The Best Father
Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done On earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, As we forgive our debtors. And do not lead us into temptation, But deliver us from the evil one. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.
(Matthew 6:9-13)
Honor and Respect
This Sunday is a day that the world has chosen to honor Fathers. Actually they should be honored every day since the Lord has given a commandment that we should honor our Father and our Mother. There is even a promise of a long life in the land of Israel for those in the Jewish nation that do that. How nice it is to see those who love their Fathers, giving them heartfelt respect and honor. Many can not do that because they never knew their Fathers. Some won’t do that because their Fathers were either absentee Fathers or they were cruel Fathers. For those of us who had good Fathers, we were blessed. They were actually modeling God the Father to us.
The Very Best Father
The prayer that we have quoted is a pattern prayer. It is not to be substituted for heartfelt, spirit-led prayer—either when we pray privately or publicly. Yet the prayer is very instructive. For one thing it is short. It is addressed reverently to the right person. It is not addressed to God which can be impersonal but to our Father which should be very personal. A Father is both a position and a function. There are many Fathers who have that position because they produced children but who don’t function as Fathers. But the children who pray this prayer are praying to One who not only has produced children but to One who functions as a Father as well. For many of us who pray this prayer, God is our Father because we have trusted in His Son. God does not become our spiritual Father until we do that. We are children of disobedience (or the product of disobedience) by our first birth and we become children of God by our new birth. And yet there is a sense in which God has produced all of us on the earth and is a Father to all of us. But until we trust the Father’s son we really don’t allow the Father to function as our Father.
The Blessings the Father Provides
Notice that the Father provides daily bread. Most of us were never concerned with our daily bread when we were growing up. I realize that is not true of all though it should be true of all. There are people in this country who go hungry. I have never been one of them. But of course I have wanted to “lay up for a rainy day.” The Lord is the kind of Father that tells us to just trust Him and the rainy day will not come. I know some are going to ask, “What about all of those hungry people in this world?” My answer is, “I don’t know.” I just know that my Father has always provided just enough for me and my family. And He has never given us so much that we forget how dependent we are on Him.
Notice that the Father forgives us. This does not have to do with our salvation, it has to do with our fellowship with the Father. If we want open communication with the Father we need His forgiveness. That means we need to talk to Him about our sins and confess them. He expects us to treat others the way He treats us in this regard. Frankly, I am glad that He treats us a lot better than we treat one another when it comes to forgiveness. Forgiveness does not always lead to reconciliation but it certainly does not lead to grudge bearing and hate. It keeps us humble and and reminds us that we have no right to “get even.”
Notice that the Father protects us from temptation and from the evil one. We are no match for Satan and we need to remember that. But our Father knows how to save us and He knows how to protect us.
The Glory is Not Ours, it is the Lord’s
This prayer is all about glorifying the Father. It is about His kingdom. Satan wants us to make life all about us. God wants us to make life all about Him. We didn’t come to know the Lord as our Savior until we quit telling God how to do the saving and let Him tell us how to be saved. And we won’t live a life that honors and respects and glorifies Him until we make life all about Him instead of all about us.
This is a wonderful prayer. Someday maybe we will all be able to pray it honestly. In the meantime, let us be thankful that there is a good Father in heaven who really does love us.
Bruce Collins
Meditation for the week of June 19, 2016