Lk 11.1-4: And it came to pass, that, as he was praying in a certain place, when he ceaseth one of his disciples said unto him, Lord teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples. And he said unto them, When ye pray, say, our Father, which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in heaven, so in earth. Give us day by day our daily bread. And forgive us our sins; for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil.
There are two instances in which the above prayer is given in the Gospels; the other is in Matthew 6. Most Bible scholars tell us that there really were two different times that Jesus taught on the subject of prayer. In both cases, He showed this as a pattern – “When ye pray, say…”, and “After this manner therefore pray ye…” – which we must embrace if we are to learn to pray. To desire to pray is not enough! We must learn to pray, and we must pray! If prayer came naturally to us (it does not!), it would not be necessary for us to be taught. Not all will go on in the hard instruction that God must give us; but if there is a hunger, if there is a thirst, if there is an open heart to every Word that God would speak to us – then we may trust God that He is able to make clear His instructions.
The Setting
Since there were two instances of instruction, we should look at them both. In the first, the “Sermon on the Mount” (see Mt 5.1, 2), Jesus was confronted with the multitudes, and, seeing them, He went up into a mountain; there, His disciples came to Him. Notice the distinction here between the many and the few. When He taught among the multitudes, He spoke in parables, but here He used plainer speech. It was not to the many that He delivered this teaching for they did not follow Him up the mountain; only the few were at hand. Beloved, the true Gospel always causes a separation! We are so concerned with “attracting” the right people to church, so that they can hear the Sunday message, that pretty soon the message changes. There is a price to be paid for attracting the kind of people that must be catered in order to be kept. We want to make it easy to follow Jesus, but He made it hard to follow Himself, and this is a pattern followed throughout the Word. This same instance is recorded in Luke, where He “lifted up his eyes on his disciples”, and began to speak. Again it is made clear whom He addressed, and it was not the multitudes. It is not that He rejected the crowds; instead, they rejected Him: the way was too straight, too full of obstacles, too hard, required too much commitment. At every progression deeper into the heart and will of God, there is a narrowing.
In the only other recorded instance where our Lord taught on this subject (see our text), we find that discipleship was also involved. He was praying in a certain place; His disciples were present. At no other time in the Scriptures did His followers witness that intimate communion that He had with the Father in prayer. What ensued was both a drawing and a testing. Their hearts were drawn by the relationship that He showed. At the same time, however, they had to “endure” to the end. The Scriptures do not say how long Jesus prayed, but He was accustomed to long periods of communion, many times continuing all night. They dared not interrupt Him, and He did not cut short His devotion: they simply had to wait. If they had known it at the time, they were already in the school of prayer, for much of prayer is not presenting our petitions, but simply waiting and beholding – waiting on His Presence and Will to be manifest, and bebolding His Face and Character. When the time was right – when He ceased – one of His disciples dared to voice the petition that is before us now: “Lord, teach us to pray!”
You may notice in the Gospels that Jesus often seems to ignore a question, or the answer seems to be on a different level entirely. But not so here: He was waiting for that very question, and the time was proper for both the asking and the answering. The disciples had passed the test – the narrowing – and the very heart of God would now be disclosed to them.
Beloved, are you a disciple? If so, you are following Him in all things, and in the best way that you know how. There are weapons that are at your disposal for warfare, but they are not for the carnally minded. The Spirit Himself will lead you, but you must, in the power of that same Spirit, be willing to mortify the deeds of the flesh. There is a cost of discipleship which most Christians underestimate, and which none overestimate. God Himself must come and show us that cost. And He loves to hear the heart cry from a disciple: “Lord, teach us to pray!”
He Is Not As We Are
With some understanding of the heart setting and preparations necessary to instruct us in this matter, we can now turn our attention to the prayer itself. How gracious is our Lord to give us a pattern, by which we might be taught! And how necessary that we take it in. This prayer, spoken by the lips of the Master, is not given to be recited by rote (though I certainly have no problem with that), but for an intrinsic understanding of what prayer is and how we are to approach our Father.
“Our Father!” What a privilege that when I kneel in prayer, these words should be given to me to say. Whose Father? His Father, and mine. Only those who have experienced being born from above can really appreciate the magnitude of what is provided for us here. Did you know that, by the power of Calvary, we have been delivered from the power of darkness and translated into the kingdom of His dear Son [Col 1.13]? In any true coming to the Father, we come in the Son, and, in addition, the Son is in us. This is new creation life, and can only be done by the power of the Son. This should settle for all time our coming unto God, whether we are “in the mood” or not. The Son delights to come; He delights to commune. He treasures the presence of the Father. And He comes in the authority of a new kingship, in His own kingdom – the kingdom of the dear Son – where nothing is loved so much as the Father, and where the power and authority of lesser kingdoms is kept at bay by the strongest force in the universe. This is not based on our feelings, but on the sure foundation of the Word of God. And, in this kingdom, we are heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ.
So it is that, when we confess Him as our Father, we confess our own new nature, no longer the nature of the old man. Men suppose they may approach God in many ways; but when we know Him as our Father, we acknowledge the Son as our only entrance into His glorious Presence. As He is our Father, so we are His sons, and we confess the nature which is of the Father. That new nature is the nature of Christ, which delights to do His will. It is the heavenly nature. “Our Father, which art in heaven!”
