🙌 Standard & Longer Lord's Prayer: Seek 1st The Father, His Honor Kingdom Will; Then Our Provision, Forgiveness for Us, Others, Kept from Sin & Evil

[Nyfre]

I prayed for this request in Jesus Name. Amen.

 

[Silas]

Your love for the prayer Jesus taught and your desire to pray it with understanding is a beautiful thing, and I thank you for sharing it so fully.

Jesus gave us this prayer not to be repeated quickly from memory without thought, but as a model to guide us. There is great value when you take it slowly, phrase by phrase, and meditate on what each request really means. He was showing us how to pray, not just what words to say.

Prayer begins with relationship. Unless He is truly your Father through faith in Jesus Christ, prayer has no foundation. But when you have received Christ and believed on His name, you are given the right to be called a child of God, and you receive the Spirit of adoption by which you can cry, Abba, Father, with the same intimacy Jesus Himself knew. That relationship is what opens the way to pray at all.

That is why the prayer starts with God and not with us. Hallowed be Your name, Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. The primary thrust of prayer is not to get our wishes fulfilled, but to desire that God's will be accomplished. Prayer moves in a circle. It begins with God and His purposes, He makes those purposes known to our hearts, we speak them back to Him as prayer, and then He answers. We are to seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, trusting that all the other things we need will be added.

Only after our hearts are set on His honor, His reign, and His will does Jesus teach us to bring our own personal needs. Those needs come down to four basic petitions. Give us this day our daily bread. That is our provision, not only physical bread but every word that comes from God, and every spiritual, emotional and physical need that only He can supply. Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. That is our forgiveness. Lead us not into temptation. That is our guidance. But deliver us from evil. That is our deliverance.

Of all those personal petitions, Jesus paused to emphasize only one when He finished the model, and that was forgiveness. We will be forgiven as we forgive others. If we hold onto bitterness toward those who have sinned against us, we close our own hearts to receiving the mercy we ask for. To pray this honestly means naming our own sins before God and also releasing those who have wronged us into His hands, asking Him to work in them and trusting Him as the one who alone saves and judges.

The request about temptation and deliverance is also vital to understand. Temptation itself is not sin. Even Jesus was tempted. Temptation is any situation that draws us toward a fleshly reaction and invites us to seek immediate fulfillment apart from God's path. The sin comes when we give in to that desire. That is why Jesus told His disciples to pray that they would not enter into temptation. We all face that testing, which is common to everyone, and God uses it to build patience and faith as we choose to walk in the Spirit rather than the flesh. Our hope is not simply a prayer for deliverance as if darkness has power on its own, but a prayer for the entrance of Christ Himself. When His light and power enter a life, darkness must go.

And prayer does not end with our needs. It returns to worship. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. Prayer is worship, that awareness and awe of the greatness of God. Like the psalms, a prayer of faith should end with praise, with confidence that God has heard and will act. Often during prayer itself the Spirit ministers assurance and comfort, fears leave, and what began as a request ends in rejoicing because we know the Lord will work it out.

So continue to pray this pattern with a fervent heart. The fervent, heartfelt prayer of a righteous person avails much, not because the words are eloquent or meant to impress others, but because they rise from a sincere heart that truly seeks God. Jesus Himself, though He was the Son of God, drew strength from prayer for guidance and for life itself. How much more do we need it.

Keep coming to your Father in this way, worshiping Him, aligning your heart with His kingdom and will, bringing your daily needs, forgiving as you have been forgiven, asking for guidance and protection, and closing with praise to the One whose kingdom and power and glory never end. He hears, and He is faithful to answer according to His perfect will in Christ.

 

[hostadmin]

Thank you for giving us the privilege to pray on your behalf and for sharing your beautiful and thorough meditation on the pattern of the Lord's Prayer. We are glad that you asked us to stand in agreement with you in prayer as you seek first the Father and His honor and His Kingdom and His will according to Matt 6:33 and Matt 6:9-13.

We have been praying with you that our Father in heaven would be hallowed in our thoughts, words and deeds, that His Kingdom would come in us and through us with the fruit and gifts of the Holy Spirit, that His will would be done in our lives as it is in heaven, that He would give us each day our daily bread and meet our spiritual and physical needs according to Phil 4:19, that we would know His forgiveness and extend it to others, and that He would lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil and the evil one according to Matt 6:13 and John 17:15.

We count it a joy to agree with you for a deeper understanding of this outline that Jesus gave us, not as empty repetition but as heartfelt and effective prayer according to James 5:16.

If your request was answered and you have seen God hallow His name and bring His Kingdom and provision in a fresh way, please post a praise report and let us all know so we may rejoice with you. If your request does not seem to have been answered, please post it again as a new request and allow us to continue with you in prayer.

We pray that the Lord will continue to draw you into deeper intimacy as His child who can cry Abba Father according to Gal 4:6 and Mark 14:36, and that you will continue to abide in Christ and bear much fruit according to John 15:7-8.

May God bless you as you continue to seek Him through His Son, Jesus Christ. We pray this in Jesus Name, Amen.