Prayer and Meditation A – The Lord’s Prayer

Introduction. The elements of the Lord’s Prayer are presented as subjects to think and pray about.
- I plan to add further thoughts as I meditate and pray through the outline and welcome any comments and suggestions. This outline is already getting rather long, so I shall try to shorten it where I can, but you can spend more time on some parts and less on others as your time permits. You are encouraged to develop your own approach as well.

The Lord’s Prayer Outline. – (updated 14 October, 2009)

1. Our Father who Art In Heaven - We are now able to grow and become at one (kindred spirits) with you by your gift of grace and faith in Jesus Christ and fellowship with the Holy Spirit.

- I consider my need for you, heavenly Father in my life, as I realize I am unable to live the Christian life without you. Actually we need to be parented and brought up again, only spiritually this time, in the nurture of the Lord. It’s as if we need to be raised from babes, born again in Christ, to become mature in the faith. It is wonderful to realize that we can be connected to God in a special family – father/child – relationship.

- Your love for us, God, is unconditional and yet you lead us to repent of our sins. We need to repent because of your unconditional love, not to earn your love. It is great that we can get to know and exprience your love and to trust you .

- God first loved us and gave himself for us and to us. We then gave ourselves, our love and our lives to him in return. He promised to be with us in spirit forever after.

I need to ask God how he wants me to think of him and relate to him as my father. It strikes me that God, as our parent, relates to us as both father and mother; and provides all our needs and some of our wants – that are in our best interest. For example a young person (boy or girl) needs a basic education and may want to take a music course and to have an instrument to complement it.

2. Hallowed be your name. For a complete list of Hebrew Names and Titles of God – Google search – The Names of God by Lambert Dolphin – URL ldolphin.org/Names.html .

- The names given to Yahweh there point out a blessing or help that  he gave to someone. eg Yahweh, the God who heals me.

- I should think hallowing God’s name would include believing that the Bible is the word of God – inspired and God breathed. This is a vast subject, but briefly there are parts of the Bible that can be taken literally, others figuratively and some, like the Psalms, are inspiring prayers to God. I have basically chosen to believe what it says and pray for understanding and how to apply it.
- Consider viewing the world from God’s point of view and perspective as he observes man’s inhumanity to man. How must he feel about how people have misused and abused the ethical/moral freedom he gave us at creation?
- Also to hallow God’s name is to call on him for inspiration for our prayer/meditation. ‘May the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight.’
- A lot of my personal problems began when I didn’t hallow God’s name, and now he is helping me to sort my life out.
- I think there would be less problems in our global community if we all hallowed God’s name – in spirit and in truth.
- With people, familiarity is said to breed contempt; but with God, getting to know him should inspire love.

3. Thy Kingdom come to earth as it is in the heavenly realm.
We long for God to take over world rule from sinful and self-serving mankind and rule for 1000 years with his saints and angels in wonderful peace and happy prosperity. We can be assured that the time will come in due course.

In the meantime we pray for more people to have the kingdom in their hearts and for more laborers for the harvest. Jesus wants all mankind to hear the gospel of grace and salvation and he has commissioned his followers to preach it.

4. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
I pray/meditate to learn what is God’s will.
- The commission of the church is to preach the gospel. I pray for success for the church’s efforts worldwide. This involves evangelism, missionary work, personal example of believers living godly lives and the financial support of many people.
- Jesus said to pray for more laborers for the harvest.
- We can pray that government and church leaders will call upon the Lord to seek his will in carrying out their responsibilities as his stewards over creation. Ideally we all should be servant leaders.

5. Give us this day our daily bread.

- We ask God to provide blessings for us so that we can be a blessing to others – the bottom line.

- Time to give thanks and pray for the physical needs and spiritual needs of family, friends, fellow Christians, all those God might be calling and government leaders. (a Prayer list)
– Spiritual needs such as guidance, direction, protection, inspiration (for our prayers, thoughts and actions), teaching, correction (leading to repentance and change to become more like Jesus) ( Psalm 51 – New King James Version ), help to walk in newness of life, healing, and friends to share our lives with.
- We need to ask for wisdom, both for ourselves and others who may be experiencing troubles and need help to cope in the best way.
- The Fruit of the Spirit is a vital thing to pray for as well.

We need to respond and do things too: like seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness; seek and knock; go to him – all who are weary and heavy laden; take his yoke upon you – his burden is light.
- we need you, God, to light our pathway and lighten our load.

6. Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.
- We need to forgive others if we expect God to forgive us. I consider examples in my life where I still need to forgive or have needed to forgive .
- As I become more aware of my past sins and sin nature (fallen condition since Adam), I realize how much more I need forgiveness and to be forgiving.
- Our ever present sin is our tendency to be self-reliant rather than God-reliant.
- Coveting is another common temptation in our consumer driven economy.

7. Keep us from temptation or the time of temptation.

- One  kind of temptation is when others offend us such that it is difficult for us to forgive them.
– and we also pray that those who have been so offended be allowed – and allow themselves – time to grieve and heal from the trauma. It is not always possible to forgive right away and they need support to work through it. They will feel ready to forgive in due time.

- God has promised to keep us from the hour of temptation which will come to test all people.  The temptation appears to be to give up the Christian faith in order to save our physical lives. God will need to give us the strength to persevere through such a trial. We will need to ask for the strength and rely on him. According to Amnesty International 160,000 Christians are martyred for their faith every year. We don’t hear much about it in regular newscasts.

8. Keep us from the evil one – and his self centered way of thinking. I think of times when I acted in a selfish way and the consequences. Something to consider is how might I have done it God’s way?
- keep us from discouragement, – Satan’s main tool.

Satan desires for us, who have been called to come out of the world, to give up our faith and come back to him and the world’s way of life.

9. For thine is the Kingdom and the power and the glory, forever and ever.
We look ahead once again to Christ’s return and his peaceful government on earth for 1000 years and on for forever in the New Heavens and the New Earth era

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PSALM 8
“1 O LORD, our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth! who has set your glory above the heavens.

2 Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings you have ordained strength because of your enemies, that you might still the enemy and the avenger.

3 When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which you hast ordained;

4 What is man, that you are mindful of him? and the son of man, that you visit him?

5 For thou have made him a little lower than the angels, and have crowned him with glory and honour.

6 Thou made him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; you have put all things under his feet:

7 All sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field;

8 The fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passes through the paths of the seas.

9 O LORD our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth!”

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Who am I that the King should bleed and die for? YouTube Link Here.