Dave reminded us this morning that the Lord’s Prayer offers solutions to all of life’s seven problems.
-
God’s answer to my inferiority is His person — I know Him.
-
God’s answer to my confusion is His plan and purpose.
-
God’s answer to my worry is His provision — “Give us this day our daily bread”.
-
God’s answer to my guilt is His forgiveness.
-
God’s answer to my strained relationships is His peace.
-
God’s answer to my temptation is His protection.
-
God’s answer to my fears is His power.
The Lord’s Prayer also teaches us that we should always put God first in life as the source.It’s so easy to look to jobs, relationships, money or other things as the source of our confidence, but we need to seek God first. Secondly, we need to be specific as we pray. Many of us feel discouraged by unanswered prayer because we don’t really ask God for anything specific (perhaps afraid that He will refuse us.) We need to be specific:
-
When you feel like you’re falling apart and you have low self-esteem and feel inferior, pray for His person in your life.
-
When you’re confused pray for His plan in your life.
-
When you’re worried, pray for His provision.
-
When you’ve got guilt, pray for His pardon.
-
When you have strained relationships, pray for His peace.
-
When you’re tempted, pray for His protection.
-
When you have fears, pray for His power.
You can’t get any more specific than that. He says, “trust Me.”
The Lord’s Prayer isn’t just a pattern for prayer, however. It’s a pattern for life. We can’t pray this prayer without being challenged and changed – and the first step for praying this prayer is to know God as our Father, to be born again into HIs family. As we learn to trust Him with our lives, our attitudes and behaviour are changed and we find His person, plan, provision, pardon, peace, protection and power.
