As a loving great grandfather of a cute little blond-haired toddler, who has become attached to me in a special sort of way, my encounter with him this past week serves as a timely illustration of the point Jesus made to His followers when He taught them about prayer.
When the 15-month-old looked up and saw me enter the room where he was playing, immediately he ran toward me squealing, with outstretched arms - which, when I picked him up, he threw around my neck and, hugging me tightly, with his head on my shoulder, patted me with his chubby little hand on my back. What a heart-warming scene of a dependent little child engaged in intimate communion with a much greater-than-self God-like figure which, to the child, not only represents but indeed is a source of love, provision, safety and security.
Now folks, this display of intimate communion occurred instantly, caringly and genuinely. No one had to suggest it . . . remind the child of his need for it . . . even had to teach the child that it was the right thing to do. It occurred naturally. Intimate communion occurred naturally between the Lord Jesus Christ and His Father who, because we have been born again, is our Father too.
Thus, Jesus told His disciples that they, too, could experience intimate communion with God in “like manner” . . . “like this” . . . “in this way”.
We all can “say” the words that Jesus taught but the question remains: Do we “pray” His “way” rather than just “say” His words?
So, as we take yet another look at His model for praying to God, think about the points for emphasis that He had in mind when He prescribed “how you pray”. If we are indeed to “let this mind be in us which was also in Christ Jesus” should we not look beyond the wording of, to the reasoning for, His pattern for praying.
Jesus considered praying to God to be communion between God and any one or all of His family. With that in mind - with the concept of “koinonia” (community) in mind, He constructed His model so as to emphasize three aspects of praying: the communicants . . . the community . . . their communication.
In connection with one petition in particular, Jesus added a very intriguing caveat to highlight parenthetically our Lord’s amplification of the principle of forgiveness in His model prayer - Matthew 6:9-15 . . . Jesus constructed His model prayer to ensure a right understanding of the communicants as denoted by the salutation “Our Father”.
Obviously His model prayer is not for non-Christians - folks who are not: believers in Christ . . . kingdom dwellers . . . not even kingdom seekers – none of whom can pray “Our Father”, for none other than children of God have family ties to the LORD God whose kingdom the Son of God came to establish. Unbelievers can “say it” but not “pray it” – and there’s a huge difference.
The focus of the prayer is first and foremost the LORD God, His kingdom, AND, secondarily, all who belong to His kingdom by virtue of repentance of sin and acceptance of Jesus as Son of God and Savior.
“Our” refers to all Christians. “Father” refers to the Christian’s relationship to God through Christ. In Christ, we were “born anew” and granted sonship status, making us heirs and joint-heirs with Christ. Thus, we all are now part of the family - the family of God.
For that reason, Jesus also constructed His model prayer to ensure a right understanding of the community aspect of praying. Nine times Jesus emphasizes the all-inclusive nature of rightly praying to the LORD God by His use of those two pronouns “our” and “us”.
Together we all “dwell” in Christ. Together we all are kingdom dwellers. Together we all “shall dwell in the House of the Lord forever”.
We believers in Christ are all in the same boat, spiritually speaking. So might as well get used to the great idea - conveyed by the ark of the covenant of the Old Testament then fulfilled by the person of the covenant (the Living Ark . . . Word) of the New Testament - that we are all in it together in the here and now and need to be prepared to make the most of being a part of the family of God in the hereafter.
As a matter of fact, Jesus told us to pray “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” For, you see, eternal life for true believers begins at the moment of conversion. Thus, we can accurately speak of ourselves as “pilgrims passing through” this world of woe. The best IS yet to be. We are in community with each other because we are in communion with God.
As communicants we are in community and therefore in communication – first of all with God and, secondarily, with fellow believers.
However, Jesus would have us understand that communication is “between” us and the LORD, “between” us and fellow believers. As we say in counseling, “Communication is a two-way street.” Therefore, how and what we communicate is of the utmost importance. To God our Creator, Father and Redeemer, it is supremely important that we communicate, through word and deed, respect and honor, praise and glory!
The Shorter Catechism says it this way: “The chief end of man is to glorify God.” The Letter from Jude was most likely inserted into its position in the New Testament (right before The Revelation) to make this very point concerning the chief end of man – Jude 24-25 . . .
The point we make here is this: Jesus began and ended His model prayer glorifying God . . . In between giving God the glory, petitions to God on behalf of the children of God are approved - one that is quite natural (the petition for provision) and one that is easy on the one hand but difficult on the other (the forgiveness clause).
We all need to, are willing to, and at times anxious to, ask God to forgive us our own sins, but rather slow to ask the LORD to forgive those whose sins harmed us or at least made us feel uncomfortable, unwanted, unappreciated.
Forgiveness, as a gift God offers us, we readily accept but forgiveness, as a gift God expects us to give to others, we are rather hesitant to bestow – with the extent of our hesitancy dependent upon the degree of hurt that we suffered as a result of the transgression against us. Someone called it “the terrible petition”! However, Since a forgiving spirit is part of our new state of being due to our spiritual nature in Christ, forgiveness of others is supposed to come as naturally to we who have been transformed by Him, as it did with Him who, when He hung on the Cross, prayed “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
Folks, it’s not that we earn the right to be forgiven by forgiving others, but that, just as God for Christ’s sake has forgiven us, our forgiveness of others occurs naturally because of our own intimate communion with His Father and ours.
Intimate communion occurs in a genuine encounter with Father God, and, Christlike compassion flows naturally from that genuine encounter to the extent that we as children of God possess the power through prayer to let go . . . release the offender from his or her sin against us . . . give up that tendency to strike back . . . stop obsessing about that painful experience that occurred years ago . . . stop replaying the tape over and over again in our heads.
You and I have power through prayer to trust God for the best, and leave the rest where it belongs – in His hands of justice and mercy for all!
With due respect to Saint Francis of Assisi, I suggest this revision of his prayer: “God, grant me the power through prayer to adapt my life to deal wisely with things I cannot change, courage to change things I can, and wisdom to know the difference, in the Name of Jesus, and by the help of the Holy Spirit, Amen.”
