The first three requests that Jesus taught us are “Hallowed be Thy Name,” “Thy kingdom come,” and “Thy will be done.” Notice everything has to do with God. Man is basically self-centered. What we have inherited from Adam is a self-centered life that makes us think of ourselves primarily, and very often ourselves only. It’s I, me, and my family, that’s all that concerns most people. If they get converted, it’s still I, me, and my family. When they receive Christ, they only think of how Christ can now bless I, me, and my family. That’s not Christianity. Jesus came to deliver us from this self-centered life, which is the root cause of all our misery and unhappiness.
The reason why most Christians cannot rejoice all the time is because they are centered in themselves. When something good happens to them, they rejoice; and when something doesn’t happen the way wanted -- if they didn’t get the promotion that they expected -- then they lose their joy. Why? God is still on the throne, your sins are still forgiven, the devil is still defeated! You can’t rejoice because something you wanted, you didn’t get. Jesus has come to deliver us from a self-centered life, which is the root cause of all our problems.
Can we ask for food? Of course we can, Jesus taught us to pray in Matthew 6:11, “Give us this day our daily bread.” “Daily bread” includes food, clothing, shelter, and children’s education, because they need to get educated and get a job so that they can earn their daily bread. There is nothing wrong in asking for these things. “Forgive us our sins,” and “Deliver us from evil” are also good requests, but all these three requests concerning us come after seeking God’s name, God’s kingdom, and God’s glory. Jesus is changing our priorities.
The right way to pray is to pray with God’s Kingdom, His name, and His will primary in our thinking. In other words, I must change my whole way of life, to now think in terms of God’s name, God’s Kingdom, and God’s glory. That is the truly spiritual Christian. Anyone can repeat this prayer - even a parrot can. But only spiritual people can pray this prayer from their hearts, because only spiritual people can honestly say that their primary concern in life is that God’s name will be hallowed in the country, in the church, and in themselves and their families.
“God’s kingdom should come soon, God’s rule should be established in the church, and God’s will should be done in my life, in my family, everywhere.” That is the mark of a spiritual man. Don’t consider yourself spiritual until these three are the uppermost desires in your heart. Everything else is meaningless if the center of your life is still around yourself. Many people, when they are converted, because their life has been self-centered all along, have just added Jesus into their orbit to serve them - to forgive their sins, to answer their prayers, to bless them, make them prosperous, and heal their sicknesses. This is not Christianity. This is a self-centered life with religion added on to it. When Christ really comes in, we turn from (repent of) our self-centered life, and God becomes the center.
In the three requests concerning ourselves at the end of the Lord’s prayer, Jesus does mention material things (give us this day our daily bread), but He links them with “Thy will be done on Earth as it is Heaven.” I am saying “My Father, I want to do Your will on earth in my life exactly like the angels do it Heaven, which is instant obedience; and in order to do Your will, I need health, so give me my daily bread. Are you praying for daily bread in order to do God’s will, or in order for you to do your own will? Is it in order to sin, or in order to please God? Our prayer should be, “Give me this day my daily bread for health and strength to live for God.”
The other thing to notice is that in this entire prayer, the words “me” and “my” are missing. Isn’t that interesting, that in our own prayers you’ll find “me” and “my” very frequently, but in the prayer that the Lord taught us to pray, these words are completely absent. He says, “Give us” - “it is not just me Lord, I think of my brother too, he needs his daily bread.” “ Forgive us” - “don’t just forgive me, forgive my brother too.” “Deliver us…” The truly spiritual man is a man whose life is centered in God, and when it comes to considering himself, he thinks not only of himself, but also of the people around him - others who are also part of the family of God. Because God is the Father of large family, he thinks of others as well.
The proper order is Christ first, and then others and me together; not just me by myself. That’s the way a spiritual person prays: not just for his own needs. He is concerned about his children naturally, but he is also concerned about somebody else’s children. He doesn’t look down on them. It is not humanly possible to be burdened as much for other people’s children as for our own. We must be realistic, but we must have some concern for them. Give us this day our daily bread.
“Forgive us our sins as we have forgiven others.” This is an important request. It is the one request Jesus repeats at the end. He says in verse Mattew 6:14, “If you forgive men their transgressions, your Heavenly Father will also forgive you.” It is very important to understand this condition, because Jesus Himself laid it down: if you don’t forgive men, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions. Is this true, or not?
