{"id":143,"date":"2017-02-02T00:19:09","date_gmt":"2017-02-02T00:19:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theoikonomist.com\/?p=143"},"modified":"2017-02-02T00:26:03","modified_gmt":"2017-02-02T00:26:03","slug":"the-lords-prayer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theoikonomist.com\/?p=143","title":{"rendered":"The Lord’s Prayer"},"content":{"rendered":"

Matthew 6:5-13 (NIV)<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cAnd when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing<\/em>\u00a0<\/em>in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full.<\/em>\u00a0<\/em>\u00a0<\/sup><\/em><\/strong>But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father,<\/em>\u00a0<\/em>who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.<\/em>\u00a0<\/em>And when you pray, do not keep on babbling<\/em>\u00a0<\/em>like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words.<\/em>\u00a0Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need\u00a0<\/em>before you ask him.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/sup><\/em><\/strong>\u201cThis, then, is how you should pray:<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018Our Father<\/em>\u00a0<\/em>in heaven,<\/em>
\nhallowed be your name,
\n\u00a0<\/sup><\/strong>your kingdom\u00a0come,
\nyour will be done,
\non earth as it is in heaven.
\n\u00a0<\/sup><\/strong>Give us today our daily bread.
\n\u00a0<\/sup><\/strong>And forgive us our debts,
\nas we also have forgiven our debtors.
\n\u00a0<\/sup><\/strong>And lead us not into temptation
\nbut deliver us from the evil one.<\/em><\/p>\n

Unfortunately, as Christians, “The Lord’s Prayer” often falls into the category of vain repetition for us. Therefore, we sometimes forget of the importance of the prayer and assume this Matthew passage is just about Jesus revealing the selfishness of the religious leaders of his day. Jesus does indeed exposes the self-righteous and self-centered practices of these religious leaders in this passage, but we need to be reminded of why Jesus also explains how we ought to pray.<\/p>\n

We are accustomed to thinking of prayer as a good strategy for getting what we want. Often times praying calls up the imagery of a genie granting our dreams, desires, and needs, and we believe that invoking Jesus’ name would make our prayers\u00a0true (“in Jesus’ name”). However, all prayer-including The Lord’s Prayer-is not for getting what we want, but rather for bending our wants towards what God wants.<\/p>\n

The Danish philosopher and Christian thinker Soren Kierkegaard said it best, “The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays.” In other words, prayer is an active process for us to bend our lives towards God in a way that is not of our natural inclination.<\/p>\n

“[…]that Christ may dwell in your hearts\u00a0through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted\u00a0and established in love,\u00a0may have power, together with all the Lord\u2019s holy people,\u00a0to grasp how wide and long and high and deep\u00a0is the love of Christ,\u00a0<\/sup><\/strong>and to know this love that surpasses knowledge\u2014that you may be filled\u00a0to the measure of all the fullness of God.” <\/em>Ephesians 3:17-19 (NIV)<\/strong><\/p>\n

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