.  We have to be honest.  We have to listen.  I used to pray the Lord’s prayer as a blanket request.  “Forgive me my sins(all of them).  It was a magic bullet!  I didn’t have to be specific.  I didn’t have to regret or even admit my part in the mess that we humans have made of God’s world.  I realize, now, my mistake.  Jesus was teaching us to come into God’s presence for honest conversation re. our failures.  In prayer, I am to lance the wound of my actions and attitudes and patterns and pride.  When I do, His healing love flows in to wash it all away.  Think about it. The cleansing power of the cross requires communication.

O God, my neighbor has offended me.  I have been kind to him, but he has been ungrateful.  I cannot overlook it.  I remember every deed that shows how unfair he has been toward me.  I know his heart, O God, his motives.  I am certain of it.  I am determined that he gets what he deserves.   I cannot release him to your justice.  I need to see for myself that he it truly sorry.  I will be cordial around him, but wholehearted forgiveness?  Never!   Will you please deal with me as I dealing with him?   Will you please apply this same standard to me, to my sins?  Will you remember what I have done and use every proof to hold me hostage to my own unworthiness?  It seems only fair.  Hear me, Father, as I pray this prayer.  (Augustus Hare)