Our Father - 18 May 2017
Neville Turley
“One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.”Luke 11:1 (NIV)
Jesus answered this request and the prayer known to us as “Our Father” became the most prayed prayer in Christian history. It has been committed to memory and print from generation to generation.
The reason the Lord’s prayer has had such an impact on so many lives, is that it explains how followers of Jesus should pray to the sovereign God of all creation.
The very popularity of our Lord’s prayer carries within it an inherent danger. The saying “familiarity breeds contempt” is a true one. We can become so inured to what is often repeated that it no longer has meaning for us. This can be true of the Lord’s prayer too.
Describing God as father is not unique to the New Testament. In the Psalms, God is described as a “Father to the fatherless”. Isaiah wrote of the “Everlasting Father” and Malachi questioned “Do we not all have one Father? Did not one Father create us?”
However, our Lord Jesus Christ gave a whole new dimension to the fatherhood of God. “Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!” (Matthew 7:9-11(NIV))
Through the Lord’s prayer, Jesus introduces God to us as our very own caring father who loves us and is ever ready to bless us with gifts.
Prayer: O God our Father, thank you for your wondrous love, for the sacrifice of your Son and the gift of the Holy Spirit. Grant us to be worthy of the heritage into which we have been called through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen