Please pray with me:
Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, now and forever. Amen.
i used to kid my Christian brothers and sisters in Guatemala and “Brothers in Blue” that i was sure Jesus was a Lutheran. Actually, we like to think that Jesus was non-denominational, however we do know that his first cousin was a Baptist. If you were at the first Wednesday night Lenten service you may see the humor… right Heather?
There is a book titled, Nave’s Topical Bible: A Digest of the Holy Scriptures. You can look up a word and it will show you references to Bible verses. i looked up the word “kingdom” and found at least 25 references. The word for “power” had over 80 references and the word “glory” more than 75. i didn’t read each reference but the great numbers would show how important these three words were to the writers of the Bible.
i still have my Senior Catechism book from Confirmation class back in the early to middle 1950’s. It contains Luther’s small Catechism. For each petition in the Lord’s Prayer there is a question, “What does this mean?” This is followed by Luther’s questions and answers.
For thine is the kingdom, and the power and the glory, forever and ever. Amen
What does this mean?
That all things are under God’s rule.
That He can do whatsoever He will.
That all things must work out to His honor and praise.
Luther’s Small Catechism
Matthew 6: 9-13 gives us this ending to the prayer but Luke 11: 2-4 does not. From what i can find out, Luke was writing to the lower class Jews and Gentiles so he tried to use the exact words of Jesus. Matthew was writing to the higher class of Jews so he added embellishments to make the prayer more appealing and emphasize the kingdom, power and glory.
To me the most important word in the whole prayer is Amen. Martin Luther says: “It means that I should be assured that such petitions are acceptable to our heavenly Father, and are heard by him, for he himself has commanded us to pray in this manner, and has promised to hear us. Amen Amen.” That means yea yea, it shall be so. Refer to 1 John 5: 14,15.
We have God’s promise, many times, that the prayers of his people will be heard and answered. The thing we always get hung up on is that he does’t say how or when he will answer. Too many times when we pray we put our own answer on the end of it and then we get angry when the answer is not what we wanted. We fail to take into account the wisdom of God and realize that he knows what is good for us and what is not. God’s will has proven better than ours.
In conclusion i imagine you can find dozens of books trying to tell you how to pray and i am sure they have many useful ideas. Whatever you learn about praying please remember that one simple prayer was given to us by our Lord Christ Jesus. The Lord’s Prayer should be an important part of your daily conversation with God. Amen
Your Brother in Christ, ted
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