Lesson 13: After This Manner Pray, part 1
“After this manner therefore pray: Our Father who is in heaven.” Matthew. 6:9.
Every teacher knows the power of example. He not only tells the child what to do and how to do it, but shows him how it really can be done. In condescension to our weakness, our Heavenly Teacher has given us the very words we are to take with us as we draw near to our Father. We have in them a form of prayer which breathes the freshness and fulness of the Eternal Life. So simple that the child can grasp it, so divinely rich that it comprehends all that God can give. A form of prayer that becomes the model and inspiration for all other prayer, and yet always draws us back to itself as the deepest utterance of our souls before our God.
“Our Father who is in heaven.” To appreciate this word of adoration fully, I must remember that none of the saints had in Scripture ever ventured to address God as their Father. The invocation places us at once in the center of the wonderful revelation the Son came to make of His Father as our Father too. It comprehends the mystery of redemption - Christ delivering us from the curse that we might become the children of God. The mystery of regeneration - the Spirit in the new birth giving us the new life. And the mystery of faith - before redemption is accomplished or understood, the word is given on the lips of the disciples to prepare them for the blessed experience still to come. The words are the key to the whole prayer, to all prayer. It takes time, it takes life to study them; it will take eternity to understand them fully.
The knowledge of God’s Father-love is the first and simplest, but also the last and highest lesson in the school of prayer. It is in the personal relation to the living God, and the personal conscious fellowship of love with Himself, that prayer begins. It is in the knowledge of God’s Fatherliness, revealed by the Holy Spirit, that the power of prayer will be found to root and grow. In the infinite tenderness and compassion and patience of the infinite Father, in His loving readiness to hear and to help, the life of prayer has its joy. 0 let us take time, until the Spirit has made these words to us spirit and truth, filling heart and life: “Our Father who is in heaven.” Then we are indeed within the veil, in the secret place of power where prayer always prevails.
“Hallowed be Your name.” There is something here that strikes us at once. While we ordinarily first bring our own needs to God in prayer, and then think of what belongs to God and His interests, the Master reverses the order. First, Your name, Your kingdom, Your will; then, give us, forgive us, lead us, deliver us.
Prayer: Oh You who are the only-begotten Son, teach us, we beseech You, to pray, “OUR FATHER”. We thank You, Lord, for these Living Blessed Words which You have given us. We thank You for the millions who in them have learned to know and worship the Father, and for what they have been to us.