Welcome back to Wilderness to Wisdom.
Today's episode is about the second of the four most powerful ways we grow in our relationship with God,
Talking with Him.
In the last episode,
We talked about reading God's Word and now we're shifting to conversing with Him through prayer.
We'll talk about this over the course of two episodes.
Just like in the last episode,
I had a plan to do it one way,
But the Holy Spirit led me to do it differently again.
Sometimes we overcomplicate prayer or we approach it with religious habits rather than genuine relationship.
Prayer was never meant to be complicated.
It's simply communication with our Father.
Let's start with something familiar.
The world calls it the Lord's Prayer,
But it's a prayer that Jesus gave to His disciples when they asked Him to teach them how to pray.
It's recorded in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke.
We can recite it as is or also use it as a template as we grow in our prayer life.
I'll read Matthew's account.
This can be found in Matthew chapter 6 verses 9 through 13.
After this manner,
Therefore pray ye,
Our Father which art in heaven,
Hallowed be thy name,
Thy kingdom come,
Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.
Amen.
This prayer covers everything we need.
So let's break it down.
When we begin by saying our Father which art in heaven,
Hallowed be thy name,
We are acknowledging God as our Father and showing respect for Him.
When we say thy kingdom come,
Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven,
We ask God to do what He created the earth for,
To bring forth the manifestation of His kingdom to the earth and for us to live in it according to His perfect will.
We are asking God for things on earth to be as they are in heaven.
Then we ask Him to give us what we need for today when we say give us this day our daily bread.
Matthew chapter 6 verses 25 through 34 reminds us that birds do not store up for the future.
It explains that God meets their needs each day and we are much more valuable than birds.
We do not need to worry about whether He will take care of us.
As we seek first His kingdom and righteousness,
All these things we need will be given to us.
Then when we say and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors,
We understand that we must forgive others in the same way God has forgiven our sins.
I used to think this was as simple as if we're not willing to forgive we won't be forgiven but there's more to it.
When Jesus gave us this prayer,
It was while He was still on earth.
He hadn't died for our sins and risen yet.
They did not have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit like we do,
So it applied differently to them than how it applies to us as a new creation.
Jesus has already paid in full for our sins.
It is finished.
We are forgiven.
Even the sins we haven't committed yet,
We've already been forgiven.
Jesus has already paid the price.
This is not an excuse to continue living in sinfulness.
When we do sin,
We can thank God for His forgiveness and learn to walk in it.
When it comes to forgiving others,
Instead of a mindset of begrudgingly needing to forgive so you can be forgiven or saying outwardly that you forgive when you truly haven't done so in your heart,
Focus on your desire to put on the nature of Christ.
When your focus is on that,
You learn to walk in forgiveness rather than trying to force yourself to forgive someone.
Forgiving doesn't mean you forget or weren't hurt by what happened,
But it does mean that you can be free from the bondage of carrying the negative emotions that come with it,
So then it no longer controls you.
Some situations here in the natural world may be harder to forgive than others,
But thankfully there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ,
But we should not use that as an excuse to continue walking in unforgiveness.
The next part,
And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil,
Can be a bit confusing.
James 1 verses 13 through 15 makes it clear that God does not tempt us.
1st Corinthians 10 13 tells us that God will not allow us to be tempted beyond what we can bear.
When we are tempted,
God will also provide a way out so that we can endure it.
The devil will tempt us and God may allow the temptation for his purposes as he did with Job.
When we say this part of the prayer,
We are asking God to order our steps away from the tricks and traps of the enemy,
But there's another layer to this as well.
Again,
Jesus has already paid and we now have the Holy Spirit,
Which means we have the power and the authority to command evil spirits to flee.
James 4 7 says,
Submit yourselves therefore to God.
Resist the devil and he will flee from you.
In step 4 where we talked about seeking wisdom,
I mentioned that James didn't teach how to walk as a new creation.
So on one hand,
James 4 7 sounds like we need to try hard to resist the devil and he'll eventually flee.
As we put on the nature of Christ,
We understand how to walk in the power that we have through the Holy Spirit and we can command the devil to flee in Jesus name.
Then we end by saying,
For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.
Amen.
In the same manner that we started first by acknowledging God as our Father and showing respect for Him,
We end the prayer on that same note.
This is just part one and there's so much more for us to cover in the next episode,
But I want to leave you with a few questions to reflect on.
Will viewing the Lord's prayer as a framework or a template change the way you pray in any way?
If you have never understood anything about prayer,
Did this help you in any way to feel comfortable talking with God?
How can you practice walking in forgiveness daily,
Reflecting Christ's nature in your life?
And finally,
In what areas do you need to exercise the authority given through the Holy Spirit to resist temptation and command the devil to flee?
Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Wilderness to Wisdom.
We'll continue talking about prayer in the next episode.
