Pray Like This

“Pray then like this: 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 also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”

Matthew 6:13

Jesus addressed why we pray and how we pray in the preceding verses. (Matt 6:5-8) He says that we should not pray like the hypocrites who pray to be seen by others. Rather, we should pray in secret knowing our Heavenly Father sees us and rewards us. He also says we should not “heap empty phrases like the Gentiles do,” or “use many words” thinking we will be heard. Instead, we pray knowing that God knows what we need before we ask him.
 
He then gives a model prayer as an example of how to pray. I do believe Christ’s intention was to give us a template and not a rote prayer that we should recite verbatim. This does not mean that we cannot pray this prayer as it is written. It may have great value and meaning to recite this prayer, however, my point is that this is not Jesus’ main intention in sharing it with us. Rather, I believe it gives us direction on specific aspects of prayer that we should incorporate into our prayer lives.
 
He starts out with praise. “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.” With reverence and respect, he opens this prayer addressing God as our Father. This reminds us of the intimacy we have with God. He adds that God’s name is to be hallowed or revered as holy. At the least, this tells us that God’s name, which represents his being, should be treated with the utmost respect. This is true for all three Persons of the Godhead. Jesus is our friend, but he is not our buddy. We are not equals and although he is close to us, we recognize he is Lord of heaven and earth. Our prayers are intimate and personal, but our words recognize that our Father is high and lifted up.
 
He then says, “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” We are to pray to God longing for his kingdom to come. This prayer should be the desire of our hearts. When God’s eternal kingdom is established, we will physically dwell in his presence and all sin, sickness, sadness, and death will be a thing of the past. We also pray for God’s will to be done. How is God’s will done in heaven? It is done fully, immediately, and joyfully. Until Christ returns, we should respond to God in this way and pray others do as well.
 
 We know this prayer is for us to pray and not Jesus when he says, “Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” We are a needy people. In our country most people take daily food for granted. In the ancient world, like much of our world today, bread was made daily because there were no preservatives or plastic bags to let it keep. Further, with poverty it was not a given that they would have enough to eat each day, so they recognized their need for God’s daily provision. Our need may not be daily bread, but we are still a needy people.
 
Likewise, Jesus reveals we are sinners and prone to temptation. We need to ask God for forgiveness daily to restore the intimacy of our relationship and we ought to have that same heart of forgiveness for those who sin against us. God does not tempt us, however, like he led Jesus into the wilderness where he experienced the testing of the Devil, he may bring us to a place where we find ourselves tempted by the evil one. What God may bring in our lives as a test becomes a temptation because of the sinfulness of our hearts. We pray for God’s protection and deliverance from every situation that might lead us to be tempted.
 
Some manuscripts add, “For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever. Amen” We don’t know if that was originally said by Jesus, or it was added later as a benediction to the prayer.  But it rightly closes the prayer by bringing our focus and our heart back to God in adoration and praise. Prayer should center on God from beginning to end and express the real longing, needs, and challenges we face in life.