Talking To God About God

Jesus gives us a blueprint for prayer.

Luke 11:2 So He said to them, “When you pray, say: Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done On earth as it is in heaven.

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In response to the disciples request to be taught how to pray, Jesus gives them an example of the content that should be in our prayers, this basic outline is a great example for us to use when we pray. Just be careful that it doesn't become the only prayer that you say and allow it to be meaningless repetition.

The Lord's Prayer can be divided into two major sections. The first half of the prayer is talking to God the Father about his person, his program and about his purpose. This is the part of the prayer that says: “Hallowed be Your Name,” “Your kingdom come,” “Your will be done.”

In the next post we will look at the second half of the Lord's Prayer and see the need to talk to God about his family and the needs that we should ask him to fulfill. We will look at his children’s need for provision, pardon, and protection: “Give us day by day our daily bread,” “Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who is indebted to us,” and “Do not lead us into temptation.”

His Person – Hallowed be your name

First of all we need to begin by remembering who we are praying to. Jesus says that when we come to the God of the universe in prayer we don't have to shake in fear but instead we can call Him Father.

This prayer is very well known and it is quoted by many people that don’t have the right to say it. Not everyone can call God their Father. Jesus taught that his children are allowed to call God their Father but they are the only ones. Jesus is the only way for us to enter into a relationship with God and become members of His family. He is our Father and we are His children.

1 John 3:1  See how very much our Father loves us, for He calls us His children, and that is what we are! But the people who belong to this world don't recognize that we are God's children because they don't know Him.

It is a wonderful privilege to be able to call the one and only true God our Father, a privilege we definitely take for granted.Just think about it, we address him as, “Our Father in heaven,” I should be in awe of his greatness and be amazed that God allows me to call him Father. The one that I come to as a loving Father is also the sovereign God of heaven, the God of all power, and the God of all authority.

Revelation 4:11  "You are worthy, O Lord our God, to receive glory and honor and power. For You created all things, and they exist because You created what You pleased."

To the early Jewish Christians, having a proper awe of God was probably easier than understanding their new intimate relationship that they have through Jesus. Unfortunately in our day, the pendulum has swung to the other extreme, we talk about God as the "big man upstairs" without honoring his name.

We are to honor God as holy. We should celebrate who he is as a part of worship during our prayer time. We need to make sure that our prayers show that we honor and revere God.

His Program – Your kingdom come

The second request that we direct to the Father about the Father is not only devoted to the person of God but also to the program of God.

Revelation 11:15  Then the seventh angel blew his trumpet, and there were loud voices shouting in heaven: "The world has now become the Kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ, and He will reign forever and ever."

The second request is “Your kingdom come.” Jesus was speaking here about His future messianic reign on the earth. All through Scripture, the story of the Bible looks forward to the return of the Messiah, Jesus Christ, who will rule in righteousness when the kingdom of this world will become the kingdom of our God and of His Christ.

History seems to be an endless cycle of the same events going on day after day but history is “His story” and it is headed to a definite climax. We look forward to the day when he will reign on earth and everything will be made new.

Matthew 4:17  From then on Jesus began to preach, "Repent of your sins and turn to God, for the Kingdom of Heaven is near. "

Until that day comes we can allow God's kingdom to come in our own lives. When we pray, “Your kingdom come,” we can ask for God's kingdom and his rule to be established in our own lives. We should let him be the King of our life as we submit to his will. I need to make my life his throne right now!

His Purpose – Your will be done

Next we are to pray for that His will will be done on earth as it is in heaven. God's will is for us to obey his law and for us to be holy. We should know what he expects from us through his word and we should be willing to do it.

Romans 12:2  Don't copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God's will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.

A lot of times it seems like we are praying for our own will to be done instead of God's. We lose our perspective and forget that it isn't all about us and God isn't our cosmic butler that we can boss around. Before we ask for our selfish desires we need to focus on the big picture of God's will.

