An In-depth View of The Lord's Prayer - Learning from Tim Keller

This post on the Lord's Prayer is condensed from some of Tim Keller's sermons on this topic, especially the one on ‘Hallowed be Thy Name’. The KEY is to Hallowed the Lord. Putting God as the supreme and highest. If we put any other things as 'god', we will get a distorted view of life and get ourselves into all kinds of problems. How do we know what is truly our God? It is how we spend our time in solitude or in secret. What do we think of most? What we spent the most time on? What do we get extremely worry when that thing is at risk? That thing is our god. We need to adore God first before our petitions for our needs and before our confessions for our sins. Truly adoring God and spending time consistently with God will put life into proper perspective and keep us at peace despite the challenges of life. We next look at the Lord's prayer as the template for praying. We applied it to pray for any of our needs.

The Outline & Some Key Points

The outline and some key points on prayer are given in the mind-map below.

What to Pray - The 8 Points of the Lord's Prayer Template:

1. God as Father
   We approach God purely on the basis of  relationship, as Father and Child.
   Without this relationship estabished through Jesus Christ, God does not have to answer us.
   With God as our heavenly father, we know God will provide and care for us. God will also guide and if need be, discipline us for our growth into maturity and Christ-likeness.
2. Begin with Praise - Hallowed be Thy Name
   Our response to God as our heavenly Father should be one that put God first and utmost in our life. Nothing should take the supreme place of Father God in our life. When we don't consistently pray to God, we know God is not truly our top most priority. We can also tell by asking ourselves what we do in our secret and solitude, the thing that we think of most, the thing that we spend most time on, the thing that cause us to worry if we ever loose it. Adoration of God should come before our needs and our confessions of sins. Adoration of God in fact enables us to make light of our petitions and confessions because of our trust in His love and ability.
3. His Will be Done
   With God as our foremost concern, it should be His will that we want to surrender our lives to. We want to internalize God's will as our own will. We want His kingdom and His will be done on this earth. We want His desire to be our desires. This should be the attitude and right thinking for Ps 37:4-5 and Proverb 3:5-6.
4. Give Us our Daily Needs
   When God gives us the command to accomplish His will, He will also provide the resources and ability for us to do His will. His 'bread', the Word, the Empowerment, our physical needs will be provided by Him. We will also need to renew this food and power daily like recharging a battery that is used up daily.
5. Forgive as We Forgive Others
   In the doing of His will and plan for our lives, we may make mistake and take a detour. We need to recouncil to our Father God when we disobey Him that our relationship with Him may be sweet and trustworthy. It is also common that others may fail us or even do evil to us. As God as forgiven us, we should forgive others. Without forgiving others, we could not have felt the true peace that come from His forgiveness for us.
6. Not fall into Temptation
   There are the devils working through others that lay traps to catch us. May the Lord give us with wisdom to detect those traps and temptation and enable us to overcome them.
7. Protection from Evil
   Father God will also protect us from the evils that are set against us. Read Ps 91.
8. End with Praise to God
   Knowing that our requests will be answered, we can only end with thanks giving praises to Father  God.

Questions for Reflections:

Lim Liat (C) 24 March 2013

Prosperity Gospel 2 - Group Members' Contributions

Group members shares their views and experience about the Prosperity Gospel heard in our last meeting. Some raise further questions for our reflections and learning. These are summarized in the mind-maps below. The discussion is free flowing and members expressed out of their hearts and we shall have the real answers rather than the pet answers.

Our Views on the Prosperity Gospel, God's Will for Believers.

God's Ideal Will for Man

The Realities and The Purpose of Pains and Sorrows in the Journey of Life

Lim Liat (C) 9 March 2013

See also Prosperity Gospel - Learning from GLCC Dr Paul Choo.