[bluidkiti]

PRINCIPLES FROM THE LORD'S PRAYER
Hallowed by Your name. Prayer is worship. With these words, Jesus implied that our first responsibility in talking to God is to acknowledge Him for who He is. Unless we do, we have no right to request access To Whom It May Concern; God's presence.
Your kingdom come. Your will be done. Prayer is asking for God's work to be done. Nothing that we request has any eternal value unless it fits into His sovereign plan. Therefore, we must trust God's plan and realize that His answers must be in step with His will.
Give us day by day our daily bread. Prayer is trusting God for what we need. Only God can provide us with our daily sustenance. Therefore, it would be foolish to ignore His hand in supplying us with our basic physical needs.
And forgive us our sin. Prayer is our opportunity for cleansing. Only through talking with God and asking Him to forgive us when we have missed the mark can we become clean. When we approach God and humbly acknowledge our sin, we can go away cleansed and prepared for service.
And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. Prayer is an acknowledgment that temptation is serious business. Because we are not capable of standing up to satan's power in our own strength, we need help in fighting the temptations that confront us each day.
Q. How does God want us to pray so that He will listen to us?
A. First, we must pray from the heart to no other than the one true God, who has revealed Himself in His Word, asking for everything He has commanded us to ask for. Second, we must acknowledge our need and misery, hiding nothing, and humble ourselves in His majestic presence. Third, we must rest on this unshakable foundation; even though we do not deserve it. God will surely listen to our prayer because of Christ our Lord. That is what He promised us in His Word.
Q. What did God command us to pray for?
A. Everything we need, spiritually and physically, as embraced in the prayer Christ our Lord himself taught us.
Q. What is this prayer?
A. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name, Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.
Q. Why did Christ command us to call God our Father?
A. At the very beginning of our prayer, Christ wants to kindle in us what is basic to our prayer--the childlike awe and trust that God through Christ has become our Father. Our fathers do not refuse us the things of this life; God our Father will even less refuse to give us what we ask in faith.
Q. Why the words in heaven?
A. These words teach us not to think of God's heavenly majesty as something earthly, and to expect everything for body and soul from His almighty power.
Q. What does the first request mean?
A. Hallowed be Your name means, help us to really know You, to bless, worship, and praise You for all Your works and for all that shines forth from them; You're almighty power, wisdom, kindness, justice, mercy, and truth. And it means help us to direct all our living--what we think, say and do--so that Your name will never be blasphemed because of us but always honored and praised.
Q. What does the second request mean?
A. Your kingdom come means, rule us by Your Word and Spirit in such a way that more and more we submit to You. Keep Your church strong and add to it. Destroy the devils work; destroy every force which revolts You and every conspiracy against Your Word. Do this until Your kingdom is so complete and perfect that in it You are all in all.
Q. What does the third request mean?
A. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven means, help us and all people to reject our own wills and to obey Your will without any back talk. Your will alone is good. Help us one and all to carry out the work we are called to as willingly and faithfully as the angels in heaven.
Q. What does the fourth request mean?
A. Give us today our daily bread means to take care of all our physical needs so that we come to know that You are the only source of everything good and that neither our work and worry nor Your gifts can do us any good without Your blessing. And so help us to give up our trust in creatures and to put trust in You alone.
Q. What does the fifth request mean?
A. Forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors means because of Christ's blood do not hold against us, poor sinners that we are, any of the sins we do or the evil that constantly clings to us. Forgive us just as we are fully determined as evidence of Your grace in us to forgive our neighbors.
Q. What does the sixth request mean?
A. And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil one means by ourselves we are too weak to hold our own even for a moment. And our sworn enemies--the devil, the world and our own flesh--never slot attacking us. And so, Lord, uphold us and make us strong with the strength of Your Holy Spirit so that we may not go down to defeat in this spiritual struggle but may firmly resist our enemies until we finally win the complete victory.
Q. What does Your conclusion to this prayer mean?
A. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever means we have made all these requests of You because, as our all powerful King, You not only want to, but are able to give us all that is good and because Your holy name, and not we ourselves should receive all the praise, forever.
Q. What does that little word Amen express?
A. Amen means this is sure to be. It is ever more sure that God listens to my prayer than that I really desire what I pray for.
--Author Unknown