The “Our Father” prayer in Matthew 6:9-13 humbles me. The entire prayer is pointing us to see our need for the Lord in everything. The Father is exalted in heaven. We pray for His kingdom to come and replace the sorry mess we’ve made on earth. We pray that His will be done because what we want often doesn’t rise to His level of importance.
We need His daily bread because the world’s fare doesn’t satisfy. We need to face our sins and confess that we’re the problem after all. We need to forgive others and give them another reason to do well next time. The evil one is stronger than us and keeps leading us to temptation and ruin.
We need to pray the elements in this prayer, for our Father in heaven actually has everything we need to overcome in all these areas. These different parts reveal our need and His sufficiency. We fail in all these areas because we are frail sinners. We stand against sin in these areas only because we’ve found the value and power of prayer. Our prayers “work” when we are praying to a heavenly Father who answers His children’s prayers of need.
Matthew’s version of the prayer ends like this: “For Yours is the kingdom, and the power and the glory forever. Amen” (6:13).
His is the kingdom. God’s kingdom is His domain of influence over man and nature, which is pretty much in everything that happens. Before we get further along, we shouldn’t skip the little word, “For.” It’s like “Because” or “By reason of.” Because He is powerfully ruling in the affairs of all things, we pray this prayer. He is the only one who can get things done.
Because He rules in our lives, this prayer is God inviting us to share in how we want our lives to be run. He invites us to understand how He rules and He wants us to participate in that rule through our prayers.
When we read the Scriptures, we can learn of His will for our lives. Should we pray according to the Scriptures, or against them? It depends on how much we want His rule over us. The natural state of our hearts is to rule as we see fit. We want a say in how things go. We have some ideas on how things can be better. But the news and prison yards tell us how well that goes, doesn’t it?
His is the power. Really, we are powerless in many, if not all, the areas of our lives. Jesus said frankly to His disciples, “Without Me, you can do nothing” (John 15:5). But we read elsewhere, “With God, all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26). Through prayer, we meet our weaknesses on the ground of “With God.” We are inviting Him to work in our affairs, our failures. Knowing our insufficiency, we find help in the God who is for us.
His is the glory. I can get in big trouble with this one. I want to be recognized. I want the (favorable) attention. I want people to look up to me and I’ll call the shots. I want the fame and praise of men. This is when we get in trouble. Because to Him is the glory.
He is perfect in every way. He is the only one who is righteous in every moment, the only one who loved us to the death of a cross, the only one worthy of all our allegiance and praises. When we don’t want to pray any part of the Our Father prayer, we probably don’t want to give glory to another. We want it all ourselves.
We don’t want to confess our need before others–for who will honor a weak brother (or sister)? If we confess our sins as those against God, it would sort take away our bragging rights. We can no longer boast of our past if we want to honor God alone.
We shouldn’t skip over the last two words, either. “Forever” and “Amen.” No matter what we go through, God’s rule will win out over man’s. Not yours or your enemy’s. His power will always be greater than anything that comes against us. Not yours or your enemy’s. His glory will be the one thing that will always be worthy of praise. Not yours or your enemy’s.
The only person who will see the value of this prayer is the one who, by the Spirit, responds with “Amen.” It means we agree with the aims of the prayer and the God who gave it. “Amen.” So be it. That’s right. Preach it, brother! Without a Scripture-informed prayer life partnering with God’s rule over our lives, we will lose everything. We won’t make an inch of progress. Pray, brothers and sisters, pray.
