I have been listening recently to a CD series about the Lord’s Prayer. My goodness have we missed some stuff! This very familiar passage of Scripture can be found in Matthew 6. I am not going to cover it all here, but I’ll get through most of it. It was a part of Jesus’ first sermon that became known as the “Sermon on the Mount”. It’s not something to get bent out of shape about, but, we’ll just want to look at what’s going on there with a different set of eyes and see what comes out of it.
Obviously, times have changed in the last two millennia, so we see things a tad differently than they did when Jesus walked the earth in fleshy form. It’s very difficult to see some of the cool stuff when looking at what’s written in the bible from a western, European standpoint. Example: Observe the Sabbath and keep it Holy. We say that means is that we have to go to church on Sunday. While going to Sunday church service isn’t a bad thing, we kind of miss the point of it because we aren’t the original audience. The original audience was about 3 million oppressed, demoralized slaves that 3 days ago had been in bondage to some really hateful people towards them. What did they hear in that statement? “Take a day off!” That being said, let’s get to Jesus’ prayer.
Our Father in Heaven, hallowed be your Name. Eight words that are carrying so much with them. First thing, Father in Heaven: Where is Heaven? New York? Siberia? Nobody knows. It is very disheartening to know that you’re serving a god that you have no idea where He is. What’s going on here? Didn’t God say that He’d never leave us nor forsake us? Yet, He’s in a place that we cannot get to. Don’t worry, there’s something to this. The Greek word that is used there is urinas. Everywhere else in Hellenistic literature it is translated “air that you breathe”. “Father” is better translated supplier. Hallowed can mean to become aware of something. Put all of that into one sentence and you get: “My supply, who is in the air that I’m breathing, I stop and become aware of you!” Wow! That changes things doesn’t it? I know that it did for me. Let me put it this way. You use the exhaling of breath to make sound that forms words, Right? Why do you think that there are so many warnings in Scripture about guarding what you say!!! “What you’re saying is that Almighty God is close to me so much that He is around me at all times and even in my lungs when I breathe?” YES, AND HE LIKES IT!!!! Remember when you first start dating someone that you really like. You want to be as close to them as you possibly can. God is the same way!!! He gave it all so that you could be near to Him and have an awareness of it.
Now, about this hallowing thing, notice that Jesus said to go into your secret room (v6) and shut the door, then pray. The concept is simply this: when you get in your secret place, whatever you become aware of in there is what you will become aware of in public. Be aware of the never ending supply that is in the air that you breathe!!! If you hallow the things that stress you out, you will manifest that awareness in every area of your life. I am not just saying that as someone reading this and teaching you what I’ve been taught. This has happened to me so many times I cannot even begin to count.
Your Kingdom come, Your will be done, On Earth as it is in Heaven. That’s a pretty powerful statement. It also gives us the hint that we might have just a tad bit of authority, just by using our….mouth. (Do you get the point yet? Guard your mouth!) However, what would it look like if His Kingdom really did come? Would you be okay eating at a table with a beggar on your right, a middle eastern man to your left, and the person that you can’t stand is across the table from you? Would you even be at His table? Remember what Jesus said about forgiveness. You had better forgive your brother 70 x 7. You have to forgive people 490 times in the same day for the same offense against you. Are you uncomfortable yet? I am every time I think about it. Remember the parable that Jesus told about the king that forgave a man a debt of such an enormous amount that he could never pay it. Then the same guy went out and choked a guy for a couple of dollars that was owed to him. Word got back to the king, the king brought the man back before him. Then the king delivered the man over to the torturers. “So will My heavenly Father treat each of you if you do not forgive your brother.” That is written in red because JESUS said it. I think He knows what He’s talking about. Speaking of which……in this prayer that we’re looking at, it says Forgive our debts just as we forgive our debtors. This is so overlooked in the modern society that people are holding offense over dead people’s heads. They can never repay the pain that they’ve caused you. Cancel the debt.
Now we’ve come to my favorite part of the Lord’s Prayer.
Matthew 6:11 Give us this day our daily bread.
Remember this cool stuff that used to fall out of the sky in the Old Testament. It is taught all the time that God gave them “Biscuits from the sky!” Numbers 11:7 says that it is like coriander seed. Have you ever seen a soft seed? NO!! It was hard and not easy to digest. They had to work with it and process it. They would never have gotten any benefit out of it if they didn’t work it out. Bread is also a euphemism for the Word of God. Another lesson to be learned from this is that when Jesus was in the desert, Satan tempted Him. One of the things that he told Jesus to do was turn rocks into bread. That would have been a counterfeit. Could Jesus have done it? Yes He could. But at the end of the day, they are still just stones, but I digress. Each day in the desert, the Jews had to gather their manna and work it into something that they could digest. If they tried to keep it for more than a day, it would rot. A daily word from God is not good for the next day; it’s good for that day and that day only.
Here’s something else cool about all this bread talk. There were 3 courts to the temple: Outer Court, Inner Court, and the Holy of Holies. In the Inner Court, there was something called “Show Bread”. This was delivered once a week by the priest (pastor, using our terminology). Without the manna, the show bread meant nothing!
We are 3 parts, soul, body and spirit. We can let the Show Bread be delivered on Sunday morning, but if we don’t have that daily manna spoken to our spirit by the Holy Ghost, we might as well be fasting the other six days. One day of eating is not going to sustain you. You are fasting something that you were never meant to by not getting your daily meal from God. If all you do is listen to some preacher on a CD, get the Word of God into you somehow. While you’re on your way to work, communicate to Jesus about the day. Notice I didn’t just say talk. You have to listen too.
I really hope that you got as much out of this and that I was able to articulate it as well as it needed to be. I bless you today to know that you serve an Almighty Creator. One that is the supply of everything that you need and that He is in the very air that you’re breathing. My only question to you is: are you going to be aware of it. Trust that supply with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding. He will make straight your path.
Grace and Peace be with you ALWAYS!!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment