The concluding sentence of the Lord’s prayer begins with the word for, one of those ‘big little words’ that punches above its weight. The word alerts us to the reason for the entire prayer. Let this prompt us to go over the entire prayer again this week. Let us ensure that every element is understood through the kingdom and authority of God now and forever. After all, this is the most important prayer we will pray in our earthly lives.
Jesus’s purpose in the prayer, in the midst of the entire Sermon on the Mount, is to bring us into relationship with our heavenly Father in humility and trust. It is a prayer constructed of few words, because it assumes deep and abiding faith that God knows the details of our lives.
We are to practise on this earth what will be true for all eternity. Our Almighty God, the Creator of Heaven and Earth, is our Father, who cares for us intimately, is totally trustworthy, wanting our relationship, requiring openness and purity and wanting us to believe in Him and trust Him – totally. This is Kingdom life – a life of total submission.
We are members of His Kingdom, but it is His Kingdom.
Jesus Changes Everything
It sounds easy. But since the Fall, we are born into human flesh that is insecure, self-willed, proud, ambitious and possessive. We appoint our own kings and like it that way – anything but total submission to the God and Creator of all. That’s where we start, but Jesus (Yeshua) changes it all as he points us to the Father.
Thank you Father for sending us Yeshua to be the way to you and for sending us your Spirit to enable us to live out Kingdom life in submission to you.
Yet, discipleship is a process – we get there gradually; but we do get there if our hearts are willing.
So let’s read the entire prayer again this week, wrapped up in another prayer. Let us pray that the words we read will be truly embedded in our inner beings, that in every way our lives will be lived through faith in the one who gave us the prayer all those years ago and now is exalted to be our King.
Author: Clifford Denton