out of the pews: The Lord's Prayer

GIVE US THIS DAY BREAD FOR OUR NEEDS

At this point it the prayer, Jesus turns His attention from God to us. We are cautioned to ask for our daily bread, for the basics of sustenance.
We are not instructed to ask for a banquet. Throughout scripture we are encouraged to be satisfied with “enough.”
When we have enough, it is enough, and we need to realize that fact. At this point I usually insert a prayer of thanks for the abundance of food and other things that God has given us: for our family, for the church, for our nation, for our van that just keeps on running (275,000 miles so far), for our health and that of our family.
We need to stop, be still and realize that all good things come from God.

MAKE US FREE OF OUR DEBTS, AS WE HAVE MADE FREE THOSE WHO ARE IN DEBT TO US.

On this one He adds a bit of a footnote: “For if you forgive men for their sins, you will have forgiveness from your Father in heaven.”
But then, as if this weren’t clear enough, He adds the reverse statement: “But if you do not forgive men for their sins, you will not have forgiveness from your Father for your sins.”
This part of the prayer sounds very important. We are instructed to ask God for forgiveness. He goes on from talking about this part of our prayer to discuss another aspect, then comes back to it with these two notes.
We are to clearly understand that our forgiveness is conditional. The forgiveness on which our salvation rests is not automatic. We have to do something else – something beyond repentance and even baptism. We must first forgive everyone who has ever sinned against us.
It is time for an inventory. Be still. Close your eyes. And think.
Who is still there in your past, unforgiven. Is he or she alone or are there others?
Now go through the list and forgive each one. One by one. Spend some time with it to be sure the forgiveness is coming from your heart. You may have to do this for several days for it to work.
And, if they knew that you were holding a grudge, you will have to let the person know that you have forgiven them. That part may be hard, but it will be freeing. It will free you to move on from that relationship

AND LET US NOT BE PUT TO THE TEST BUT KEEP US SAFE FROM THE EVIL ONE

What do we know about temptation.
We know that God doesn’t tempt anyone (James 1:13). He is on our side. For some of us, that may be hard to get your head around, but God really is on our side. If you are having trouble with that concept, you may want to talk with someone about it.
And we know that our temptations are common to other people – they are not unique to us (1 Cor. 10:13).
God prepares an escape from every temptation (1 Cor 10:13). But we must look for the escape; it may not always be obvious.
And the real trick here is that we have to be willing to take the escape route. If the temptation is so great that we refuse the escape route, we have lost the battle
The bottom line is this from 2 Peter 2:9: “The Lord knows how to rescue the Godly from temptation.” We just have to ask.

out of the pews