The Lord's Prayer ("Just ask Dad")
Notes, paraphrases & reflections from a talk given by Richard Coekin
John Bunyan: ' Prayer is a sincere, sensible, affectionate pouring out of the heart or soul to God, through Christ, in the strength and assistance of the Holy Spirit, for such things as God has promised, or according to His Word, for the good of the church, with
submission in faith to the will of God' (A Discourse on Prayer, 1662)
Prayer: a conversation ...
from that conversation comes a tension - over answers / the lack of
("not now" ... "not yet" ... "not the best for you")
- Heartfelt request (Jer 29) ... as prayed Christ (Heb 5:7)
- Matt 7: 9-11 of good gifts given to those who ask
- 1 John 5:17, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us
- - of His will ( .... "Your will be done")
The Lord's Prayer: the blueprint .... a Copernican Revolution:
- - that God is at the centre & we rotate around Him
Spirit: that we want to pray
Sin: but that our sin makes us unwilling to do so ("too tired", "too busy" ...
it's not surprising that being, feeling from God leads to a state of chronic prayerlessness.)
Robert Murray M'Cheyne (para.)
What we are on our knees before God is what we are & no more.
.........
Our Father in Heaven:
Those four words encapsulate the theology of whom we pray to
= Grace, the New Covenant, Father/Child relationship
... the Possessive Pronoun: ties us to the rest of the Church family;
Belonging & permanency -
"He might be grieved by how you're living but He's still there"
... with reverence: absolute power (omnipotence) & absolute good
God in Heaven, with us in God:
"that's why you don't have to shout into the distance,
you can whisper in the dark"
John Bunyan: ' Prayer is a sincere, sensible, affectionate pouring out of the heart or soul to God, through Christ, in the strength and assistance of the Holy Spirit, for such things as God has promised, or according to His Word, for the good of the church, with
submission in faith to the will of God' (A Discourse on Prayer, 1662)
Prayer: a conversation ...
from that conversation comes a tension - over answers / the lack of
("not now" ... "not yet" ... "not the best for you")
- Heartfelt request (Jer 29) ... as prayed Christ (Heb 5:7)
- Matt 7: 9-11 of good gifts given to those who ask
- 1 John 5:17, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us
- - of His will ( .... "Your will be done")
The Lord's Prayer: the blueprint .... a Copernican Revolution:
- - that God is at the centre & we rotate around Him
Spirit: that we want to pray
Sin: but that our sin makes us unwilling to do so ("too tired", "too busy" ...
it's not surprising that being, feeling from God leads to a state of chronic prayerlessness.)
Robert Murray M'Cheyne (para.)
What we are on our knees before God is what we are & no more.
.........
Our Father in Heaven:
Those four words encapsulate the theology of whom we pray to
= Grace, the New Covenant, Father/Child relationship
... the Possessive Pronoun: ties us to the rest of the Church family;
Belonging & permanency -
"He might be grieved by how you're living but He's still there"
... with reverence: absolute power (omnipotence) & absolute good
God in Heaven, with us in God:
"that's why you don't have to shout into the distance,
you can whisper in the dark"