The Prayer Jesus Taught

Luke 11:1-4 He was praying in a certain place, and when he ceased, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.” And he said to them, “When you pray, say: “Father, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. ³Give us each day our daily bread;  and forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive every one who is indebted to us; and lead us not into temptation.”


I'm convinced that it is not the precise words of the prayer that Jesus was teaching but rather those sorts of areas that should be in our hearts and minds when we come before God. I find I can take even just one of the phrases and find enough substance to pray for quite some time. Our father hallowed be your Name, for instance. It can take an extraordinary amount of time to do justice to honoring God's Name. God's name is his character and his attributes. Often we gloss over honoring who God is. We focus on what we need or what our friends need without building our trust in God by honoring who he is. We can lack the trust to obey what God knows is best for us.


I don't think Jesus picked these few phrases by happenstance. I don't think Jesus did very much just by happenstance. I think we were meant to be disciplined in our lives about each of those phrases. What could be more important than to at least which some regularity take time for deep reflection on this sacred prayer. So often it is just a rote activity without thought or depth.