Matthew 6
9 “Therefore, you should pray like this: m
Our Father in heaven,
In Luke 11 Jesus explains how a father would never reject his son for asking for fish or eggs. Which are non-essentials, fish or eggs being things that the son was desiring. The father could have given him the bare minimum but gives him above and beyond and shows how the father would never give him something horrible instead, like scorpions or snakes. How beautiful is it to know that this is God’s heart, he desires the best for use, to enjoy his creation and he is willing to give us pleasure in community with him.
Your name be honoured as holy.
Matthew 23 is a good example of this. Where Jesus calls out the pharisees on their beliefs that you should swear on the gold because that is holy. But Jesus questions if it’s the temple that makes the gold holy. I think this applies to this prayer, we can acknowledge that Jesus is the holy one, God is the Holy one that is set aside from everything else! Us belonging to him is what makes us holy and distinct from the rest of the world. We are set aside/holy such that we are with him and through him we are holy like the Gold in the temple.
Your kingdom implies that we acknowledge God as the King, he is the ruler and judge above everything. It reminds me of Revelation 19:16, he is King of Kings and Lord of Lords. It is an honouring prayer exalting God to his Kingship. Additionally, we say “come”, we are aiming for his Kingdom to come either now or in the future. In any case we are looking forward for that and even desiring that. We can actively work on his Kingdom to exist in this world.
Your will be done
We shall bow down to your will. Jesus said in the mount of olives. Your will be done! And we shall leave behind our worldly passions and submit to Gods will. His will is above and beyond good and assuming that our own will is good is competing with God. Let’s pray that God gives us insight through the holy spirit into his Will.
on earth as it is in heaven. o
This is again supporting the previous statement of submission to the will of God and emphasising that his will is applicable to earth as well. I think Jesus is announcing that he is acting within the will of the father and for us to accept the holy spirit which moves the will of God within us.
11 Give us today our daily bread. ▼
The man shall not live from bread alone says Christ (Mat 4:4), when he said that he had nothing to eat for 40 days! Trying to fast will quickly show you how strong his Will is. God/Jesus is showing a huge strength overcoming his bodily discomfort. God knows how important food is for humans and him himself experienced it in flesh. Food is essential but he gives us way more than just bread, he gives us salt to season it and many condiments and delicious aspects. He shows us ones more how much he loves us. Why should he even create delicious things, we don’t need it. He gives it to us because he loves us and wants us to be happy! Even if we hunger, we know that God is with us, even if we lack food, we should be aware that God has not forsaken us. And when he provides us with daily bread, we should be happy and thankful, we know that within his love we can ask him to give us our daily bread and more.
12 And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. q
I like this translation it puts sin into the perspective of debt. I was talking about it to a friend, and he reminded me of the parable of the debtor which really backs up this prayer. We need to be aware how heavy our sins are and that Jesus paid all of it. We can’t pay it back to him, but we still have a debt. We need to remember this when we engage with other sinners to be aware that we have nothing but the blood of Christ as they do. We need not to judge other because Jesus does not judge us.
I’ve recently got married and sometimes you feel like you are doing a lot, and you might think your partner isn’t. Obviously a completely biased opinion since you are not fully aware of all the things they are doing. But this passage helps you think that even if someone owes you in any way that you don’t take them accountable for it since Jesus doesn’t take you accountable.
13 And do not bring us into ▼ temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one. ▼ ,
This is hard, the thought that God pushes us into temptation or tests is difficult, thus making this prayer very easy to pray. God don’t test me, I am weak, I can’t do anything without you, please save us from sin, from being apart from you Lord. Give us the strength to resist.
[For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. ▼Amen.] ▼
This part is added in most bibles for the sake of the prayer and to finish it. At least I couldn’t find it in the Codex Sinaiticus. Nevertheless, it is good to remind ourselves that the kingdom is his. He is the King of Kings. The Power is from God, the power to gain salvation, the power to provide for our needs, the power to resist temptation and sin.
Amen