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. And 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, forever. Amen.

While we were in worship last week, we explored a passage from Luke where Jesus teaches his disciples how to pray. (Check out the video on our Facebook page here) Part of that passage included a version of the Lord’s Prayer. While I was preaching, I kind of glossed over it and we did not spend a whole lot of time on it because there were other elements of prayer that I thought God needed us to focus on. But I want to take a moment to pay a little more attention to it because it is important. In fact, it is so important, we are doing an entire bible study where we focus on nothing but this prayer starting August 17th. (Check here for more info)

We see Jesus pray many times in scripture, but this is the only place where we see Jesus giving us words to pray. He tells us to be sincere, to pray often, to pray for others, to praise God, but only once does is say, “pray like this.” As we explored a little bit in worship last Sunday this prayer teaches us about who God is, and how God shows up in our lives. But it also teaches us about how we are to act.

See, prayer is more than talking with God. It’s also something we use to ask God for strength to  do the things we are praying for. For example, when we pray in the Lord’s prayer, “hallowed be thy name,” we are not just declaring that God’s name is holy and sacred. We are also asking God to help us to keep God’s name holy and sacred through our words and our actions! Or when we say, “give us this day our daily bread,” we are not just asking God to give us the things we need to survive. We are declaring that we are going to help others get those things needed to survive!

Crazy right? To think the words we use to talk to God actually have an impact on our lives in real, tangible, and urgent ways…

It’s a fairly new concept to me too. And it has completely altered the ways that I think about not only prayer, but my relationship to God and how I share God’s love in the world. I’m beginning to understand that in order for God’s kingdom or will to be made fully known “on earth as it is in heaven,” I actually have to do something to make it happen!

I think far too often, we think of prayer as a passive event- nothing more than words we say to ask God to influence a situation. I’m beginning to understand that prayer is an active event in which we have a role to play in God’s great story.

Does this change the way you think about prayer?

Comment your thoughts below!

Blessings friends,
Pastor Nicole