Lessons On How To Pray! Lesson 1. (Hix)

Matthew 6:9-13-In this manner, therefore, pray: Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done On earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread.

And forgive us our debts, As we forgive our debtors.

And do not lead us into temptation, But deliver us from the evil one. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.

Lesson 1-Our prayers should resemble the Lord’s Prayer, it should have subject matter that this prayer has.

1-Our Father-God maybe our friend, our help, our rock, our salvation, our hope, but most of all, He is our Father!

Now with the idea that He is our Father, the first misconception about that term is that He is a pushover father.

The truth is He is not going to give you everything that you ask for, but He will give to you what will glorify His name, and what you need and ultimately give you what is best for you. (Now, that don’t always seem like it or feel like.)

But Jesus reminded us, that God always has our best interest in mind, in our situations

Matthew 7:9-11-Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!

The second misconception is that He will not punish us, but the Bible is very clear on this matter.

Hebrews 12:5-11-And you have forgotten the exhortation which speaks to you as to sons: “My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, Nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him; For whom the Lord loves He chastens, And scourges every son whom He receives.” If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom a father does not chasten?

But if you are without chastening, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate and not sons. Furthermore, we have had human fathers who corrected us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live? For they indeed for a few days chastened us as seemed best to them, but He for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness.

Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

When I think of the word father, I can’t help in making the correlation between my earthly father and my heavenly father.

Someone may have been able to tell me some thing about my earthly father, but there where some thing I knew about him, I had heard with my on ears, seen with my on eyes, I had spent time with him.

The same is true with my heavenly Father, there are some things someone might tell me about Him, but there are some things about Him, I have seen with my own eyes, heard with my own ears (or at least felt in my heart), because I have spent time with Him. (Been with Jesus)

When we think of our heavenly Father, two images should come to mind:

1-The love a child or children has for their father. (A child wearing the fathers boots, wanting to be just like him).

2-The way a father loves that child or children. (Wouldn’t let anything harm that child, and makes sure it has everything is needs).

1 John 3:1-2-Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God! Therefore the world does not know us, because it did not know Him. Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.

In Heaven-He not limited by time or space, or objects!

He is in heaven, where He sees all, we only see what is happening around us!

POEM

In childhood's days our thoughts of Heaven

Are pearly gates and streets of gold,

And all so very far away;

A place whose portals may unfold

To us, some far-off distant day.

But in the gathering of the years,

When life is in the fading leaf,

With eyes perchance bedimmed by tears,

And hearts oft overwhelmed with grief,

We look beyond the pearly gate,

Beyond the clouds of grief's dark night,