Our Father who is in heaven…

For the next couple of weeks at Redefine, we are going to be looking at prayer by studying the  ‘Lord’s Prayer’. The prayer can be found in Matthew 6 and Luke 11. In the passage from Luke Jesus tells them the prayer in response to His disciples asking Him to teach them how to pray.

It is a great part of scripture and really informs us well on how to pray.

I love the start especially as it focusses us first and foremost on the one we are praying to: God.

Our Father.

But not God as an impersonal omni-being that has created the universe and now stands apart from His creation, but ‘our Father’. Intimate and in relationship with His creatures. And it is not my Father, your Father, or their father, but our Father. There is personal and corporate ownership and belonging to the name Father. God is ours just as we are His. We are all His children, loved and treasured. We are all also brothers and sisters, equally loved.

Who is in heaven.

The Father we are praying to is above all. He reigns in the heavens where everything is under His feet. There is no situation or circumstance that we can bring to Him that is too big or too difficult for Him to deal with.

Hallowed be your name.

There is reverence in the prayer. Worship of God is the starting place of prayer. We lift our eyes up to our Father in heaven and ask that His name be kept holy in our lives and the lives of those around us.

And all of that is just in the start of the prayer. It is so rich and full and life changing.

Sometimes we say it too often by rote and miss all the beauty in it. Try reading it prayerfully this week, asking the Holy Spirit to reveal to you more of God’s heart.

Also, please be praying for us and the young people as we look through the Lord’s prayer in the next couple of weeks. Pray that their relationship with God would grow and deepen as we look at the model prayer that Jesus gave us.

Be blessed!