When Jesus taught the disciples how to pray, he was giving them more than a model for prayer.
Jesus was also describing his mission and its fulfillment. And it is only because of who Jesus is and what he did that we can pray the Lord’s prayer:
Our Father in heaven,
As part of the trinitarian circle of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Jesus can call God his father. Because he can call God his father, so can we.
Your name be honored as holy.
Jesus came in the name of the Father. In every way, he honored God through his own holiness as the one knew no sin, thus allowing us also to be holy before God.
Your kingdom come.
Jesus brought the good news that he was inaugurating his kingdom on earth—and that he is our king. We can enter that kingdom only through the blood of Jesus, who gave himself for us. And one day, God will recreate and reunite the heavens and the earth and live with us forever in that kingdom, with Jesus as King.
Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
In every circumstance, Jesus did God’s will. Even in the Garden of Gethsemane when Jesus prayed in anguish that God would find a way other than the cross, he said, “Yet not my will, but yours be done” (Luke 22:42). As a result of his choosing the Father’s will, we also are able to seek and choose it.
Give us today our daily bread
Jesus is the bread of life, the bread that was broken so that we might never go hungry or thirsty.
And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
Each of us owes a debt to God, with debt representing our sin against our creator. The forgiveness of that debt comes only through the atoning blood of Jesus Christ, which removes our death penalty. Jesus loves perfectly, and only in union with Christ can we love in the way required by God’s law. How then can we not forgive those in our own debt?
And do not bring us into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one.
We are able to pray that God not lead us into temptation because God led Jesus into temptation. Jesus did not give in to the tempter, and he ultimately defeated evil through his death and resurrection.
Before the Spirit impelled Jesus into the wilderness to be tempted, God had just confirmed his love for Jesus as his son. The evil one thus began his attacks on who Jesus was and why he had come.
First, he slyly suggested Jesus needed to prove his identity:
“Since you are God’s Son, speak the word that will turn these stones into loaves of bread.”
“Since you are God’s Son, jump.”
When Jesus refused to use his power to prove his identity, Satan boldly tried to get Jesus to just forget who he was what he came to do:
“I’m in charge of them all [kingdoms of earth] and can turn them over to whomever I wish. Worship me and they’re yours, the whole works.”
Challenges to Our Identity and Purpose
We, too, face these temptations today on a regular basis. If the evil one can make us doubt that we are God’s children, made in the image of the triune God, and distract us from God’s purposes for us, then we’re headed right back into the darkness from which we were saved.
Like Jesus, we need to know that we are God’s beloved and that he has called us to bear his image. Like Jesus, we need to be so well-grounded in God’s Word that we speak it back to the evil one during times of temptation. Just as Jesus answered each of Satan’s temptations with the Bible, we must store up Scripture in our heart and minds.
Thank you, Father
I’ve written a prayer of thankfulness in response to Jesus’ fulfilling of the Lord’s Prayer. I hope you’ll pray it with me!
Thank you, Father, that Jesus left heaven at your will so that I can know what it means to be holy, to be set apart from the darkness. Thank you that I can call you Father.
Thank you, Father, that your will is perfect and that I can trust your will not just for my life but for the universe. Thank you that one day I will live with you in your kingdom, where there will be no suffering or sorrow.
Thank you, Father, that Jesus lived as a perfect human being. Thank you that Jesus chose to redeem us through the breaking of his body, allowing us to experience the bread of life.
Thank you, Father, that you have forgiven my debts through Jesus. Thank you that you empower me to forgive others.
Thank you, Father, that you led Jesus into temptation so that I can choose light over darkness. Thank you for making me in your image, an image redeemed by Jesus through his death and resurrection.
Thank you, Father, that I am your beloved.
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