Welcome back this beautiful Lord's day. We will begin our study this week focusing on the preface (Our Father) and individual petitions of the Lord’s Prayer from Matthew’s Gospel.
ASSIGNMENT:
Read Matthew 6:9-13. (note: some later manuscripts add: “for Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen” at the end of :13).
This prayer has six petitions – beginning with Hallowed be Your name through Lead us not into temptation and deliver us from evil.
1. Which petitions would you identify as spiritual and which would you call physical?
2. Notice the order of the prayer: Your name, Your kingdom, Your will. The petitions that follow are give us, __________ us, _________ us and ___________ us (the last two are usually counted as one - for the 6th petition).
All things are subordinate to His Name, His Kingdom, His will!! As we abide in Christ, our desire to honor and submit to Him will take precedence in our prayers and in our lives.
The prayer begins with Our Father who is in heaven.
Andrew Murray, author of With Christ in the School of Prayer, wrote, “a knowledge of God’s Father-love is the first and simplest, but also the last and highest lesson in the school of prayer.”
3. What do you think Mr. Murray meant by that?
4. As you think of God – especially as you pray to Him – do you tend to envision Him as a great and mighty King on some far-away throne… or do you have a more intimate picture of a father-figure?
Tony Ash, Pray Always, wrote that the way Jesus referred to God as Father was not customary in Israel at this time. It is interesting to compare the entries of Father/father in a concordance. By far, in the majority of entries in the Old Testament, the “f” is not capitalized and refers to earthly fathers. However, in the New Testament the majority of entries is spelled with a capital and refers to God, the Father.
5. Read Jeremiah 3:19-20 and note what this passage says about God’s longing.
________________________________________
As you complete your study for today, read I John 3:1-3 and then spend some quiet time with God, focusing especially on the blessing of your Father/child relationship.