Where is the Father? He is in heaven. Why is it important for us to confess this? Because it affects us at the very core of our beings, and opens our hearts to the revelation of His Person. It is a sad fact that most Christians believe God to be like something which they know and with which they are familiar; they never allow themselves to be touched by His otherness. Therefore, they believe His concerns to be the same as theirs, and all their petitions are based on their own perceptions of value and need. His nature is a heavenly one; His concerns are heavenly concerns; His thoughts are heavenly thoughts; His actions are based on Eternity. Is it any wonder that we do not understand prayer, when we base our judgments of need and value on what we can see and hear now? – while the Father to whom we pray sees the consequences of every divine action many ages into the Eternal future. But we cannot know this until it is revealed to us.
His otherness. He is what we are not but are commanded to be. He is holy; we are commanded to be the same, but we are more human than divine. His Name – that which is highest in His Mind and Heart (save only His Word – see Ps 138.2) – is hallowed. Beloved, we are not asked to confess His holiness in our prayers because He needs reassurance, but because He wants to reveal it unto us. We are unlike Him, but through Christ we partake of the divine nature; then that which eye cannot see and has not entered into our hearts can be shown unto us by the Spirit. His otherness. He is that which we fear, and rightfully so, because He is a consuming Fire of holiness (He 12.28-29). And yet the same Fire – the Holy Spirit, released by Calvary, sent by the exalted Son, with the nature of God, because He is God – is our only Comforter in this world. And the fierce wrath that would have been our infinite portion has fallen upon the lamb – Hallelujah! – and now, there is forgiveness with Him, that he should be feared (Ps 130.4). Therefore, we come boldly to His Throne, and there find mercy with grace.
His otherness. He is what we long for but cannot express. He, with the Son, desires to come and make His abode in us, even as He has prepared for us a place in Him. We do not yet see the fulfillment, Beloved, but it is real, and cannot be taken from us by this world, because it is not of this world. His otherness. He reveals His glory to us in the face of Jesus Christ: look on that Face, and love and desire it. There set your affection; there see yourself dead to this world, and alive unto God; there find your life. You can understand when I say that this does not happen quickly. It is the result of a lifetime of giving ourselves over to prayer.
Nothing more clearly demonstrates this to my own heart than the continuation of the prayer: “Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in heaven, so in earth.” As all about God is other to the natural man, just so is His Kingdom. When we pray for His kingdom to come, we do not realize what we are asking. Jesus, in response to Pilate’s question, “Art thou the King of the Jews?”, answered: “My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence. [Jn 18.36]” Consider this closely: to establish an earthly kingdom, even one in which Christ would reign in righteousness, it would have been necessary to save His life. But for God’s heavenly kingdom to come, it was needful that He die. If we would be honest, we all have an idea of what the Father needs to do to establish His kingdom, and our place in it, and it usually entails saving our lives “for the glory of God.” How sadly we can be mistaken on this! The servant is not greater than his Master. To pray for His kingdom to come is to ask to lose our lives, and in so losing to gainHim. Let His will be done in your lives, “as in heaven, so in earth”: instantly, perfectly, gratefully. This is the essence of the coming Kingdom, and the nature of the King.
Our Rightful Petitions
In all of the confessions which He requires of us, we are allowing Him to change our hearts. It is in light of this that we may finally consider the nature of our rightful petitions; and the fact is that we do not know what to pray for until He has dealt with our hearts. According to James (chapter 4), we err in two ways: we fail to request what the Father wants us to have; or we ask correctly but amiss, desiring to consume the expected answer upon our own lusts. We will pray effectively only when we are in a state of yieldedness. Have you ever gone to God with an agenda, only to find that things looked totally different after you had been in prayer for some time, and your heart was quieted? Beloved, the true nature of prayer is to enter the heart of God, and become one with His desires. Then He may use us, in prayer, to work much Divine and lasting good.
Are there petitions that are rightful and needful? They are few: to receive our bread, day by day; to have our sins forgiven and have His nature outworked within us; to be kept from evil. The daily bread refers to our need to be fed from His Word, the Living Bread. These are requests which He will not withhold from us, and all of our rightful supplications will fall into these categories, whether for ourselves or others. But until we are fully brought into His wisdom and nature, we will make mistakes because of sin and misplaced or unchecked desires. In all things, therefore, we must know from Him what to pray; and we must allow ourselves to be overruled: “Nevertheless, not my will, but thine, be done.” We are to make our petitions known, but to realize that the greatest purpose of prayer is not supplication, but oneness with Him.
We remember, that, had the disciples known it, they were already in the school of prayer when they requested that which the Father very much wanted to do: “Lord, teach us to pray!” They desired it because they beheld the Son, and saw Him in communion. Is that cry within your heart? If so, it is from God, and your eyes have already been opened to some extent. Prayer is not learned in the prayer meetings; it is learned in the closet. It takes time to wait on God until He answers our heartfelt pleas. That is the narrowing. There is much hidden work in it, and, therefore, not all men will persevere. But if you do, God will come, and Himself teach, and Himself reveal to your searching heart.
—GHS
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