The Lord’s Model Prayer

Most people believe that prayer doesn’t do any good and believe that everything that happens in our lives is according to God’s will. That is very far from the truth and because we live in a fallen world sin plays a huge part in the things that happen on Earth. God is Sovereign meaning He owns everything around you, He has absolute Authority, and He is the Master of everything. However, the Lord has given every human being the ability to have a free will and that free will affects every aspect of a person’s life.

Proverbs 19:3 details “The foolish acts of man make his way bad, and his heart is angry toward the Lord.” In other words when a person acts like a fool making bad decisions and faces the repercussions of those decisions they often blame the Lord. Every choice that someone makes will have an outcome and that outcome can be a good one or a bad one based on that choice.

Another aspect that we need to take into consideration regarding prayer is the fact that the Lord has given us dominion over then Earth. Genesis 1:28 is very specific as it states, “Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

The fact that the Lord gave us dominion over the earth to master and subdue it meant that our free will affects God’s intervention in our lives. What that means is in order for the Lord to implement His will on the Earth without taking away our free will is through our prayers. Our prayers give the Lord the go ahead to legally impose His will into our circumstance.

The same thing is true with the demonic kingdom. Satan cannot just come into your life and wreak havoc; you have to give him the legal access through open doors like sin which permits him to create chaos. God is just and He will not go against His Word and in fact He even places the Scriptures above His own Name, Psalm 138:2.

If God violates the authority that He has given to us found in Genesis 1:28 then He would be going against His Word which He will not do. So the way that the Lord works through born again believers of Jesus Christ on Earth is through the process of prayer. Let’s take a look at a perfect example of how the Lord works through prayer. 

2 Chronicles 7:14 states, “If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” Notice how there is an “if” that starts this passage of Scripture meaning that there is a stipulation attached to it. We have to make the choice to pray and turn away from wickedness in order for the Lord to heal our land.

Through this series I will break down the Lord’s Prayer and why the Lord is giving us an outline of how we are supposed to pray. He isn’t giving us this prayer to use it repetitiously but to use as a guideline to pray powerfully. Down below is the entire prayer that we will go over found in the book of Matthew.