MY LOVE FOR THE LORD’S PRAYER

from Christian Times Magazine Issue 59

ELON MUSK BUYS TWITTER

BY CHARLES LINGERFELT

THIS IS SO SAD TO ME …. After hearing that Facebook is saying that posting the Lord’s Prayer goes against their policies, I’m asking all Christians everywhere to please post the Lord’s Prayer on their Facebook page. I also asked this on my Facebook page in June 2020.

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“Our Father, who is 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 and ever, Amen. ”

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I first heard The Lord’s Prayer read to me when I was about nine years old. I was in a Sunday School class and the teacher read The Lord’s Prayer from the Book of St. Matthew. I was totally “impressed” with the prayer because the teacher told us that this was a prayer that Jesus prayed. I thought then, “My, how important is that – that we would have a prayer printed in The Bible that Jesus actually had prayed. ”

I went home after church and got down the big Family Bible and looked it up for myself in our Bible to find it for myself. And when I did, I underlined it so that I could locate it easily later when I looked for it again.

The location of Scripture which I read and underlined was: St. Matthew 6:9, “Our Father, who is 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 debts as we forgive our debtors, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil; for thine is the kingdom and the power, and the glory, Forever and ever, Amen. ” Though I didn’t understand all of the prayer, I did, however, begin to develop a deep appreciation of/for the prayer. Occasionally I would return to the Family Bible to look up the prayer again and read it more. The more I read the more I loved and appreciated it! I think at that time in my life the appreciation came to me mainly because it was a prayer of Jesus – one that He had taught us to pray.

In our home, we were taught as kids to have a devout appreciation of The Bible, and when it came to the words of Jesus, and the Bibles we had in our home always had the words of Jesus in Red ink. To me as a kid, when I saw the words of Jesus in Red ink, it was always extremely holy for me. I loved and revered the words of Jesus in the Scriptures. So, I grew up with a healthy respect for The Lord’s Prayer.

When I got into the Fourth Grade with Mrs. Edison Brown as my teacher, the Gideons came by our school one day to visit our class and leave with every student in our class a copy of The

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New Testament. I, of course, was the recipient of one of those copies of The Gideon New Testament. It was a small and thin copy, about 5” by 7” , and was a Maroon copy. I carried it home with me at the end of the school day in hand with my schoolbooks, and it meant so much to me.

When I arrived home I went directly to my room, where my brother and I slept each night, placed my schoolbooks on our dresser, and took the Gideon New Testament into my hand and laid back onto the bed in a sit-up position, and began to read.

I started with St. Matthew, Chapter 1, and read several chapters in that sitting. I remember distinctly reading ‘The Lord’s Prayer’ in that sitting before being called to the dinner table. Again, it was during these readings in my early childhood years that I developed a love and respect for this prayer that Jesus taught us to pray. Through the years I have learned that there are many other prayers recorded throughout The Bible, but it is quite probably true that there is No other prayer that has had such an impact upon my life as this prayer: ‘The Lord’s Prayer. ’ The Lord’s Prayer is the Model Prayer

This prayer has become known to us as,

‘The Model Prayer’ and it is the prayer that Jesus taught his disciples to pray. Not only did Matthew record the Prayer in his Gospel to the Jew, but Luke the Physician also recorded it as well in his Gospel. (Matthew 6:5-15 and Luke 11:1-4)

In Matthew ’s Gospel the Lord’s Prayer occurs in the Sermon on the Mount. The Sermon was the longest recorded message of Yeshua (Jesus) and was his moral and ethical teaching and is recorded in Matthew 5 through 7. The message was brought on by the growing popularity of Yeshua (Matthew 4:25).

The thing which attracted so many people to Yeshua at first was his healing ministry. People were utterly amazed at all the healings surrounding his earthly ministry. Then when Jesus would begin to teach the people, they would remain to hear what Jesus had to say. The people were also impressed with the authority with which He taught. Although many people heard the Sermon on the Mount, it was primarily directed to His disciples.

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In His sermon, and therefore in His prayer, He emphasized that prayer should not be used solely to get God’s attention by repeating words. Rather, it should be a quiet, confident expression of needs to our heavenly Father. Our attitude in prayer is to be important; and in the Sermon, on the Mount, he shows his disciples how to pray.

