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Learning a perfect prayer: part two
Part one focused on "The Greatness of God" (vs. 9-10, 13b). God has a great name, kingdom, and will. We shall now examine the next two parts. The Neediness of Man (vs. 11-13a) We humans are like the character Bill Murray played with Richard Dreyfuss in "What About Bob?" In one scene when Dreyfuss was trying to get rid of Murray, "Bob" cried out, "I need, I need, I need!" He wasn't wrong. That's why we pray, because of the greatness of God and the sheer neediness of man. We have physical needs. We need "bread," and we need it "daily." So, we pray, and prayer perfects us in two ways. We become grateful and we do not become greedy. Prayer acknowledges that every morsel of food, every minute of good health, every good thing we have comes from God. Prayer tempers us from becoming Tammy Fayes and Bennie Hinns bent on using God to get rich. We have spiritual needs. We have "debts," or obligation. As believers in God we are obliged to keep the law of God. But we also face the "temptation" to follow our own will instead of God's. Bob Dylan wrote, "I stare into the doorway of temptation's angry flame, and every time I pass that way I always hear my name; but onward in my journey, I come to understand, that every hair is numbered, like every grain of sand." In other words, I'm a sinner and God is sovereign, so I pray for God to forgive me and give me strength to overcome temptation and obey his will. After all, he has "the kingdom, the power and the glory" to answer our prayer and enable us to honor him. Through prayer he supplies us with his greatness for our neediness. But when we talk we have to walk that bridge. The Bridge Between the Two (vs. 9-13, 14-15) Truly the bridge between the greatness of God and the neediness of man is prayer. This is why Jesus teaches us to pray and offers this perfect model. He loves us, he wants us to be right with God, and nothing unites the child of God with God the father like speaking with him in prayer. But one key component of this prayer is elaborated upon by Jesus after the prayer is done. It's what Don Henley called The Heart of the Matter." It's forgiveness. The boards on the bridge between the greatness of God and the neediness of man are built on forgiveness. In the perfect prayer perfect forgiveness is stressed. It is the complete cycle of receiving and giving forgiveness. It is not conditional, as verses 14-15 might seem to some, but transformational. Christians forgive because Christians have been forgiven. But just because it is necessary does not make it easy. Folk singer Patty Griffin put these words to tune, "It's hard to give, it's hard to get, but everyone needs a little forgiveness." The great puritan Charles Stoddard said, "Forgiving is hard. So was the cross: hard words, hard wood, hard nails." This is where the prayer finds its perfect conclusion. The builder of the bridge between the greatness of God and the neediness of man is Jesus Christ. He not only teaches us to pray, he makes prayer possible. The father would not listen to us except for the person and work of his son. In Jesus we discover all the greatness of God. In Jesus we find our deepest, truest, real need met - salvation by grace through faith in him.
In Jesus we are able to pray the perfect prayer and hopefully lean to live a complete life, a theocentric life, bent on the glory of God and the love, forgiveness, and good of all people. So now, let's pray.
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