Triumph in Prayer - The Lord's Prayer

“Prayer” is a commonly used term in the Church and is a deed we are taught and encouraged to practice often. Many do not realize that prayer is a gracious blessing from God to us, and its relevance and importance can too often be overlooked and taken for granted by many Christians who may fall into the risk of lip service and recitations alone. We often do not realize the importance or centrality that prayer holds in our lives as children of God and more often than not we do not make it an important or essential practise in our daily lives apart from the times we are in a blessed Church service, or when we are in trouble or going through a trial and remember to pray and ask God to help us through these times.

We know that communication is a basic and essential requirement to maintain any relationship. We communicate to our beloved and closest friends and family regularly through phone, sms emails, tweets etc. in order to maintain our relationships and stay close to one another. Keeping in mind that we are living in a mended relationship with God through baptism in the name of the Holy Trinity and abiding in Him through partaking in the Church Sacraments, why do we still find it challenging to willingly pray to God consistently, in both good times and in bad?

Simply defined; prayer is the practise of communicating with God. If we contemplate this fully, we sinners, have been undeservingly blessed with the privilege of communicating with God; the perfect, holy creator of all! There are no other religions apart from Christianity that allow man-kind the freedom to openly pray to God their creator and have the assurance that their prayers are heard.

We are instructed to pray by our Lord Jesus Christ in Matthew 6:9-13. Here, Christ gives us the pattern for prayer and teaches us to pray the “Lord’s Prayer” (Awon dwashmaya):

Our Father in Heaven

Hallowed be your name

Your kingdom come

Your will be done

As in Heaven, so on earth

Give us the bread of our need this day

And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors

Lead us not into trial

But deliver us from evil

For yours is the kingdom, and the power and the glory

Forever, Amen

From this prayer we learn from Christ Himself how we are to pray and what we are to ask for:

Firstly, we have the undeserved privilege of addressing God as our “Heavenly Father.” This means we have accepted Christ as our saviour and have been sealed by the Holy Spirit through baptism into His name and have become co-heirs with Christ. (Romans 8:14-16)

Secondly, we are to praise God for His magnificent Holiness and glorify His name. To follow on from this pattern, we should wholeheartedly desire and ask for God’s Kingdom to come into our lives – for Him to be the Lord of our life and genuinely ask for His perfect will to be fulfilled in our lives in accordance with His plan for us, following the example of our Lord Jesus (Luke22:42, John 6:38) as co-heirs with Him (see above).

When we are asking God to “give us our daily bread”, this does not merely mean bread to eat and sustain us physically and provide for our everyday needs (Matthew 6:26), but it is the bread for the eternal day of the Kingdom of God. Food for the nourishment of our immortal soul. This living bread is Christ Himself which we partake in when we receive the Holy Eucharist (John 6:27-58).

As temptation looms and surrounds us in this fallen world, we can slip up in sin, but the Holy Spirit convicts us so that we can identify our sin and mournfully repent and seek absolution for it. One of the most common prayers amoung Christians is that of asking God to forgive our sins, however, do we realize that there is a pre-requisite we must fulfil in order for our sins to be forgiven? We must forgive those who are indebted to us, before we can ask and expect God to forgive our debts by the same token (cf. Matthew 6:14-15).

When we pray and ask God “not to lead us into trial, but deliver us from evil” we are not asking Him to keep us from the trials that develop our faith (James 1:2-4), but are asking Him to lead us away from the trial of judgement (Revelation 3:10) and deliver us from the evil one.

Finally, we are to always acknowledge God’s sovereignty over all… To Him belongs the Kingdom to which we belong, all power and glory for eternity. When we know and understand that all things in creation are in God’s powerful control, that all things were created by Him and for Him (Colossians 1:16) how can we not trust Him to deliver us and answer our prayers according to His good will?

We witness the power of what pure, faithful prayer can achieve in the lives of faithful men and women as we look to their extraordinary life changing occurrences as recorded in the Bible and throughout Church History in the saints:

My beloved, now give me your heart and your mind, and hear about the power of pure prayer and see how our righteous forefathers were triumphant before God through their prayer and how it became a pure offering for them.

For the offerings were accepted through prayer (Gen. 4:4).

And it furthermore changed the flood (Gen. 8:20-22).

And it healed barrenness (Gen. 18; 1 Sam. 1-2).

And it destroyed armies (Jos. 12).

And it revealed the mysteries (Ex. 3:2).

And it divided the sea (Ex. 14; Jos. 4).

And it forced a passage through the Jordan (Ex. 14; Jos. 4).

And it withheld the sun and made the moon to standstill (Jos. 10:12-13).

And it destroyed the unclean and it caused fire to come down (Num. 16:35; 1 Kgs 18:38; 2 Kgs 1:10).

And it shut up the heaven (1 Kgs 17:1). And it caused to ascend from the pit (Dan. 6). And it saved from the fire (Dan. 3). And it delivered from the sea (Jon. 2).

And its power is very great, just as the power of pure fasting is great. (Aphrahat Demonstration IV on Prayer)

Prayer is an essential daily requirement for all of God’s children to practise willingly and wholeheartedly, not out of a sense of routine obligation. Whether we are asking for God’s help and guidance through a trial, thanking Him for His blessings or trials or just longing to glorify His Holy name and acknowledge Him for the great God that He is… We are to acknowledge Him, beseech Him and thank Him every single day as we follow the example of our Lord Jesus and heed His words which give us the assurance that our prayers of faith will be answered:

Whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it. (John 14:13-14)

Finally, Aphrahat exhorts us to: “See, my beloved, sacrifices and offerings are rejected and in their place prayer was chosen. Therefore love pure prayer and toil at petition. At the beginning of all your prayers you should pray the prayer of your Lord. Be diligent in everything that I have written to you, and whenever you pray remember your friend.”

Next week: Triumph in prayer Part II – How to pray?

This week’s song: The Lord’s Prayer in Aramaic – Vian Inanna