Help From Heaven, A Humble Prayer
I could pray over and over and over again for the Lord God to give me a voice flowing with melodious sounds of honey. That way, when my neighbor hears my voice, she can return home and let her family know what a lovely voice I have. Then her family can visit their relatives and tell them what such a lovely voice I have. Then all of their families can go to Church, school, and work and let everyone know about my lovely voice. Truly, God is not going to answer prayers that makes us more important than God Himself. Although we know that prayer should not be about promoting ourselves, often that is what our prayers are. We ask God to make us better in some way while excluding the desire for His Kingdom, Power, and Glory. Actually, prayer should be more about promoting God then it is about ourselves.
The Lord’s Prayer is a model for us to follow when we pray. This prayer magnifies God while emphasizing our need as sinners. In prayer, humility is essential to magnify the greatness of God while acknowledging our baseness. For example; we need daily bread, we need our debts forgiven as we forgive our debtors, and we need to be led out of temptation and delivered from evil. The Lord’s prayer reminds us that we have a sin nature that needs the cure that only God can give. We need the Word of God every day, we need our sin debt forgiven as we need to forgive the shortcomings of others, and we need to ask not to be led into temptation and ask to be delivered from evil.
The other subject of the Lord’s prayer is God. He resides in Heaven, is to be reverenced, we are to pray for His Kingdom to come, and His will to be done. It is God’s Kingdom, Power, and Glory forever. That is quite a contrast to the sin nature of humanity, and is the reason why humility is the only way to come to God in prayer. Prayer is not about increasing our respect, nor for our will to be done, nor to make us more influential or powerful, nor to give us a piece of the Glory. We are sinners in need of help from Heaven as we acknowledge God’s Kingdom, Power, and Glory above anything else we could ever imagine to pray for.
The Cross of Christ makes us fit for coming to God in prayer. As we accept what Christ has done for us on the Cross, He abides in us through the Holy Spirit. Christ makes intercession for us in order to make our prayers heard in the ears of God. Christ is our daily bread, through Christ our sin debt is forgiven, through Christ we have it in us to make things right with others, through Christ we are not carried away with the temptations of the flesh, and through Christ we are delivered from the evil of Satan. By the Cross of Christ, we are reconciled to the Spirit of God where our prayers are heard in the ears of the One who has the Kingdom, Power, and Glory forever. Christ separates us from the ways of the world and flesh by the Spirit of humility.
“And when you pray, you shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say to you, They have their reward. But you, when you pray, enter into your closet, and when you have shut thy door, pray to your Father which is in secret; and your Father which sees in secret will reward you openly. But when you pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they will be heard for their much speaking. Be not you therefore like unto them: for your Father knows what things you have need of, before you ask him.
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, for ever. Amen.” Matthew 6:5-13