Having given us God’s prayer list, Jesus now tells us what our prayer list should be when we pray. First, surprisingly, we pray for our essential daily needs: ‘Give us this day our daily bread’. Some early church fathers thought this was a daily prayer for ‘spiritual’ bread, but the Reformers (as Luther and Calvin) said such was nonsense; that the prayer for daily bread certainly does cover our physical needs. We have to eat in order to live. Jesus realistically asks us to pray that we are taken care of at the physical level – our daily food. We cannot adequately pray for spiritual needs when we are starving.
It was an agrarian society in Jesus’ day. They did not have food in their freezers. They lived day by day – one day at a time. Therefore the prayer for daily bread was a serious request to God that food will be provided. But such a prayer also refers to our sleep, our emotional needs, our finances and general well being in order to cope in life.
Having prayed for our essential needs, the second thing on our prayer list is for the forgiveness of our sins. It is not a prayer for salvation but for continued fellowship with God in the Kingdom. In order to have a relationship with the Holy Spirit it is essential that the Spirit be ungrieved. Unforgiveness grieves the Spirit. So in this fifth petition – Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us’, it is a plea and a promise. The plea is that God will forgive us our sins. We are all sinners. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us (1 John 1:8).
But do not forget the pledge we make when we pray the Lord’s Prayer: that we have forgiven those who have trespassed against us. Have you? Do you realize what you are saying when you pray the Lord’s Prayer – that you have forgiven those who have trespassed against you? Have you really? If you have not read it, look at my book Total Forgiveness.
The petition ‘lead us not into temptation’ is a difficult one to explain theologically. It implies that God could actually lead us into temptation. The best way to understand this, as Dr. Michael Eaton put is, is to pray God will not let us be lead ‘into’ temptation – that we will not be thrown in at the deep end as it were; that we won’t have to face what seems to be over our heads. We should pray this daily.
Finally, the petition ‘but deliver us from evil’ (some think it is a continuation of the previous petition, some think it is yet another one, making it seven – but it doesn’t matter) is a prayer to be delivered from Satan’s attack and oppression. The Greek probably should be translated ‘evil one’; deliver us from the evil one. The devil is always on the prowl – like a roaring lion, seeking who he may devour (1 Pet.5:8)
The conclusion, ‘Thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory’ is possibly not in the original. Who knows? But I have none the less dealt with these words in my book The Lord’s Prayer.
Read more in my book on this fascinating and important subject. On sale this month.