Here are three big ideas from Sunday’s message from Matthew 6:5-13:
- Pray on purpose. (Vs. 6)
Now we know that where we pray isn’t of great importance since God is everywhere. We can pray wherever we are and know that God hears us. But what we might miss is the notion that we are supposed to carve out time to get alone with God for the purpose of praying.This passage, however, isn’t talking about the moments during the day that we might stop to thank God for our food or to ask Him to help us with our work or the times we might bow our heads to pray for someone who has just reached out to us for prayer. This passage suggests that prayer will take place on a regular basis in a private place where we decide to exercise the discipline of prayer on purpose.
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Pray from a stance of submission. (Vs. 9-10)
When we pray we need to pray with humility. We need to pray with an understanding of just Who it is we are talking to. God is the Architect of the universe. He is the omnipotent, (all-powerful) omnipresent, (everywhere) omniscient (all-knowing) God. He is the Supreme One. He is subject to no one. He answers to no one. He is God.When we hallow God’s name we are getting God-centered. We are beginning our prayers with a focus on God; on Who He is and what He can do. Rather than begin our prayer with our needs, we begin with God.
Our submission isn’t just in the way we address God, but it involves our desire to see God’s agenda, God’s will, to be accomplished on earth as it is in heaven. So many times, we have viewed prayer as a way to get God to accomplish our agenda, when really prayer is a mechanism by which God gets His will accomplished. In and through prayer, He aligns us with His plans and purposes.
- Pray with a declaration of dependence. (Vs. 11-13)
These verses remind us that we don’t provide for ourselves. We are to depend upon God and acknowledge God for the things we need just to live from day to day. Whatever you need for daily life whether physical health and strength or the focus of your mind to study and learn or the wisdom to develop and execute strategies or the protection to travel to and from home and work or home and school or whatever, you need to pray as if it all depends on God being at work in your life because quite frankly, it does.We have to depend upon God not only for forgiveness of our sins, but also for the grace and power to forgive those who hurt us. Once we are forgiven, once we are relieved of our sin burden, it ought to compel us to want to release other people from offense. In fact, I think one sign that we have been forgiven, that we are right with God is symbolized in our ability to forgive other people. Live healed. Depend on God for strength to forgive.
As children of God, we recognize we can never be emancipated from our Heavenly Father on whom we depend to lead and guide our lives on the right path. I don’t care how old you are or how spiritually mature you think you are, left to your own wisdom, you can walk down the road to temptation in an instant, and so can I. We must depend on God to show us the way every day, step by step.
We are in a spiritual war. Satan wants to destroy our lives. I don’t know if you have ever considered the Lord’s Prayer a prayer of spiritual warfare, but it is. We must depend on the Holy Spirit dwelling inside of us to guard us and keep us safe in Christ. And we do that through being mindful that we have an enemy, and that we need to ask our Defender, the Holy Spirit and the angels of God to be at war on our behalf.
As you move through the Lenten Season, I urge you to think about not just incorporating prayer into your day, but to pray on purpose. Pick a time and place and an amount of time that you will commit to praying on purpose. Pray from a submissive posture that recognizes who God is and acknowledges His will is your desire. Pray in a state of dependence as you rely on God for your day to day needs, for spiritual strength to forgive those who hurt you and for spiritual power to overcome the enemy of your soul.
