Lord's Prayer

It is unbelievable how fascinating and powerful the Lord’s Prayer has been.  Numerous people over the years have used this prayer to invoke the mighty power of God to come into our very presence.  Yet, I have come to believe that even though many people pray this prayer; do not really know what it means.  Through a series of blogs that I am going to write I would like to focus on the Lord’s Prayer by looking at the Greek, what it means, and how it can be applied.  

I will not go into great depth but will only touch the surface of what it means because I believe that the Lord’s Prayer is not merely said to have communication with God, but so that His kingdom may be done through His people.

When looking at the beginning section of the Lord’s Prayer found in Matthew 6:9-13 one would think that the Lord’s Prayer begins at “Our Father in heaven”, but I personally believe that it starts at “This, then, is how you should pray”.

To begin, the Greek text says, Ou{twV ou:n proseuvcesqe uJmei:V.  Now this may look weird but trust me this is really cool.  It is translated from the NIV as “This, then, is how you should pray”, where the NLT simply says, “Pray like this”.  I have come to translate this verse as “Therefore in this way you all must pray (!)”. 

The beginning word “therefore” (ou:n) points to what is said before this from verses 5-8.  After this most of this phrase comes from the one word proseuvcesqe which is translated as “you all must pray (!).  Why there is an exclamation point at that end is because Greek grammar calls this an Imperative which is defined as a “mood of command.”

From this understanding we can understand that Jesus, the one who is teaching how to pray, says “therefore” or “this, then” to indicate from the previous verse that you do not pray like the hypocrites (v.5).  But, prayer is supposed to be in your room, with the door closed and then pray!  My addition of the word “must” may not be accurate when looking at the original text, but Jesus sets the standard for how to pray and asks us to pray like this.

Prayer was an active part of Jesus’ life on earth, and he often left his disciples to go off somewhere else to pray.  Our lives get busy and hectic that we neglect our prayer life to God.  I do not believe saying this prayer is the only way to communicate to God, but prayer is important that he commanded his disciples to do. 

Prayer is not to be taken lightly, but is a sense of communication with God that we can have.  I encourage you if you have not taken the time to get away from the day to take time and pray.  Set time in your day to just sit and talk with God and ask Him to fill your day with His presence.  If you already do set aside time to pray I encourage you that it is not in vain, you may not see fruit of your prayers every day, but continue on.