from Matthew 6:13
It’s not just that we feel overwhelmed from time to time…many of us are living lives in a constant state of being in over our head…and yet we tend to spend our time and energy looking to people and powers and systems in this world to change things…to give us hope. What happens when those are the very things that seem to be stealing hope from us?
In our final week on the Lord’s Prayer, we look to Jesus’ petition for our protection and deliverance…a protection and deliverance He would make possible because He Himself was not protected from suffering.
w/ Vern Collins
from Matthew 6:12
We live in a world that is full of hurt, and many of us carry that hurt around inside us. Whether we hurt over the things we have done that we feel guilt over, or whether we have been hurt by others…our lives are marked with pain of some sort. The question is, what do we do with that hurt? Do we simply learn to deal with it, or are we willing to release it? To seek forgiveness, to be forgiven? What about forgiving others?
Are we willing to name our pain, and trust that God can release us from it?
Are we willing to release others from the pain they have caused us?
Too often not…but it is not impossible. Perhaps all it takes is a new understanding of forgiveness, what happens when we are forgiven, and what can happen when we forgive.
w/ Vern Collins
from Matthew 6:10
At the heart of the prayer Jesus offers as the example for His disciples to follow is surrender. It is naming the work He has been called to do and committing Himself to that work…the work of seeing God’s purpose accomplished on this earth.
In inviting His disciples and all who would follow to pray in this way, Jesus is also inviting us to name and commit ourselves to being a part of God’s rescuing and restorative work on this earth.
And yet, our tendency is to build our little kingdoms and then ask God to bless them.
What if instead, our lives were spent building the Kingdom that Jesus came to inaugurate? What if we began to bend ourselves to the work of God rather than trying to bend God to our work on this earth?
Imagine how different our lives might look.
w/ Vern Collins
from Matthew 6:7-9
If you’ve ever found yourself frustrated by prayer, if the mystery that surrounds prayer, the fact that it seems like prayers too often go unanswered or aren’t answered the way you’d like…if you’re not even sure what or how to pray most of the time, then you’re in good company. Even the Apostle Paul wrote that when we don’t know how to pray or what to pray, the Holy Spirit would be faithful to lead us.
That’s good news, but many of still feel unsure as to where or how we begin.
Jesus’ disciples longed for more in their prayer life too, and so they asked Jesus to teach them how to pray (Luke 11). While Jesus didn’t answer every question they asked, or respond to everything they desired to see happen, He felt this request important enough to respond to…and so He gave them what we have come to call, “The Lord’s Prayer.”
As we work through this series, beginning with “Our Father,” may your heart for prayer be rekindled, may you encounter the power that are in these words, and may you be transformed.
w/ Vern Collins
