This past summer I preached a series of messages on The
Lord’s Prayer. I had been looking
forward to working on this series for a long time. It is amazing
how much truth and power Jesus was able to express in so few words. He teaches
us to pray The Lord’s Prayer. He later commands us to teach others to obey all
He taught. So we should be praying and teaching others to pray The Lord’s
Prayer.
We can pray The Lord’s Prayer either by reciting it word
for word, or by thinking about the meaning of each phrase and praying based on
the meaning. Both methods are excellent and powerful. Both methods will be even more meaningful if
we more fully understand this prayer.
I’m still learning more and more what this simple prayer
means. It applies to everything in
life. It applies to huge history shaping
events, and it applies to our everyday routines, struggles, and service. By God’s
grace, I will never stop learning all that it means.
The primary way we learn the meaning of the Lord’s Prayer
more and more is actually praying it in the midst of life's struggles. Learning to pray is more like learning to
play a sport than it is like learning history or physics. You can’t learn to play a sport just by
reading a book about it. You’ve got to
get out on the field and practice and play day after day. Nevertheless, if you
are out on the field practicing, you can benefit by learning from coaches and other
players.
So my prayer for this blog post, and for the five videos
below on the Lord’s Prayer, is that first and foremost God will use them to
motivate you to actually spend more time praying and specifically that the Lord’s
Prayer will often shape your prayers. In
order to achieve this end, I believe that thinking about the meaning of each of
the requests in The Lord’s Prayer, and thinking about some of the ways these
requests apply in our lives, may help you.
The five videos below are each between 32 and 40 minutes
in length. Each one is shorter than a
typical TV program, and, I trust, far better for your soul. I pray that as you watch, God’s Spirit will
open your mind to understand The Lord’s Prayer more deeply and that He will strengthen
your heart to pray according to it more faithfully.
No comments:
Post a Comment