Jesus said, “Therefore, you should pray like this…” (Matthew 6:9)
When you look at the Lord’s Prayer, you realize that it’s simple, yet covers so many critical aspects of our life. Right before the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus tells his disciples not to “babble” like the Gentiles do, who think God’s going to answer them based on their “eloquent” and “dynamic” prayers. Jesus corrects the wrong perception we might have of trying to put on a show for God, so that he pays more attention to us, and then answers us. So Jesus reassures his disciples that they already has their Father’s attention, because he already knows what they need (6:8). And now through the Lord’s Prayer, we see that Jesus is teaching us that we don’t have to make our prayers into a show or make it complicated, but to keep it simple and real.
From vv.9-10, we learn from Jesus to pray for more of God. Our prayer life can range from many different kinds of prayers and requests, but there also needs to be prayers that desire more of who God is and for his glory to be known. So we can begin our prayers with our hearts wanting our Father’s name to be treasured and honored. We can begin our prayers longing for his kingdom to come and redeem what has gone wrong. The more we enjoy our relationship with our Father, the more this becomes the cry of our prayers.
From vv.11-13, we learn from Jesus to pray for things like our physical needs, such as bread. We also learn to pray for our spiritual needs, specifcally God’s restoring and transforming forgiveness. And we learn to pray for our relational needs like forgive the people in our lives who’ve wronged us. In these verses, Jesus continues to keep it simple, yet power. He shows us how dependent we need to be on asking God to supply our daily physical, spiritual, and relational necessities.
Finally, in vv.13, we learn from Jesus to pray for protection against the cosmic battle. Jesus makes visible the invisble fight that’s happening on a daily basis. So he says to ask God for help agaist the enemy’s tactics to try and disrupt God’s name being honored as holy in your life.
Jesus is teaching us that prayer does not need to be complicated, but simple and intentional. He shows us that we’ve got much to pray for today.