Part 2 - Jesus Helps Us Pray (1)
Jesus lived and traveled with His disciples for about 3 years. Early on they realised He really knew how to connect with God in prayer. So one day they said to Him, “Teach us to pray!”(Luke 11:1). It was here that Jesus first spoke what we often call “The Lord’s Prayer.”
Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name.
Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.
For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.
Jesus gave it to them as a model – He didn’t necessarily intend for them to repeat the same words over and over, but to use it as a starting point for their prayer time and conversation with God. It’s a short prayer, but it covers a lot of ground.
We can use it for exactly the same thing. While it’s not always most effective to repeat it by rote, we can take the essence of what He was saying, and use that as a basis for our prayers using our own words. While this is not the only kind of prayer you will pray in your life, it’s a great starting point.
In the next few lessons, we will go over this beautiful prayer line by line, seeing how we can make it our own and apply it to our daily lives.
Consider:
Why do you think this is such a popular prayer?
What aspects of life does this prayer cover?