Matthew 6:9-10 9Pray then like this: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. 10Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Jesus taught his disciples how to pray during his Sermon on the Mount. Luke’s account of this prayer in chapter 11 shows that Jesus’ teaching on prayer was a response to the disciples’ question: “Teach us to pray.” The disciples watched Jesus retreat to quiet places and pray and wanted to be like him. Jesus is our model for how to pray. The prayer he taught is simple and can be divided into lines.
Jesus’ prayer begins by acknowledging the presence of God by calling him Father and the power of God by acknowledging his holiness. The first line focuses upon the person of the Father. Father in the original Aramaic Jesus spoke would have been abba, an intimate word showing close relationship of a child to a father. Prayer develops relationship with God and is based on this relationship. We grow closer to God by coming to know God more and allowing him to speak more deeply into our lives. It does not matter what form our prayer takes or what words are used. What matters is that we realize we come to a loving Father who waits to give us himself through his Spirit (Luke 11:13). God should be the focus of our prayers. God knows what we need before we ask, but our understanding of his will and character is lacking.
Although we can have an intimacy and closeness to God through the Holy Spirit, we must also acknowledge God’s “otherness” represented in his holy name. For Jews, the name of the Lord God was too sacred to pronounce. The divine name Yahweh given in the Old Testament represents the undefineability of God, who is the great “I am.” Only God can define God. Fortunately for humanity, God has revealed his character over the ages through revelation and mighty acts. Through grace, we are able to know the Creator of the universe. We must never diminish God in our thinking but give him all the glory and honor.
The next line of the prayer focuses upon the prerogative of the Father by asking for his kingdom to come on earth. The kingdom of God was the key topic of Jesus’ preaching. This kingdom is spiritual, but when it comes, it impacts every aspect of earthly life. Humanity is the primary but not exclusive instrument through which God works out his will in the world. God’s kingdom breaks into earthly existence through human hearts. Earth cannot become heaven because earth is physical and decaying while heaven is spiritual and eternal. But as people give themselves to Jesus by dying to the dominance of the earthly existence, they will experience the resurrection power of a new heavenly existence.
God’s will is connected to the power and reign of his kingdom on earth. It is difficult to say your will be done because we are rebellious and independent by nature. If we follow the agenda of a merely earthly existence, we will ultimately experience hurt and failure. Sometimes we rush ahead of God and answer our own prayer instead of waiting on God. One of our primary requests in prayer is conformity to the image of Christ within us by lining up our will with God’s will.
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