Please open with me to the most widely known passage of Scripture, in Matthew 6.
The Lord’s Prayer, as this passage is known, is a life-altering introduction to the transforming power that comes by comprehending the implications of, and actually living like, God is our Heavenly Father.
UNDERSTANDING THAT GOD IS OUR FATHER
Note first the context of this widely known passage. Halfway through one of the greatest messages of all time, Jesus pauses. He has just spent an entire chapter in our Bibles introducing the listeners of Century One, and by inspiration all of us to God the Father, in seven amazing ways.
If you look carefully you can see in Matthew 5:16-6:6, Jesus uses the term “Father” seven times about God in Heaven; and each time describing in simply powerful ways who God the Father truly is. Then Jesus pauses to say: “That Father I just described to you completely, in those seven attributes of His character, is the One you must talk to each day.”
Prayer is talking to God as our Father.
Prayer starts by a focus of our hearts on just Who it is that we are talking to.
Then, after that pause to command our prayers, start with a focus upon God as our Father in Heaven; Jesus continues the message with seven more declarations about God as Father. There are 15 references to God as Father in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7.
There are seven references to God the Father leading up to the institution of the Lord’s Prayer and seven references to God the Father following the Lord’s Prayer. We could illustrate how Jesus declared the centrality of God the Father to prayer by noting what Jesus does like this:
Father-Father-Father-Father- Father-Father-Father-PRAY-Father-Father-Father-Father-Father-Father-Father
That means there are two complete sets of seven facets of God that Jesus emphasizes by sharing them before and after the central point of our connection to God in prayer.
SHARPENING OUR FOCUS UPON GOD AS OUR FATHER
(FTF-17; 150125AM)
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