Chapter 30 - The Lord's Prayer

Chapter 30 gave us a multi-faceted view of “The Lord’s Prayer” using 7 Bible passages, as follows:

Matthew 26:40-41
John 16:23-24
Luke 11:1-14
Matthew 6:6-15
Luke 18:1-8
John 17
John 12:23-28

Invocation:

“Lord Jesus! Reveal me to the Father. Let His name, His infinite Father-love, the love with which He loved Thee, according to Your prayer, be in me. Then shall I say aright, ‘My Father?’ Then shall I apprehend Your teaching, and the first spontaneous breathing of my heart will be: ‘My Father, Your Name, Your Kingdom, Your Will.’ Amen.” (Andrew Murray in With Christ in the School of Prayer)

Prayer:

“The only lesson that the disciples asked Jesus to teach them was how to pray. And recorded in the Lord’s Prayer is the model which Jesus incorporated to teach them how to have sweet communion with the Father. Let is shape your prayer life, and be the model of communion for you.”

Hymn:

The hymn for Chapter 30 was “The Lord’s Prayer”.

Benediction:

“Father, what can I say in this hour but to cry out as these disciples cried out, Lord, teach me how to pray. Teach me my need. Tear away this veil from my eyes that makes me think I have any adequacy in myself. …Give me rather, this conscious sense of dependence, this awareness that nothing I do will be of any value apart from a dependence upon you. In Jesus name. Amen”
(Ray C. Stedman in Jesus Teaches on Prayer)

Meditation Selections:

The meditation selections included excerpts from the writings of Evelyn Underhill, Georgia Harkness, Oswald Chambers, Frederick Buechner, Andrew Murray and Norval Geldenhuys. (Googling their names may give you some insight into their backgrounds and experiences, if that's of any interest to you.)

Some of the interesting quotes from the meditations included:

• “Every just man, says Osuna, needs the seven things for which this prayer – or this scheme of prayer – asks.”
• “It is not part of the life of a natural man to pray. …Prayer is the way the life of God (in us) is nourished. …We look upon prayer as a means of getting things for ourselves; the Bible idea of prayer is that we may get to know God himself.”
• “According to Jesus, by far the most important thing about praying is to keep at it.”
• “In true worship the Father must be first, must be all. The sooner I learn to forget myself in the desire that He be glorified, the richer will the blessing be that prayer will bring to myself. No one ever loses by what he sacrifices for the Father.”
• “The prayer for bread and pardon must be accompanied by the surrender to live in all things in holy obedience to the Father’s will…”

What do any of these quotes (or any of the meditations in Chapter 30 not quoted) mean to you? Please post your responses to the blog site:
(http://lhcndeeperlifeclass.blogspot.com/).

Thanks for your participation.
John