Prayer Training Event At Bay Life Church

Join us this Sunday, May 15, at 4 pm in Modular Room 603, as we learn more about how to listen to the leadings of the Holy Spirit. This training is open to all and will last approximately 1 ½ hours. Hope to see you there.

Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread

Give Us – implies we cannot get the bread on our own, otherwise we would. We are dependent on God for our daily sustenance.

This Day – implies we need God's sustenance every day. It implies don't eat at night! Our bodies need to rest from eating and our spirits need to be restored through stillness. ;)

Our Daily Bread – is fresh bread that we receive through God's Word, Jesus, who is the Living Word and the Bread of Life. To receive nourishment from the bread, the dough is first mixed or anointed with oil from the Holy Spirit. Salt is added for flavor and then heat is applied for the purification of our faith. Then, enjoy!

Contributed by: Joyce Rutledge

"Our Father"

Matthew 6:9 

“Our Father in heaven,

Hallowed by Your Name.”

In Matthew 6:1-4, Jesus instructs His disciples on the personal nature of prayer, the intimacy of prayer – special communication between God and us.  Jesus teaches the type of prayer that God most cherishes; personal, intimate and humble. 

In verse 9, our study for today, Jesus is teaching His disciples and all of us that collectively God is Our Father.  Jesus wants us to know how much God cares for us…not LIKE a father, but He IS Our Father.  This was new terminology for the disciples and can still be new to many of us today.  God as My Father?  Yes ! In a loving, kind and protective way.  God loves us intimately and deeply. 

I think of a little boy learning to ride a bike without training wheels for the first time with his dad.  The little boy is pedaling away with his dad is right behind him talking in his ear, encouraging him the whole way, “Come on!  You can do it!  You’ve got it”.  Or instructing him, “Keep your head up!  Watch where you’re going!”  Or loving him when his bike crashes, picking him up and carrying him inside.  The whole time his dad is telling him that he’s doing great and going to be riding that bike on his own soon. 

That’s how I see God with each of us-encouraging, instructing and carrying us.  God does all this for each of us in the way that only a loving Father can.  That is how Jesus was teaching us to see God, not as some far away God who created us and doesn’t care for about our daily lives. 

Jesus was also teaching that Our Father sits on His throne in heaven, high above anyone else or any problem we may be facing.  God watches the events of our lives and intervenes on our behalf.  I believe that Jesus wants us to remember who God is and where He is, so we can refocus ourselves when we begin to pray; to begin from the perspective of Who were talking with and where He sits. 

In the second half of the verse, Jesus reminds us of how our response to “Our Father in heaven” should be – holy and reverent.  Jesus is teaching us to hold God’s name in the highest esteem because of God’s holiness.

So, I leave you with a couple points to ponder…

(1)  Do you think of God as your Father in heaven?

(2)  When you begin to talk with God, do you take a little time to refocus on Who & where He is, versus who & where you are?

The Disciples’ Prayer

The words of Jesus, in Matthew 6:9-13, say,

“Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your Kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver from the evil one,
for yours is the Kingdom and the
power and the glory forever.
Amen.”

Commonly called “The Lord’s Prayer”, this prayer was really an instructional model for those to whom He was speaking in the Sermon on the Mount. In Luke 11:2-4, Jesus spoke a similar prayer when His disciples asked Him to teach them to pray.

Many of us have learned this prayer as children and can say these verses without really ever thinking. But that is not the purpose of this prayer. This is more than a string of words or a formula to follow. Stay tuned over these next weeks as we dig deep into the principles behind the prayer given by our Lord to His disciples.

This weeks action steps: If you don’t know this prayer from memory, work to put this word into your heart and mind.