by Pastor Paul Dugan
For centuries, Christians around the world have been using the Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6:9-13) to build a life of prayer. There are so many things that seem to divide believers and churches. This prayer is one thing that unites the whole church, regardless of race, culture, tradition, denomination, or worship style. The whole church is included in the “OUR” of “Our Father...” When we pray this prayer, we are not alone!
The Lord’s Prayer is actually six prayers- “The Lord’s Prayers”:
The Father’s praise: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name,
The Father’s purpose: Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
The Father’s provision: Give us today our daily bread.
The Father’s pardon and reconciliation: And forgive us our sins, as we also have forgiven those who sin against us.
The Father’s protection: And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.
The Father’s promise: For yours is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever. Amen.’
When we pray these prayers, we are praying the heart of Jesus. His entire ministry is essentially an answer to these six petitions. His life, ministry, suffering, death, and his resurrection have brought the kingdom- on earth, as it is in heaven. And he longs that your life and mine would be a living answer to these prayers. Wherever the Lord’s Prayers are answered, people experience renewal, restoration, and the blessings of life in the kingdom of God.
Jesus did not give the church these prayers as a script to be mindlessly repeated by rote. Rather, they form a trellis. I believe Jesus intended that we take these six petitions and grow a whole life of prayer on them, as a vine grows on the structure of a trellis, or as a jazz artist creates improvisational music on the structure of a chord progression.
Today we focus on the Father’s promise, building on this final affirmation in the Lord’s Prayer: “Our Father,… Yours is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever. Amen.”
I invite you to pause right now, get a quiet place, and practice putting this prayer into your own words. For example,
“Father, I thank you, for you have….”
“Father, I trust you, for you will…”
Connecting the Lord’s Prayer and the Psalms: Jesus built his own prayers on the Hebrew psalms, Israel’s ancient book of prayer. These include many psalms that express gratitude for and trust in the deliverance and promises of God (click on each psalm for access to a guide): Psalm 3; Psalm 4; Psalm 9; Psalm 11; Psalm 16; Psalm 20; Psalm 21; Psalm 23; Psalm 27; Psalm 30; Psalm 32; Psalm 34; Psalm 40; Psalm 46; Psalm 48; Psalm 62; Psalm 63; Psalm 68; Psalm 71; Psalm 73; Psalm 75; Psalm 84; Psalm 86; Psalm 91; Psalm 92; Psalm 105; Psalm 107; Psalm 116; Psalm 121; Psalm 124; Psalm 131; Psalm 136; Psalm 139; Psalm 144
Here is one of my favorite improvisations on the final prayer of the Lord’s Prayers: “We have made all these petitions of you because, - as our all-powerful King- you listen to our prayers and are both willing and able to give us all that is good; and because your holy name, and not we ourselves, should receive all the praise, forever. This shall truly and surely be!” (*based on the Heidelberg Catechism).
For a guide to praying the Lord’s Prayer: Fifty-seven Words that Change the World, by Darrell Johnson.