Monday Meditation

"Our Father in heaven..."

We're going to take a break from looking at the prayers of the Apostle Paul for a few weeks, and instead focus on the prayer Jesus taught his disciples. In the Sermon on the Mount, we hear Jesus say: "This, then is how you should pray:"

"Our"

We might pray on our own or with others. But the Lord's prayer guards us from individualism right at the start as we remember that as Christians we belong to a family, who as brothers and sisters all call God "Our Father".

And amazingly our voice joins with Jesus himself, who calls God "Our Father" too!

Hebrews 2:11 says: "Both the one who makes people holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters."

"Father"

We pray not to a distant god, nor an unknown god but to our Father God. Because, through Jesus, we have been adopted. This reminds us that we can approach God because of his grace to us. We don't earn our adoption, we simply receive it:

"The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.”" (Romans 8:15)

"in heaven"

We pray to the one who is on the throne in heaven. Not limited in power or knowledge like any human. Stephen says in Acts 7:48-50, quoting Isaiah 66:

“...the Most High does not live in houses made by human hands. As the prophet says:

“‘Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool."

So, as we pray "Our Father in heaven"

"Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need." (Hebrews 4:16)

Photo by Liane Metzler on Unsplash