Does God withhold forgiveness when you don’t forgive somebody else for what that person did against you? Absolutely. He will not forgive you if you don’t forgive other people. Please remember this. It is a fundamental principle in God’s dealings with men that He treats us like we treat other people. If we are merciful to others, then God is merciful to us. If you forgive others, then God forgives you. We saw that in Matthew 5:7, “Blessed are the merciful, for they will obtain mercy.” Here we can say, blessed are those who forgive others, for they will be forgiven; and those who do not forgive others will not be forgiven.
Jesus once told a story in this connection to illustrate it clearly in Matthew 18:21-35. This is a very important parable that we need to understand. There was a king who had many slaves and they all owed him a lot of money. One man owed him 10,000 talents, which is something like a billion rupees - a huge debt that you can never pay. The king was merciful and forgave him. This forgiven man went out and found another person who owed him a hundred rupees, caught him by the throat, and said, ‘If you don’t pay me, I will take you to court and have you locked up,” and then he does just that. When other slaves saw this, they went and reported to the king. The king called the slave and said, ‘You wicked slave, you just asked me to forgive your debt and I forgave you. Shouldn’t you also have mercy on your fellow slave, even as I had mercy on you? And he was moved with anger. The King handed this slave over to the torturers until he paid back everything he owed.
In other words, that forgiven debt was put back upon his head. How do you account for that? Does God, who forgives us, un-forgive us? Does He put back on our heads the sins He has already forgiven? According to this verse, yes. The Bible never says that God has forgotten our sins. He says, “I will not remember your sins anymore,” meaning, “I will not hold your sins against you.”
There is no verse that says that God completely forgets. I myself cannot forget the sins I committed, so how can God forget them? No, He still knows, but doesn’t hold them against us. This parable teaches us that if you forgive others, God forgives you, and if you do not forgive, God will not forgive you.
And then the last request is, “Do not lead us into temptation.” What does that mean? God will not allow us to be tempted beyond our ability (1 Corinthians 10:13), but it is good for us to pray this, because it is good for us to recognize that some temptations are way beyond our ability to cope with. We know that God will not allow us to be tested beyond our ability, but we need to pray to not be led into temptation that is too strong for us. “But deliver me from evil.” I am expressing a humble position saying, “I do not know how to overcome this temptation. I don’t have the ability to overcome this temptation. So Lord, my Father, please don’t lead me into something too strong for me.” When I pray like this, I am expressing my inability and helplessness. That’s a good attitude to have towards temptation.
We are not to think that we are too strong to be overcome by temptation. That’s the reason many people don’t have victory over sin. The reason most Christians are defeated by sin is that they have too much self-confidence. They think they have the ability -- they think that having a few more good resolutions and gritting their teeth will help them overcome. No, that won’t. We have to acknowledge, “Lord, don’t lead me into temptation too strong for me, and when I face any temptation, deliver me from evil, because I can’t overcome evil on my own.” If only we would recognize that evil is far too strong for us, even in the matter of forgiving others, then we would pray as Jesus teaches here. If you find it difficult to forgive somebody -- if somebody has done terrible harm to you or to your family, and you find it very difficult to forgive that person, for the evil that person has done, -- then you can ask God for grace. Say, “Lord please help me, deliver me from this evil of an unforgiving spirit. I don’t have the ability to forgive this person, but I ask You to help me to forgive him.”
Prayer is an expression of our weakness and our helpless dependence on God, and faith is the confidence that God will help me because He is my Father Who is in heaven, Who sent His Son to die to free me from all my sins. Romans 8:32 says, “If He gave His son to free you from all your sins, how much more will He will give you everything that you need along with Him!”
The prayer concludes in Matthew 6:13, “For Thine is the Kingdom, the power and the glory forever and ever, Amen”.
It is very important that we conclude our prayer like this and say, “Lord, at the end of it all, when you have answered my prayer and done everything that I asked you for, I want to acknowledge that the kingdom is Yours, and the power is Yours. I don’t have power to be able live this life; I don’t have power to overcome sin. The power is Yours. And when I do overcome sin, the glory also be Yours.
Then the prayer concludes with “Amen,” which means, “It will be so”.
