Good Salvation Friday, my dear brothers and sisters. Well, this is the second time I am writing today's message. I just went to send it and wiped it right off my screen. I must have had something in it that the Lord did not approve of. Anyway, Salvation Friday and the day we pray for the lost, those who are not saved, and also the day we pray for those of us who are saved to take God's word into the fields of harvest. Please keep praying also for those that have been on our prayer list. Please let me know when we have "praise reports." That will come out more in today's study as we wind up the Lord's Prayer. Next week, we might be still working on prayer, unless of course God changes my plans.
Important Date. Saturday, July 6, 2013. Carry The Light Minstries annual picnic in the park. This is your advance notice of the date. Many, many more details will be coming and there will be no snow! Now let me get to the message.
When You Pray 2/1/2013 Day Five.
Matthew 6:9 - This, then, is how you should pray: "Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be Thy name. Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, For thine is the kingdom and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen." (KJV)
Let's now take a look at the next part of this wonderful prayer that our Lord Jesus taught us to pray. "And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors." Folks, this line, this part of the prayer I want you to really understand what we are praying and what Jesus wanted to get into our brains as He gave us this prayer. First let's look at the word "debts" which, folks, does not have anything to do with how much money we owe to others. The word "debts" in this case means trespasses and/or sins. I think if we look at it as "sins" it might help us to understand it more.
As we are praying this prayer we are asking God our Father in Heaven to forgive us of our sins, but we are not asking Him to forgive us of all of our sins, or at least not in so many words. What we are asking God to do is forgive us, in the same manner and/or the same amount as we would forgive someone who has sinned against us. So here we go, and I am going to put it to you just as I understand it coming from the Lord. You have someone who did you dirty or caused you a lot of trouble, maybe even put out an untrue something about you and got a big old rumor started. And you are really mad at them, but deep down you know and understand that if you want to move on with your life you must forgive them. So you forgive them a little bit, but you are still really upset and you hold some back, deep down you, well, you just hold onto a grudge. So when you are asking God to forgive you, are you really asking Him to just forgive you some, but you are saying, Lord, it is okay to hold a grudge against me, for I am holding one against others. We are praying to our Lord Jesus to forgive us, forgive us, Lord, but Lord, we are not willing to forgive all the things others have done to us. So what if we go to the Lord and the Lord would only forgive some of our sins, even if we have cleared the sins of others against us? Fear not, for God will forgive all of your sins, if indeed you have forgiven others. Hey, I did not make the rules, I am just telling them to you. Please, please, take all your prayers seriously and of course please pray in faith, for it is indeed the faith that will open heaven's doors. As in all our prayers, I believe we should ask God to forgive us before we ask for anything else from Him. In other words, ask for Him to clean you and then ask to be healed. Moving on ...
Now for the next part where we ask for our Father in heaven this, "And lead us not into temptation."
Do you remember how Jesus let the devil lead him up on the mountain and then the devil tempted Jesus about different things? Of course Jesus did not bow down to the temptations, but would we be strong enough to not give in? So we are asking Jesus not to put us into that temptation and why did Jesus put this in the prayer? I think He just wants us to pray to Him about the temptations and He will keep us away if we ask. Now folks, there are times when we might be led into temptations by our Lord if we are indeed working for Him. We might answer the call to go onto streets and talk to people about Jesus where drugs are sold and that those ladies of the evening might be working. And can we handle it? It depends. Sometime back, in Harrisburg, a Catholic priest was preaching in a downtown pub. That, folks, is a man whom you might consider is being led by Jesus into a path of temptation. And for sure if you were one who wants to reach out to others and you have just come clean from drinking you sure would not want to be led into that temptation. Are you getting the picture? In other words, the temptation would be too great for you to handle. Let's move on.
Let's look at the next part, "but deliver us form evil." This Jesus lined up to be with that last line, as we are really asking Jesus to deliver us from the evil one, and sticking with the last subject where the priest went into the pub, this line is telling me that if I have a problem like drinking, then Lord, deliver me from it. Help me get rid of my addictions. We are asking that God take us away from anything that is evil or bad or in the best way I can put it, if it does not please God. Folks, if it does not please God then I think it is evil. Amen. (By the way, the priest did good.) Now let's move on ...
The end of the prayer goes into a praise type prayer, "For thine is the kingdom and the power, and the glory, forever." What are we telling God in this great prayer? We are telling Him the Kingdom is His, and He has all power, and we will give Him all the glory or we should give Him all the glory. That, folks, is why we need to get praise reports out. I know of other pastors that plead with folks to let them hear the good news also.
Brothers and sisters, we do not praise Him nearly enough, nor do we thank Him nearly enough. So let's do a tad of that right now ... Thank you, Jesus, praise You, Jesus, I love You, Jesus ... I do love You, Jesus, I really do ...
Now let's wrap it out with this closing - "Amen" - which means in this case, "so be it." Let's pray.
"Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be Thy name. Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, For thine is the kingdom and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen."
Brothers and sisters, each time I wrote on this wonderful prayer, I find out more about it. The biggest thing I have forced myself to do is pray the prayer and not just be saying it. All so often as we do things over and over we just do it by memory or habit and we are not really thinking about it. Just putting words together so to speak. Now as we go forth sharing our blessings this day and as I tell you that I love ya and sign off Pastor Dan, I would like to really pray the prayer one more time. Will you do that with me? And Please pray it in faith and take your time.
"Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be Thy name. Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, For thine is the kingdom and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen."
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