Jesus tells us that when we are to address God in prayer we are to call Him Father. I think that by and large we take this too often for granted for we do not realize fully what an incredible privilege this is or the great implications that this means for us as children of God.I think we would do well to meditate on this great truth.
I remember when I was in my twenties when I was studying for a theology exam on Methodist doctrine. I was learning John Wesley's definition of 'the witness of the Spirit', and at the time was worried because it was just a few hours before the exam took took place. I decided to learn it line by line.
'The testimony of the Spirit as an inward impression on the soul, whereby the Spirit of God directly witnesses to my spirit, that I am a child of God; that Jesus Christ hath loved, and given himself for me; and that all my sins are blotted out, and I, even I, am reconciled to God'.
At first I was anxious about the exam, but as I repeated the words: 'the Spirit of God directly witnesses to my spirit, that I am a child of God', something happened within my heart and the words became alive to me by the Spirit who did in fact witness to the fact that I was indeed a child of God. Then added to that were the words:'
that Jesus Christ hath loved, and given himself for me; and that all my sins are blotted out, and I, even I, am reconciled to God'. I became ecstatic and experienced such joy and blessing that I had not had for such a long time.I was a child of God, Jesus did not only love me,but gave his life for me and that I,even I was now reconciled to God. All anxiety about the exam then disappeared because I could now see it in the correct perspective.
Before my dog died a few years ago I used to walk him along a certain route which lasted about twenty minutes or so.During that time I would try to use it as an opportunity to draw close to God through praying the Lord's prayer. However, more often than not I would not have finished the prayer as I would sometimes get stuck at 'Our Father who is in heaven' and be unable to pray on.I didn't want to move on because the implicaton of those words was just so powerful to me and by moving on I was worried that I would lose the closeness that I was experiencing through meditating on it and by praying to God as a young child would talk to his father.
Reader if you are a Christian, I would encourage you to meditate upon this wonderful blessing for some time, for surely if you are a child of the King you are then so richly blessed by Him.Thank Him and praise Him continually that it is so.For it is a gift from the King of Kings to you.Go to Him and talk to Him as a child would his father and let your requests, fears, desires and hurts be known to Him.His heart for you is a heart of love.'O what manner of love the Father has given on to us, that we should be called the children of God.'Amen.
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"Our Father, which art in heaven." [Matt. 6:9]
See how He straightway stirred up the hearer, and reminded him of all God's bounty in the beginning. For he who calls God Father, by him both remission of sins, and taking away of punishment, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption, and adoption, and inheritance, and brotherhood with the Only-Begotten, and the supply of the Spirit, are acknowledged in this single title. For one cannot call God Father, without having attained to all those blessings. Doubly, therefore, doth He awaken their spirit, both by the dignity of Him who is called on, and by the greatness of the benefits which they have enjoyed. But when He saith, "in Heaven," He speaks not this as shutting up God there, but as withdrawing him who is praying from earth, and fixing him in the high places, and in the dwellings above.
He teaches, moreover, to make our prayer common, in behalf of our brethren also. For He saith not, "my Father, which art in Heaven," but, "our Father," offering up his supplications for the body in common, and nowhere looking to his own, but everywhere to his neighbor's good. And by this He at once takes away hatred, and quells pride, and casts out envy, and brings in the mother of all good things, even charity, and exterminates the inequality of human things, and shows how far the equality reaches between the king and the poor man, if at least in those things which are greatest and most indispensable, we are all of us fellows. For what harm comes of our kindred below, when in that which is on high we are all of us knit together, and no one hath aught more than another; neither the rich more than the poor, nor the master than the servant, neither the ruler than the subject, nor the king than the common soldier, nor the philosopher than the barbarian, nor the skillful than the unlearned? For to all hath He given one nobility, having vouchsafed to be called the Father of all alike.
When therefore He hath reminded us of this nobility, and of the gift from above, and of our equality with our brethren, and of charity; and when He hath removed us from earth, and fixed us in Heaven; let us see what He commands us to ask after this. Not but, in the first place, even that saying alone is sufficient to implant instruction in all virtue. For he who hath called God Father, and a common Father, would be justly bound to show forth such a conversation, as not to appear unworthy of this nobility, and to exhibit a diligence proportionate to the gift. Yet is He not satisfied with this, but adds, also another clause, thus saying
Our Father - Who art good and gracious to all, our Creator, our Preserver; the Father of our Lord, and of us in him, thy children by adoption and grace: not my Father only, who now cry unto thee, but the Father of the universe, of angels and men: who art in heaven - Beholding all things, both in heaven and earth; knowing every creature, and all the works of every creature, and every possible event from everlasting to everlasting: the almighty Lord and Ruler of all, superintending and disposing all things; in heaven - Eminently there, but not there alone, seeing thou fillest heaven and earth.
