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In response, Jesus says that you don’t have to get God’s attention, or spell out your need, or convince Him
to act on your behalf because “your Father knows what you need before you ask Him.” Imagine the profound sense of comfort that comes from knowing that God isn’t some distant and disconnected lord whose attention you must work to gain. Rather, He is already focused on you and knows you so deeply that He sees your needs.
Psalm 139 describes this beautifully. The Psalm begins:
“1 O Lord, You have searched me and known me.
2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up; You understand my thought from afar.
3 You scrutinize my path and my lying down, And are intimately acquainted with all my ways. 4 Even before there is a word on my tongue, Behold, O Lord, You know it all.
5 You have enclosed me behind and before, And laid Your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; It is too high, I cannot attain to it.”
You don’t have to get God’s attention before you pray. He is already intimately acquainted with you. His eye is continually upon you in love. Medieval Christmas had a phrase for this: “coram deo”. It means, “before the face of God”. All of us live our lives with God’s face upon us. He sees us and knows us. We need but turn to Him and He is ready to hear us.
The Right Way to Pray
Jesus next teaches his disciples how to pray. It is called by many “The Lord’s Prayer” because our Lord gave it to us. Some choose instead to call it the “the disciple’s prayer” or “the model prayer” because Jesus gave it to his disciples as a model for how they themselves are supposed to pray.
Pray to the One True God
The first direction Jesus gives is to realize whom you are praying to.
• “Father” – Many pagans believed that the gods took no notice of humans, or saw them the way we
see animals, useful for our purposes but not similar in nature. Jesus reminds us that the God we are praying to is Father. That one word carries with it the full force of Biblical Revelation about who God is and how He relates to us. We are created in His image. He desires to be in relationship with us. Yes, He is the Almighty Creator of heaven and earth. But as our Father, that means that He is approachable by us. He desires us to come. He invites us to come. Through Jesus, He has made a way for us to come to Him.
• “Our” – It might seem like over-scrutinizing the text, but the truth is there is tremendous truth contained in the plural “our”. A common mistake is that our relationship to God is something we do on an individual basis. Yes, we all must come to God for ourselves, but we are not invited to remain by ourselves. He invites us to be involved in His family. He desires to restore our broken relationships with each other as well as with Him.
• “Who is in heaven” – Reminding ourselves that God is in heaven corrects a couple errors. First, it reminds us to reject a pantheistic view of nature that sees the entire created order as God himself. God isn’t the universe. He is separate from it. He is in heaven. This separation between God and
his world also reminds us of his holiness. One day heaven and earth will be rejoined, but right now they are separated because of sin. Praying to Our Father reminds us God is close to us and cares. Paying to our Father in Heaven reminds us also that God is set apart and holy. That is why God sent Jesus, to open the way so that we can enter into the presence of God confidently.
Pray for His Glory: On Earth as It Is in Heaven
Praying to God in heaven reminds us that heaven and earth are currently separated because of sin. The first thing we are supposed to pray for is that this separation would be undone. God is at work to undo the effects of sin. We are encouraged to center our prayers on seeing this happen more and more in our own world. Jesus lists three specific areas where we are to focus our requests.
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