tHE LORd'S pRayER
“Pray then in this way…”
-Matthew 6:9
“When you pray, say…”
-Luke 11:2
(The Lord’s Prayer is...)
“…truly the summary of the whole Gospel.”
-Tertullian
(c. 200 A.D.)
“If we pray rightly, and as becomes our wants, we say nothing but what is already contained in the Lord’s Prayer.”
-St. Augustine
(354-430 A.D.)
“Jesus told His Disciples not only how to pray, but what to pray.
The Lord’s Prayer is not merely the pattern prayer, it is the way Christians must pray.
If they pray this prayer, God will certainly hear them.
The Lord’s Prayer is the quintessence of Prayer.
A Disciple’s prayer is founded on and circumscribed by it.
Once again Jesus does not leave His Disciples in ignorance;
He teaches them The Lord’s Prayer and so leads them to a clear understanding of prayer.”
-Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945)
“The earth is the LORD’s, and all that it holds; the world, and everyone that lives upon it.”
-Psalm 24:1
“He who best knew what we ought to pray for, and how we ought to pray…
As the moral law was written with the finger of God, so this prayer was dropped from the lips of the Son of God.
He knew what manner of address would most please Himself…
He has here dictated to us a most perfect and universal form of prayer,
comprehending all our real wants, expressing all our lawful desires;
a complete directory and full exercise of all our devotions.”
-John Wesley Founder, Methodists
THE LORD’S PRAYER ______________________________________
Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy Name.
Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth, as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever and ever. Amen.
-Matthew 6:9-13; Luke 11:2-4 _____________________________________
On Easter Day, an estimated 2.4 billion Christians
(Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Protestant) will read, recite, or sing this prayer in hundreds of languages:
“These words always unite us.”
“Our Divine Instructor would not teach us to pray for impossibilities;
He puts such petitions into our mouths as can be heard and answered.
Yet certainly this is a great prayer; it has the hue of the infinite about it.”
-Charles Spurgeon English Baptist, “The Prince of Preachers”
“I am convinced that when a Christian Rightly prays The Lord’s Prayer…
His praying is more than adequate.”
-Martin Luther
“I encourage every Christian to memorize The Lord’s Prayer and Pray it Daily.”
-Lay Monk Preston
“It would not be difficult to arrange all of the Psalms according to the petitions of the Lord’s Prayer.
We should need to change only slightly our arrangement of the order of the sections.”
-Dietrich Bonhoeffer
SAyiNGS Of tHE dESERt FatHERS (AbbA MOSES):
A monk had done something wrong.
Abba Moses was called for by a meeting of Elders,
and was asked to join them.
Monk Moses did not want to.
A message was delivered from a Priest, saying,
‘Please come, the entire community of Brothers is assembled here
and awaiting your arrival.’
Moses still did not wish to go, but he went anyway.
Abba Moses obtained an old basket made of woven reeds.
It was filled with holes.
Filling the basket to the brim with sand, he dragged it along behind him as he walked.
‘Abba Moses, what is this?’ the Elders asked, when he arrived.
Moses answered,
‘My sins are all streaming out behind me,
but I am totally unaware of any of them.
And yet today you have invited me here to judge another’s sins!’
After listening to these words of Abba Moses,
the Elders pardoned the Brother
and decided to forget the entire affair.” _________________
-Sayings of the Desert Fathers
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