Some people pray just to pray and some people pray to know God. --Andrew Murray
There is a mighty lot of difference between saying prayers and praying. --John G. Lake
You may pray for an hour and still not pray. You may meet God for a moment and then be in touch with Him all day. --Fredrik Wisloff
I have so much to do that I spend several hours in prayer before I am able to do it.—John Wesley
I have been driven many times to my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had absolutely no other place to go. -- Abraham Lincoln
Always respond to every impulse to pray. The impulse to pray may come when you are reading or when you are battling with a text. I would make an absolute law of this – always obey such an impulse. --Martyn Lloyd-Jones
Wishing will never be a substitute for prayer. --Ed Cole
One can believe intellectually in the efficacy of prayer and never do any praying. --Catherine Marshall
Is prayer your steering wheel or your spare tire?-- Corrie Ten Boom
Pray often, for prayer is a shield to the soul, a sacrifice to God, and a scourge for Satan --John Bunyan
Of all the duties enjoined by Christianity none is more essential and yet more neglected than prayer. --François Fénelon
The only way to Heaven is prayer; a prayer of the heart, which every one is capable of, and not of reasonings which are the fruits of study, or exercise of the imagination, which, in filling the mind with wandering objects, rarely settle it; instead of warming the heart with love to God, they leave it cold and languishing. --Jeanne Guyon
We must alter our lives in order to alter our hearts, for it is impossible to live one way and pray another. --William Law
The Third Petition of the Lord's Prayer is repeated daily by millions who have not the slightest intention of letting anyone's will be done but their own.--Aldous Huxley
Is the Son of God praying in me, or am I dictating to Him?....Prayer is not simply getting things from God, that is a most initial form of prayer; prayer is getting into perfect communion with God. If the Son of God is formed in us by regeneration, He will press forward in front of our common sense and change our attitude to the things about which we pray. --Oswald Chambers
Those who know God the best are the richest and most powerful in prayer. Little acquaintance with God, and strangeness and coldness to Him, make prayer a rare and feeble thing. --E. M. Bounds
Our Father - It was a maxim of the Jews, that a man should not pray alone, but join with the Church; by which they particularly meant that he should, whether alone or with the synagogue, use the plural number as comprehending all the followers of God. Hence, they say, Let none pray the short prayer, i.e. as the gloss expounds it, the prayer in the singular, but in the plural number. See Lightfoot on this place.
This prayer was evidently made in a peculiar manner for the children of God. And hence we are taught to say, not My Father, but Our Father.
The heart, says one, of a child of God, is a brotherly heart, in respect of all other Christians: it asks nothing but in the spirit of unity, fellowship, and Christian charity; desiring that for its brethren which it desires for itself.
The word Father, placed here at the beginning of this prayer, includes two grand ideas, which should serve as a foundation to all our petitions:
1st. That tender and respectful love which we should feel for God, such as that which children feel for their fathers.
2dly. That strong confidence in God's love to us, such as fathers have for their children.
Thus all the petitions in this prayer stand in strictest reference to the word Father; the first three referring to the love we have for God; and the three last, to that confidence which we have in the love he bears to us.
The relation we stand in to this first and best of beings dictates to us reverence for his person, zeal for his honor, obedience to his will, submission to his dispensations and chastisements, and resemblance to his nature.
Which art in heaven - The phrase אבינו שבשמים, abinu sheboshemayim, our Father who art in heaven, was very common among the ancient Jews; and was used by them precisely in the same sense as it is used here by our Lord.
This phrase in the Scriptures seems used to express:
1st. His Omnipresence. The heaven of heavens cannot contain thee. 1 Kings 8:27 : that is, Thou fillest immensity.
2dly. His Majesty and Dominion over his creatures. Art thou not God in heaven, and rulest thou not over all the kingdoms of the heathen? 2 Chronicles 20:6.
3dly. His Power and Might. Art thou not God in heaven, and in thy hand is there not power and might, so that no creature is able to withstand thee! 2 Chronicles 20:6. Our God is in heaven, and hath done whatsoever he pleased. Psalm 115:3.
THE SON OF GOD, our Lord Jesus Christ, hath taught us a prayer; and tho He be the Lord Himself, as ye have heard and repeated in the creed, the only Son of God, yet He would not be alone. He is the only Son, and yet would not be alone; He hath vouchsafed to have brethren. For to whom doth He say: “Our Father which art in Heaven?” Whom did He wish us to call our Father save His own Father? Did He grudge us this? Parents sometimes, when they have gotten one, or two, or three children, fear to give birth to any more lest they reduce the rest to beggary. But because the inheritance which He promised us is such as many may possess and no one be straitened, therefore hath He called into His brotherhood the peoples of the nations; and the only Son hath numberless brethren who say, “Our Father which art in Heaven.” So said they who have been before us; and so shall say those who will come after us. See how many brethren the only Son hath in His grace, sharing His inheritance with those for whom He suffered death. We had a father and mother on earth, that we might be born to labors and to death: but we have found other parents, God our Father, and the Church our Mother, by whom we are born unto life eternal. Let us then consider, beloved, whose children we have began to be; and let us live so as becomes those who have such a Father. See how that our Creator had condescended to be our Father!
We have heard whom we ought to call upon and with what hope of an eternal inheritance we have begun to have a Father in Heaven; let us now hear what we must ask of Him. Of such a Father what shall we ask? Do we not ask rain of Him to-day, and yesterday, and the day before? This is no great thing to have asked of such a Father, and yet ye see with what sighings and with what great desire we ask for rain when death is feared—when that is feared which none can escape. For sooner or later every man must die, and we groan, and pray, and travail in pain, and cry to God that we may die a little later. How much more ought we to cry to Him that we may come to that place where we shall never die!
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