Lessons from The Lord’s Prayer by Leong Yew Lum

Week Three

Last week, we examined the way we addressed our God with the intimate phrase “Our Father” which only His true children are allowed to use. The intimacy in which we call out to Him is balanced in the same phrase by a reminder that God is in Heaven.

We know that God is Omnipresent, a word to describe He is everywhere and not constrained by time and space. Yet, God is specifically mentioned here to be in Heaven. Why?

Although prayer is primarily for our benefit, its ultimate purpose (as in all things) is to glorify God. The phrase “In Heaven” positions God in His rightful place in all His glory and splendour. This is significant when we consider that :

  1. Heaven is where God’s throne is (Psalm 11:4) and we’ve been granted an audience with the Most High! Imagine a king were to bid us to come and have a personal conversation with him. As John MacArthur put it, “How inestimable is the privilege of entering into the throne room of God, surrounded by the hosts of His heavenly angels to commune in simplicity and with rapt attention with one who is devoted to us.” Through prayer God demonstrates to us who He is.
  2. Heaven is where God is worshipped day and night. And so it is fitting that first of all, before anything else, we should approach God in a spirit of worship when we pray. Worship, by definition, is glorifying God and forgetting about self. Yet how many of us come to God in prayer thinking about our needs and petitions first.
  3. Heaven is a holy place where there is no sin. And so when we pray, we consider the moral perfection and character of God and so bring our hearts into a holy reverence and awe of His majesty. At the same time, we become more keenly aware of our weaknesses and sinful nature.
  4. Heaven is a place where God’s will is perfectly obeyed by the angels and His saints. So when we consider the realm of our God’s abode, we are confronted with our need to submit to His Lordship.

The first phrase in our Lord’s Prayer therefore sets our relationship with God in a beautiful tension, where the All-consuming and All-powerful God reaches out to His children with tender-loving care and the children responding with gladness and reverent fear.

Prayer:

Dear Heavenly Father, help us to rightly frame our minds and our attitudes whenever we come before you. May our prayers be filled with lofty thoughts of your holiness, power and majesty seen through your mighty works down through the ages and personally in our lives. And so shall our souls be suitably impressed by such thoughts. Amen

(This article is adapted from a series of sharing on the subject of Prayer by Yew Lum to his Lifegroup members.)

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