The Lord's Prayer

If you could choose to pretend or to be real, which one would you choose?  In Matthew 6 Jesus taught His disciples there was a real way to pray and a pretend way to pray and called the pretenders hypocrites.  They would pray empty prayers only for show as they stood on the street corner to be seen by those passing by.  Jesus gave us a prayer model known as the Lord’s Prayer as a guide to help us position our hearts when we pray:

Vs. 9:  “Our Father, in heaven, Hallowed be Your name.”  

Hallowed means “to make holy, or set it apart to be exalted, and being worthy of absolute devotion.”   When we start to pray, we turn our focus to our Heavenly Father, not to our problems, and honor Him, acknowledging His greatness. 

Vs. 10 “Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”   

God will operate His Kingdom on earth through His body of believers, and we need to be consecrated to Him to hear and obey His voice.  Jesus, in Matthew 26:42b prayed  “O My Father, if this cup cannot pass away from Me unless I drink it, Your will be done.”  We are inviting God to come and do His work through us and among us.

Vs. 11 “Give us this day our daily bread.” He is faithful and will always take care of us and meet our needs.  Our bread is a daily provision, and just like in Exodus 16:4, God supplied manna to the Israelites each day.

Vs. 12 “And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.”  Mark 11:25 says we are to forgive others so when we pray, the Father may forgive us of our sins also.  

Vs. 13 “And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.” Psalms 23 says He leads us besides the still waters. If we follow Him we won’t get into the things that would separate us from Him but rather we will be drawn closer to his heart.  

We have a choice what prayers we offer up;  will they be hollow or Hallowed?