Densely packed with meaning and subtext, the Lord’s Prayer is one of my favorites. When Jesus’ disciples asked him to teach them how to pray, his response was anchored in Israel’s history as God pursued them, looks forward to the new creation, and somehow speaks to our purpose, our trials, and God’s triumphs.

This is the rendition I was taught as a child at church on Sunday mornings:

Our Father in heaven,
Hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come,
Your will be done,
 on earth as it is in Heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us of our debts,
as we forgive our debtors.
Lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.

Take a moment to pray each line and reflect on it as you go.

This prayer touches areas of our lives that we need to seek God’s help with every day, and it also reveals what God is doing as he establishes His kingdom. 

Our Father in Heaven.

Jesus addressing God as our heavenly Father is such an intimate image of a God who isn’t far away. It’s an image of a God who teaches us, shows us, nurtures us, protects us and provides for us with compassion. Jesus invites us to pray the same way as sons and daughters adopted into his holy family.

Give us today our daily bread.

Our Father in heaven provides for our daily needs. Just like God provided mana for the Israelites as they wandered through the wilderness, God provides for our needs.

Just like the mana in the wilderness was a mystery for the Israelites (the Hebrew word mana is their question, “what is it?”), the Greek word we translate “daily”, epousios, has presented its own mystery for contemporary translators. For centuries, translators believed that the Greek of the Bible was a special form of Greek, a “heavenly Greek” of sorts. That was until we discovered the garbage heap we call the “Oxyrhynchus papyri” (named after the town near which they were found). What archaeologists discovered revealed that the Bible wasn’t written in an elevated form of Greek, like the philosophers, but was written in the common language of the people. It was everyday language. The word, epiousios, which we had only seen in the Lord’s Prayer, showed up on a first-century grocery list! Jesus taught us to seek God’s provision for the basic needs we have here and now. It’s ok to ask God for the bread you need to pick up for today’s meal.

What is something you feel is too small or unimportant to ask God to provide? Take a moment to lift that up in prayer.

God providing daily bread also directs our attention to the ultimate completion of God’s new creation. Because Jesus has already taught us to seek God’s Kingdom coming, the lines that follow reflect what that might look like. Much like God led Israel through the wilderness after delivering them from slavery in Egypt (providing them with daily mana), but before they entered into the promised land, Jesus has delivered us from our slavery to sin and provides for us while we await the completion of His new creation. 

Forgive us of our debts as we forgive our debtors.

You may have heard this line several ways, “Forgive our trespasses,” or “forgive our transgressions,” and all of them are powerful prayers for us. Having spent a considerable amount of time in the Greek, my favorite is the translation, “debts.” The Greek word is actually a technical term used for a financial obligation, a debt. This is what the Kingdom of God looks like. Thank God that Jesus paid the price we should have owed to God for our sin. Jesus teaches us to ask for God’s help to release others from the debts they owe to us.  Perhaps these are spiritual debts, relational debts, or actual financial debts. Consider who you need to forgive and ask God for his miraculous help.

Jesus almost immediately follows his prayer in Matthew questioning how we can expect God to forgive us if we don’t forgive others. Our own salvation is by grace alone, and not by our works, but for some reason Jesus says that forgiving others is so important that we may risk our own forgiveness if we withhold it. This may be because when we truly understand the price God paid for us, our response in gratitude will compel us to release others from their debts as well. 

Those are just a few examples of the deep riches of Jesus’ most famous prayer.

I encourage you to again take time to pray each line of the Lord’s prayer several times slowly. Interrupt the written words with the prayers that come to mind. Give the Holy Spirit time to speak and answer each prayer.