the Lord's prayer: our Father

Our Father in heaven

Hallowed be Your name

Your kingdom come

Your will be done

On earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread

And forgive us our debts

As forgive our debtors.

And do not lead us into temptation

But deliver us from the evil one.

For Yours is the kingdom

And the power

And the glory forever. Amen. Mat 6:9-13

Our Father

"And suddenly a voice came from heaven, saying, "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." Mat 3:17

"But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." Joh 1:12-13

"Go to My brethren and say to them, "I am ascending to My Father and your Father, and to My God and your God." Joh 20:17

"For both He who sanctifies and those who are being sanctified are all of one, for which reason He is not ashamed to call them brethren." Heb 2:11

"Seeing that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need." Heb 4:14-16

We pray "Our Father" and not "My Father," because the Our means Jesus + me. He is Father because the blood of Jesus and His resurrection accomplished our rebirth into God's family. We do not go before the Father, the holy and awesome Creator and King of the universe, on our own, but our elder brother Jesus goes with us into His presence. He is the Son in whom the Father is well pleased. Because of Him, we are able to approach His throne boldly as a son or daughter.

effective prayer

“Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.” Jam 5:16

God wants our prayers to avail much - to produce or result in a benefit or an advantage (Webster's). We saw how the prayers of the righteous man avails much. But what is an effective prayer, a prayer that is capable of producing a result?

1) We need to pray the words of Scripture as we pray for a situation.

“For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” Heb 4:12

“So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; It shall not return to Me void, But it shall accomplish what I please, And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.” Isa 55:11

“If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you.” Joh 15:7

When we pray the Word over a situation, we agree with what God has already said. We bear witness to Him, in other words. Years ago I had a dear friend who had gotten away from biblical Christianity and was convinced of some heretical doctrines. She had turned aside to the right and to the left, and had left the narrow way. So I began praying for her, particularly Joh 10:4-5. She was His sheep, therefore, the Word said, she would know His voice and follow Him, but flee from strangers. My prayers for her were not pleadings with God to do something; they were declarations of what the Word said about her, over her life. Now my friend lived in another state, before computers and cell phones and text messages, so I had limited contact with her. But after praying the Word over her for six months, she woke up one day, she told me later, and had something she described as scales fall off her eyes, and she could see the truth clearly in everything that she had been deceived in.

Find out what the Word says about your situation, and start speaking that Word in your prayers!

2) When we pray the words of Scripture, we need to be speaking those words with our mouth, outloud.

The Word of God is living and powerful, we saw. It carries creative power within it:

“Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light.” Gen 1:3

“... and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are;” 1 Cor 1:28

Light did not exist as a reality in the natural world. But when God said, “Let there be light,” light was created. The light that was not, was created by the voicing of the Word, and brought to nothing the thing that was, which was darkness. Likewise, in the case of my friend, her belief in the historic doctrines of Christianity was not, and the thing that was, was her belief in hereticsl doctrines. But by the voicing of the Word of God, that which was not -- hearing His voice and fleeing from the voice of the stranger -- brought to nothing that which was.

There are other reasons to voice the Lord's Word when we pray:

“So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” Rom 10:17

When we hear the Word of God with our ears, faith is produced. Even if it is our own voice that is doing the speaking. This is important, because Jesus told us:

“And whatever things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive.” Mat 21:22

Also, when we voice the Word of God outloud, it activates the angels who are ministering spirits, who serve those who will inherit salvation (Heb 1:14), in their service:

“Bless the LORD, you His angels, Who excel in strength, who do His word, Heeding the voice of His word.” Psa 103:20

When His Word is done - accomplished - then our prayers have been effective. But the angels aren't the only beings who are affected when we voice His Word:

“... to the intent that now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places;” Eph 3:10

The manifold wisdom of God is contained in His Word - it is That Which Is True. How does the church make that wisdom known to the demonic principalities and powers who are in the heavenly places, who are oppressing others and doing the things that we are praying against? They don't believe that the Word of God is true. They believe their own lies. But when we voice the Word of God aloud, and activate the angels to do the Word which we have voiced, then the truth of God's Word, the manifold wisdom of God, is made known to those demonic powers - they are forced to submit to it and yield to its truth.

To be continued ...

prayer

the prayer of the righteous
effective prayer

the prayer of the righteous

“Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.” Jam 5:16

All of us want to pray so that our prayers will avail much. There are three adjectives the Holy Spirit used in this verse in James: effective, fervent, and righteous.

Righteousness is the first qualifier, so that our prayers will avail much. I used to think that this just meant that if a person was in right- standing with God, i.e., his sins were covered by the blood of Jesus, that the man was righteous and his prayers automatically availed much.

And our right standing before God is one aspect of righteousness. That is the inward aspect of the heart. There is another aspect -- the outward aspect of the life, which, in biblical thought, is to proceed from the inward aspect of the heart. Only in worldly thinking, are the thoughts of the mind or the actions of the body divorced from the nature of the heart. It is this worldly thinking that allows us to believe that we can be one nature of the heart inwardly (the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus) and live another nature of the body outwardly (lie, cheat, steal, covet, murder and do all manner of unrighteousness). Worldly thinking deceives. The truth is, we cannot be schizophrenic like that. We are one or the other.

The word “righteous” in Greek is Strong's G1342, dikaios, which means, according to Thayer's Greek Lexicon, observant of divine law; a righteous man is one whose way of thinking, feeling, and acting is wholly conformed to the will of God. This word is from the Hebrew, qdx, tsadaq, Strong's H6663. It means, to be correct, right, or straight. In Hebrew it specifically means one who is obedient to the Law of God, since God's Law is the only straight measuring line.

“The eyes of the LORD are on the righteous (tsadaq), and His ears are open to their cry.” Psa 34:15

God's ear is open to the cry of the righteous - the cry of the one who has been made righteous in his heart, and is allowing that righteousness to manifest itself outwardly so that his life has become straight; his feet are walking in the straight path. He is submitted, conformed, and observant of divine law, the measuring line which describes “straight.”

What does it mean to have the ears of YHVH open to our cry? If we read the entire Psalm 34, it means that when we cry aloud to YHVH with our voice (prayer), He hears us, and because He hears us, He acts. He delivers, He saves, He encamps all around, He provides for needs, His face is toward us for good, He redeems, He is near.

If we want our prayers to avail much, we need to be seeking at all times and in all places, to learn what God's straight measuring line instructs us in, and then adjusting our lives, our inward thoughts and our outward actions, to it, so that our lives align with its straightness. We need to guard against the thinking that says that the straight measuring line can be ignored because Jesus has died on the cross. Jesus has died on the cross, and now our inward heart is righteous, so that our outward life can also now bear the fruit of righteousness.

“Why do you transgress the commandments of the LORD, so that you cannot prosper? Because you have forsaken the LORD, He also has forsaken you.” 2 Chr 24:20

And here it is implied, that if we do not ignore God, He will not ignore us when we cry out to Him. That is the value of the prayer of a righteous man.