We can stop the rebellion in our own lives as we line up our will to God's will. We can rebel against the ruler of this world, go against the flow, and begin to allow God's will to come to pass on our little piece of the planet.

The point of these first three petitions is to get our minds away from our selfish ways and focus on him, then we will be able to pray as we should for our own desires. It doesn't seem proper to come before the throne of grace without revering God's name, without desiring for his kingdom and his will to be done.

Be Fruitful And Multiply

Do these words apply to the New Testament church? 

Genesis 22:17  I will certainly bless you. I will multiply your descendants beyond number, like the stars in the sky and the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will conquer the cities of their enemies.

Genesis 35:9-11  Now that Jacob had returned from Paddan-aram, God appeared to him again at Bethel. God blessed him,  10  saying, "Your name is Jacob, but you will not be called Jacob any longer. From now on your name will be Israel." So God renamed him Israel.  11  Then God said, "I am El-Shaddai--'God Almighty.' Be fruitful and multiply. You will become a great nation, even many nations. Kings will be among your descendants!

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Way back in the book of Genesis God made a promise to both Abraham and to his grandson Jacob. God told Abraham that his descendants would be huge, they would become a great nation of people that would be a blessing to the other nations.

Most of us have heard the story and probably understand only part of the meaning of the phrase "be fruitful and multiply." To the casual observer it may look like God is saying, "go have a lot of children" or you may think that it is a nice story for the Jews but none of this has a direct application to me.

At first it may seem like a stretch to apply this phrase to the New Testament church or to evangelism but check this out:

Similarities in the covenant with both men

Genesis 17:4-6  "This is My covenant with you: I will make you the father of a multitude of nations!  5  What's more, I am changing your name. It will no longer be Abram. Instead, you will be called Abraham, for you will be the father of many nations.  6  I will make you extremely fruitful. Your descendants will become many nations, and kings will be among them!

Jacob's promise is a reaffirmation of the promise made to Abraham.

The promises to both men contain:

1. a name change (Abram to Abraham, and Jacob to Israel),
2. a promise that kings will come from them,
3. a reference to being fruitful, and
4. a promise that a "multitude of nations" will come from Abram and Jacob.

God made a promise to Abraham which he reaffirmed several times to him and he also affirmed it to Jacob with a lot of similarities in the two events.

Gentile believers are a part of the promise

John 8:39-41  "Our father is Abraham!" they declared. "No," Jesus replied, "for if you were really the children of Abraham, you would follow his example.  40  Instead, you are trying to kill Me because I told you the truth, which I heard from God. Abraham never did such a thing.  41  No, you are imitating your real father." They replied, "We aren't illegitimate children! God Himself is our true Father."

Romans 4:16-17  So the promise is received by faith. It is given as a free gift. And we are all certain to receive it, whether or not we live according to the law of Moses, if we have faith like Abraham's. For Abraham is the father of all who believe.  17  That is what the Scriptures mean when God told him, "I have made you the father of many nations." This happened because Abraham believed in the God who brings the dead back to life and who creates new things out of nothing.

Jesus told the Jews that they were not a part of the promise that was made to Abraham just because of their genealogy. Jesus made it clear that some of the Jews had a different father and they were living to please him instead of God. (John 8:44)

Jesus opened the door to the idea that the spiritual family rather than the physical family is what really matters. The promise that Abraham would be fruitful and be the father of many nations is fulfilled with the inclusion of the Gentiles. You don't have to be a Jew to become a part of God's chosen people. (Ephesians 2:19, 1 Peter 2:9)

I am a part of the blessing 

Galatians 3:6-8  In the same way, "Abraham believed God, and God counted him as righteous because of his faith."  7  The real children of Abraham, then, are those who put their faith in God.  8  What's more, the Scriptures looked forward to this time when God would declare the Gentiles to be righteous because of their faith. God proclaimed this good news to Abraham long ago when He said, "All nations will be blessed through you."

