Matthew 26:41
Prayer is Always Personal
The Lord’s (or really, the Disciple’s Prayer,) consists of 66 words. President Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address is made up of 286 words. Our Declaration of Independence: 1,322. What of federal regulations regarding the sale of a head of cabbage: 26,911! There’s a principle here: the wiser, grander, and more profound the idea to be expressed, the fewer the number of words necessary to express it!
In Jesus’s answer to one o the disciple’s request in Luke 11:1, “…..Lord. teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples,” if we could only grasp the grand truth that out Saviour was (and still does) teach us, our lives, and our Christian faith would be transformed! Perhaps we use the Lord’s Prayer too often. It was never intended to be repeated as a form of chant.
In it’s most elemental form, Jesus directs us to pray for our bodies. Philippians 3:21 states it very well. “Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself.” You see, our Lord God already knows us very, very well!
Read Matthew 6:5-8
Then what follows is a prayer for relationships. A large part of this prayer is dealing with temptation, as we pray, “lead us mot into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” (Matthew 6:13) As puzzling as this verse appears, I recognize that our Lord is asking us to deal with unrecognized temptations When temptation is recognized, it can be successfully resisted, and it becomes a source of strength and growth in our lives. But temptation is not so easily discerned. Listen to a dialogue between the Apostle Peter and Jesus:
Read Matthew 26:33-35
Christ soon cautioned in Matthew 26:41, Peter did not pray, and confusion was the result! “Watch, and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.”
All three requests in the Lord’s Prayer reflects the one great truth that Jesus desires to impress on us: we are forever in need, bodies, and minds and spirits!
Only when we walk daily, in step-by-step dependence of our Heavenly Father , can any one virtual need be met. When we fail to pray–yes–continually–we fail, we failed to guard our souls against upset and failure!
Jesus Christ died for us. Jesus Christ rose from the for us! Jesus Christ taught us to pray. He sowed, and shows us, how to live in dependence of our Heavenly Father. God is our cherished example. Our part is to simply imitate Him!
Rev. Nate Ware, Depews Chapel United Methodist Church
“Link to YouTube Video – The Lord’s Prayer”
