Luke 11:1-4 – A pattern on prayer (2)

In prayer, engaging the Father, our Abba, our dearest Daddy, is the first and needful thing to do. He deserves to be highly prized and revered. Our desire should also be for His will and reign to be adopted and established in the heart of every man and woman. These are foundational. 

Having established the primary focus, Jesus turned to the horizontal level of prayer. This is recorded in Luke 11:3-4:-

Give us this day our daily bread
And forgive us our sins,
For we ourselves also forgive everyone who is indebted to us.
And lead us not into temptation.

There are also three things here: our provision, our forgiveness and our strength in times of overpowering temptations. There is this common notion: come to God only when there is a major problem. Come to Him only when the crisis is insurmountable. We forget that He is the Father who wants to provide, protect and care. We tend to make God our last resort in life when He should be our first option. Here, Jesus asks us to come to our Daddy even for our basic necessities of daily living. Don't take things for granted.  We very quickly forget that He is the source and sustainer of our life. And instead of being grateful, and acknowledging that they are His provision, we'll become proud and think that they are owed to us. Praying for His daily provision keeps us mindful that all the things we have in life come from Him: “Give us this day our daily bread.”

Being forgiven and being forgiving go hand in hand. If we want to be forgiven, we need to be forgiving. Luke seems to suggest that forgiving others is a condition when we come seeking the Father's forgiveness. It must be a daily, continuous habit. Sins break our fellowship with God. His forgiveness restores it. We should seek His forgiveness. How can we ever obtain it when we remain unforgiving to a wrong done to us? Hence in order to receive the Father's forgiveness in experience, we must make it our habit to forgive others who have wronged us. It did not say that we don't struggle with the issue of forgiveness. We do. But a heart that seeks God's forgiveness must also be one that continues to be forgiving.

Finally we are to ask not to be “led into temptation”. Some have seen this as a suggestion that God is the source of our temptation. But God is not the source of our temptation. James, the Lord's brother, in his letter affirmed it. We will always be tempted in this world, everyone included. Like it or not, temptations when resisted, help to build our moral and spiritual fibre. Here Jesus is talking about the avoidance of those temptations that we won't be able to bear and would succumb to. In our daily experiences, we all need to rely on the strength He graciously provides. This keeps our pride in check. It helps us to see and know how much we need God. It's humbling but it's true. We all need His strength. 

Let's be mindful that it's our Heavenly Father who provides for our daily necessities and be grateful. He still forgives our sins but requires that we maintain a forgiving attitude. So be forgiving. He strengthens when we face an overpowering temptation in life. So rely on Him. The Lord is a strong tower and the righteous shall run into it and are safe! We are truly blessed!