“Give us this day out daily bread”. Just before Jesus started the Lord’s Prayer he told his disciples God already knew everything they needed. To pray then is to communicate with our father because we love him not because he needs to know our needs. We need to be reminded of our dependence on our father in heaven for everything. To ask for our daily bread is a reminder that our life depends on the Father. Our daily bread is a gift to us from our father in heaven. I’ve heard people bemoan their belief that they didn’t receive any gifts from God. Are you alive and breathing? If so, then you have received the gift of life from God. It is our choice to decide how we use the gift of life. Will we spend it seeking the abundance of God’s treasure or the treasure of this world? God will also give us our spiritual bread and sustain our spiritual life.
“Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors”. Our father sent his son Jesus to this earth to die so he could forgive us. Our opportunity to be able to choose an abundant life over death was given to us because God loved us enough to send his son to die for us. What does it cost us to forgive those who sin against us? Our pride is what stands in the way of us forgiving someone. Pride was the original sin of Satan and Adam and Eve believed it. They decided maybe the God they served wasn’t enough and they were missing out and needed more. But the more of this world which they chose brought them death instead of more abundant life. Without repentance sin creates a barrier between us and God. That is what sin is, a wall Satan builds between us and God to prevent communication with Him. When we sin against someone we generally try to avoid them. We see the wall of sin and it’s hard to see God and his forgiveness past the wall of sin. But repentance on our part and forgiveness on the part of God removes the wall and once again we can see the beauty of God. When we communicate with Him, He communicates His love to us and His love is what gives us the power to forgive others. Only with the pure love of God in our hearts can we forgive like he does. Unforgiveness is a heavy burden to carry and it dries up our heart. Forgiveness is an abundance of cool refreshing waters for a dry thirsty soul.
“Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil”. Temptation is a lie Satan tells us. We have the choice to believe the lie he tells us or to let the truth of God deliver us from evil. “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness..” 2 Corinthians 12:9 When sin comes knocking at the door of our hearts we have two choices. We can either run to the door and greet sin with a big hug or we can send Grace to the door who will send temptation away and deliver us. God gives us an abundance of grace to deliver us from temptation.
“For Thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, forever”. This is an admission on our part that we are nothing. This is our admission of humility. The kingdom belongs to Our Father. The power belongs to Our Father. All the glory belongs to Our Father. Forever. There is not one moment in time that any of it belongs to us. Pride causes us to seek our own kingdoms rather than the kingdom of God. Pride causes us to seek our own power. Pride causes us to seek the glory. But none of it belongs to us, ever. Because forever and forever it all belongs to God. With hearts full of love for him we are to seek to serve him as instantaneously as the angels in heaven. When we do we will see how beautiful and abundant life is when we communicate with our Father who loves us. When we communicate with Him all his power is at our disposal.
Prayer takes us into the presence of God. In his presence our hearts will change and we will reflect his desires. All of our life will be an outpouring of love to him and anything we do will be by his power and for His glory. During our communication of prayer with our father he takes away our worry, he erases our anxiety because we know who our God is. He is the eternal God of heaven and earth and we have nothing to fear. We have anxiety when we serve one of the gods of this earth. We can cling to them in our times of trouble but when they sink we will go down with them because they do not have the power to save us. God gave us the life of his son so we can have a life more abundant. More abundant than a pile of gold in our basements and a red Ferrari racing down the freeway. He gives us the power of the Holy Spirit who gives us the treasures of the fruits of the spirit; love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Let us choose our treasure wisely, because where our treasure is, there will our heart be also. We can choose to let our hearts reside in the light of heaven or the darkness of earth where moth and rust destroy and thieves break in to steal and destroy.