The Best Prayer

From my By Faith Alone: 365 Devotional Readings Updated In Today's Language is this gem from Martin Luther about the Lord's Prayer...

The Best Prayer Of All 

"This is how you should pray: Our Father in heaven, let your name be kept holy." Matthew 6:9

After having denounced showy and meaningless prayers, Christ introduced a splendid short prayer of His own. With it, He instructed us on how to pray and what we should pray for. He gave us a prayer that touches upon a variety of needs. By themselves, these needs should compel us to approach God daily with these few easily remembered words. No one can excuse himself by saying he doesn't know how to pray or what to pray for. 

Praying the Lord's Prayer every day is certainly a worthwhile habit, especially for ordinary people and children. We can pray it in the morning, in the evening, and at the dinner table -- at any time for that matter. As we pray this prayer together, we bring our needs before God. 

As has been said many times before, the Lord's Prayer is the finest prayer that anyone could have ever thought up or that was ever sent from heaven. Because God the Father gave His Son the words for the prayer and sent Him to introduce it, we know beyond a doubt that this prayer please the Father immensely. 

Right at the beginning of the prayer, with the words, "Our Father," Jesus reminds us of what God demands and promises. God insists that we give Him the respect, honor, and reverence He deserves, just as earthly fathers expect this from their children. Also, God the Father wants us to trust that He will meet our needs. We are overjoyed to be His children through Christ. And so, because we trust that He will give us what He promised, we can pray to Him with confidence, in the name of Christ, our Lord.

I really liked that, especially because I've encountered so many Christians who neglect the Lord's Prayer in preference of their own ramblings of "vain repetition" (Matthew 6:7) from their "deceitful" hearts (Jeremiah 17:9).

There have been many things written about this wonderful prayer and you can read one of them in "A Prayer That Sums It All Up" by Pastor Charles Henrickson. Of course, Luther's Small and Large Catechisms are great places to start too if you really want to do a deep dive and better understand what we are taught by this familiar prayer.

In a Lutheran layman's terms, the Lord's Prayer is truly the best prayer there ever was and truly the best prayer there ever will be.



NOTE: Please understand that I'm not a called and ordained minister of God's Word and Sacraments. I'm a layman or just a regular Christian, Candy-Making, Husband, Father, Friend who lives in the "City of Good Neighbors" here on the East Coast. To be more specific, and relevant to the point I want to make with this disclaimer/note, please understand that I'm also a newly converted Confessional Lutheran who recently escaped American Evangelicalism almost 2 years ago now. That being said, please contact me ASAP if you believe that any of my "old beliefs" seem to have crept their way into any of the material you see published here, and especially if any of the content is inconsistent with our Confessions and Lutheran doctrine (in other words, if it's not consistent with God's Word, which our Confessions merely summarize and repeatedly point us back to over and over again) so that I can correct those errors immediately and not lead any of His little ones astray (James 3:1). Also, please be aware that you might also discover that some of the earlier pieces I wrote for this blog back in 2013 definitely fall into that "Old Evangelical Adam" category since I was a "Lutheran-In-Name-Only" at the time and was completely oblivious to the fact that a Christian "Book of Concord" even existed (Small/Large Catechism? What's that!?!). This knowledge of the Lutheran basics was completely foreign to me even though I was baptized, confirmed, and married in an LCMS church! So, there are some entries that are a little "out there" so-to-speak since the subject matter was also heavy influenced by those old beliefs of mine. I know that now and I'm still learning. Anyway, I decided to leave those published posts up on this website and in cyberspace only because they are not blasphemous/heretical, because we now have this disclaimer, and only to demonstrate the continuing work of Christ and the Holy Spirit in my life (Hebrews 12:2; Philippians 1:6). Most importantly, please know that any time I engage in commenting on and/or interpreting a specific portion of the holy Scriptures, it will always closely follow the verse-by-verse notes from my Lutheran Study Bible and/or include references to the Book of Concord unless otherwise noted. Typically, I defer to what other Lutheran Pastors both past and present have already preached and taught about such passages since they are the called and ordained shepherds of our souls here on earth. Finally, I'm going to apologize ahead of time for the length of most entries (this disclaimer/note is a perfect example of what I mean! haha!). I'm well aware that blogs should be short, sweet, and to the point, but I've never been one to follow the rules when it comes to writing. Besides, this website is more like a "Christian Dude's Diary" in the sense that everything I write about and share publicly isn't always what's "popular" or "#trending" at the time, but is instead all the things that I'm experiencing and/or studying myself at the moment. For better or for worse, these posts tend to be much longer than most blog entries you'll find elsewhere only because I try to pack as much info as possible into a single piece so that I can refer to it again and again over time if I need to (and so that it can be a valuable resource for others -- if possible, a "One-Stop-Shop" of sorts). Thank you for stopping by and thank you in advance for your time, help, and understanding. Feel free to comment/email me at any time. Grace and peace to you and yours!

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