Thought of the Week - 20th November 2024

THE LORD’S PRAYER

Jesus said, “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites,  for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others.

Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. This, then, is how you should pray:

‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.

Your kingdom come, your will be done,

on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us today our daily bread.

Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.

Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.’

In our Gospel reading this week, Jesus teaches his disciples how to pray. He teaches us that prayer is a deeply personal thing between us and God. We can of course pray in public, as we do in church, but the motivation of such prayer is not to show people how good we are at praying. The motivation is to build and strengthen our relationship with our Father in heaven – not to impress people on earth.

Jesus advises us to find a quiet place, and to pray quite simply. He invites us to address God as Father. What an awesome privilege we are given, to be able to come to the Creator of the Universe as his children.

We are to come acknowledging our Father’s perfect goodness and desiring his kingdom of perfect goodness be present and real in this world, for all Creation for all time.

We come as children, asking our Father to provide us with all that we need (not all that we want!) and just enough for our present needs (not more than enough for years to come.) Why? So that we come to him every day, maintaining our relationship and keeping it strong.

We come to our Father in sorrow for the wrong things we have done and the right things we have failed to do, asking his forgiveness, and asking him to help us forgive others who may have wronged us. Carrying hurts from our past is a huge burden that many of us carry. It can take great strength to forgive those who have hurt us, but God is able to give us that strength and relieve us of that burden - every day if need be. Those hurts still matter - of course they do - but the burden of carrying them passes to our Father.

Finally, we come to our Father asking him protect us from the temptations and dangers that we face in life.

(‘For thine is the Kingdom etc’, was added by the Church as a final crescendo of praise and worship.)  

The Lord’s prayer helps us to pray, and we have a Father who loves to hear from us at any time with anything that concerns us, so next time you are sitting with a cup of tea or coffee, or lying awake at night, why not just speak to him … he’s longing to hear from you.

Revelation 1:4-8

John 18:33-37

IN YOUR PRAYERS THIS WEEK

• God's peace and justice in all war torn places of the world, but especially in Ukraine, Gaza and Sudan
• the bereaved
• the sick, in mind, body or spirit
• God to guide the rights person to see our advert for a new vicar in the Church Times this week
• COP29 Climate Conference meeting in Baku, Azerbaijan that participating governments will make the decisions needed to protect and preserve our world for the generations to come.

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