In the Gospel of Luke, the disciples saw Jesus praying, and they asked Him to teach them. The emphasis in Luke’s Gospel here is on what to pray (Luke 11:2). It is good to use the Lord’s Prayer as a guide, a Model, and to repeat its words as well.

The first part of the prayer concerns the glory of God. We call Him “Father, ” a term of endearment which only His children by faith in Christ may rightly use. We request that God’s name be “hallowed, ” or honored as holy. It is the mission of God’s people to spread the reputation of His name throughout the world (Ezekiel 36:22, 23).

Next, we make the request for God’s kingdom to come. This means that we acknowledge that God is the ruler of the world and we obey His will. His will shall be done perfectly when our Lord returns to this earth in His ‘Second Coming. ’ Requests relating to our own needs include food for each day, forgiveness, and help in times of temptation. Workers in Jesus’ time were usually hired day by day. They all knew what their daily needs were.

Our forgiveness for sin comes only through the death of Jesus Christ upon the cross – the ‘Supreme Sacrifice’ for all humanity. Our experience of that forgiveness requires us not to hold things against others and not to deny God’s forgiveness.

“Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil” means, “Do not allow us to be tested so that we fall into sin, but save us from the power of the Evil One (Satan).

The conclusion of The Lord’s Prayer attributes all praise and glory to God forever, throughout all eternity. This part of the prayer should be clearly evident in our lives each day as we seek to do God’s will on this earth as His disciples. Jesus knew in His heart and was constantly cognizant of the fact that His earthly ministry would soon come to a close. He knew he was ‘on route to Jerusalem’ and what was awaiting Him there.

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The Entry into Jerusalem -

The arrival of Jesus in Jerusalem on a Sunday morning must have been an impressive sight. The crowds were full of excitement and lined the streets, waving palm branches and shouting Hosanna! A battalion of Roman soldiers looked on suspiciously. And suddenly from the top of the Mount of Olives, the Messiah appeared! But why was Jesus riding a donkey? Even Jesus’ disciples were puzzled by his mode of transportation (John 12:16).

The Donkey Was More Than a Beast of Burden -

Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem on a donkey strikes many modern readers as odd. Today we think of donkeys as stubborn pack animals, hardly suitable for a royal procession. If Jesus was indeed the Messianic King arriving in his royal capital of Jerusalem, shouldn’t he have been riding a horse-drawn chariot? Not at all. In the ancient world of the Bible, the Hebrew word for “donkey ” Hamor (מחרו ֲ(had a much nobler meaning.

Ancient Prophecy Fulfilled -

Both Matthew and John explain that it was necessary for Jesus to ride a donkey to fulfill the Hebrew Scriptures. Centuries earlier, the prophet Zechariah had predicted that the Messiah would enter Jerusalem “righteous and victorious, lowly and riding on a donkey ” (Zech. 9:9). In ancient Israel, donkeys were a symbol of peace and humility. Abraham and Jacob both rode donkeys. The kings of Israel would ride a white donkey (Judg. 5:10).

We Are Herewith Rediscovering the wonders of the Scriptures -

It would have been unthinkable for Jesus to ride a horse, which was a military animal, ridden by foreign kings coming to conquer Israel. The Egyptians, Assyrians, and Babylonians – all had instilled a deep fear of horses in the hearts of Israel. By choosing a donkey, Jesus sought to reassure the city of Jerusalem that his kingship would be one of humility, peace, and salvation.

It was through ‘My Love For The Lord’s Prayer’ that God began to teach me, as a young lad, a definite love for the Scriptures and to impute within me a strong desire to know them more effectually – even to this very day in my life. And it is because of this love for the holy Scriptures that I have had a

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desire to send them and their Truth to the far corners of the earth.

When God became “real to me at 14” and filled me with His Spirit at age 15, I began my lifelong love for Him and His word – and I decided to have an influence upon the world through the propagation of His word to ‘All nations and peoples’ throughout the earth.

Today, in the year of our Lord 2020, I am still “out on the Battlefield” and in the forefront of others, “Trying to Make a Difference” with my life – all because I found a love for The Lord’s Prayer at an early age.