“Our Father in heaven…” Matthew 6:9
If you want to know God as your Father, and if you want to pray as Jesus teaches us to pray, here is where you begin: You must receive Jesus as the Lord and Savior of your life. And you do this by believing in His name.
It is a marvelous thing to know the sovereign Lord of the universe as your loving heavenly Father. J. I. Packer says in his book, I Want to Be a Christian, “Let your thoughts move to and fro like an accelerating pendulum, taking ever wider swings. ‘He is my Father—and He’s God in heaven; He’s God in heaven—and He’s my Father!’” The more the pendulum swings, the more you will want to pray.
When Jesus brings you to know His Father as your Father, you will love God from the heart, and when you love God from the heart, you will want His name to be honored: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name” (6:9).
What exactly are we asking when we pray this prayer? Notice that “heaven” frames the first three petitions: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (9, 10). Hallowed be your name (on earth as in heaven). Your kingdom come (on earth as in heaven). Your will be done (on earth as in heaven).
Our Father’s abode is heaven, and from heaven He hears our prayers. When we pray the Lord’s Prayer, we are asking that what always occurs in heaven would take place on earth.
How does the fact that our Father is in heaven impact your prayers on earth?