Abraham was made righteous because of his faith in God's promise and my faith does the same for me. Jesus said that the Jews had no advantage when it comes to having a relationship with him. (Matthew 3:9) Since Christ is from the seed of Abraham then everyone that is born again into the family of God is a true offspring of Abraham and they are heirs of the promises

The key is belonging to Christ, who is the offspring of Abraham, as Paul said, "If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to the promise." (Galatians 3:16, 29)

I need to obey the command

John 15:8,16  When you produce much fruit, you are My true disciples. This brings great glory to My Father. 16 You didn't choose Me. I chose you. I appointed you to go and produce lasting fruit, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask for, using My name.

If I am a part of the family of God's blessed people then I must also be a part of the command to be fruitful and multiply. This command belongs to every Christian and every time that we participate in leading someone to Jesus we are fulfilling that command.

We can't bring anybody to Jesus in our own power but when God gave the command to Abraham and Jacob he also told them about the source of strength to do what he told them to do. God said, "I am God Almighty; be fruitful and multiply." Jesus said something very similar just before he left earth when he told the disciples:

Matthew 28:18-19 he told his disciples: "All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations."

I need to realize the power that is found in Jesus that enables me to tell the world about the gospel. If I remain quiet then I am not obeying the command to be fruitful and multiply. I need to participate in missions and be willing to Go, Pray and Give.

Extreme Missions

How extreme is your commitment to the great commission? 

Acts 20:18-27  When they arrived he declared, "You know that from the day I set foot in the province of Asia until now  19  I have done the Lord's work humbly and with many tears. I have endured the trials that came to me from the plots of the Jews.  20  I never shrank back from telling you what you needed to hear, either publicly or in your homes.  21  I have had one message for Jews and Greeks alike--the necessity of repenting from sin and turning to God, and of having faith in our Lord Jesus."

22  "And now I am bound by the Spirit to go to Jerusalem. I don't know what awaits me,  23  except that the Holy Spirit tells me in city after city that jail and suffering lie ahead.  24  But my life is worth nothing to me unless I use it for finishing the work assigned me by the Lord Jesus--the work of telling others the Good News about the wonderful grace of God."   

25  "And now I know that none of you to whom I have preached the Kingdom will ever see me again.  26  I declare today that I have been faithful. If anyone suffers eternal death, it's not my fault,  27  for I didn't shrink from declaring all that God wants you to know."

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Many times I wonder about the life that we live and wonder if we are supposed to be doing so much more for God. I go to work, I casually mention the fact that I go to church, I go on about my day. This is so different from the extreme approach to missions that we see in the Bible and it is so different from the lifestyle of many missionaries around the world that are living out God's mission in extreme ways while most of us do so little.

One man whose obedience to mission work was extreme was Paul. In the book of Acts and in Paul's letters you see how dangerous his work was. Many times he was chased out of town or beat up. We can also see how very consuming Paul's mission work was as he spent almost all of his time and energy doing it.

Paul said that he did the Lord's work with humility, tears, perseverance and he never avoided saying what needed to be said even when it put him in danger. There are not many missionaries that can say that much less the average Christ follower. How many of us approach our missions work with such zeal?

I have to admit that I have never cried over the people that I was going out to work with on a mission trip. Most of the trips are only a week and don't take up much of my time and energy. I have never spoke up for Jesus in the face of danger, often times I don't speak up when the only reaction that I will probably get may be so very minor. I have to wonder how pleased God is with my weak effort.

Sound the warning!
Ezekiel 33:3-5  When the watchman sees the enemy coming, he sounds the alarm to warn the people.  4  Then if those who hear the alarm refuse to take action, it is their own fault if they die.  5  They heard the alarm but ignored it, so the responsibility is theirs. If they had listened to the warning, they could have saved their lives.

My mission is similar to the job of the watchman up on the city wall back in ancient times, he was responsible for warning the people when danger was coming, this was a very important job that needed to be taken seriously. It is the job of every follower of Jesus!

The danger that is on the way should motivate us to tell everyone. I need to sound the warning. I need to make the message clear so that I will not be to blame if they ignore the warning.