Praying with Jesus
I grew up playing Texas High School football. Before each game, our team would recite the Lord's prayer. It was like a little pregame liturgy. The team represented various states of conviction about the words we prayed. This wasn't a Christian school, just a public high school with a Christian coach who understood something about the Lord's prayer that many Christians in the west have forgotten. The prayer and its "fittingness" for a pregame ritual isn't my point right now. Instead what Coach LeBleu understood was that the prayer is a battle prayer. It is a prayer that is conducive to a people who believe that victory is at hand.
It isn't simply sweet old words meant to create a nice sentiment. It recognizes the time we are living in as well as the task we've been called to and pleads with God to keep his promises as we pursue the calling He has laid upon us.
The Lord's prayer calls upon God to esteem his name above all else and to act such that His reign is established on earth just as it is in heaven. These are the first requests of the prayer and set the stage for everything else we are commanded to invoke from our God. We begin our prayer in such a way that establshes the context for all our other requests by asking for the authority of God to be expressed and established in the world. This is no merely religious request, it is political through and through. We ask that God's will would be done, obediently, everywhere.
The prayer proceeds to ask that God might provide the daily provision we need in pursuing this good mission, namely that he would give us "this day our daily bread", "forgive us our sins" and "deliver us from evil." These amount to Paul's admonition in Thessalonians that we might live quiet, peaceful lives. Lives marked by a society growing in conformity to God's reign over all things.
We pray this prayer each week in our worship gatherings. It should not be merely another liturgical check box in our weekly worship. Rather it is a faith-filled prayer that God might save us, save our country and put wickedness away forever. It is a prayer that the Vice President of these United States would declare the Nicene Creed to be the central truth on which all other truths are built. It is a prayer that the Secretary of War would uphold the central Truth of the gospel as paramount to all things. It is a prayer that the city of Denver would be marked by the worship and law of the true King of all nations, Jesus. This prayer is the prayer of a people who intend to rule the nations under the good and soveriegn rule of God. It is the prayer of a people commanded to disciple the nations.
As we sing this prayer on Sunday, I pray we might do so with faith, understanding the glorious vocation God has called us to, and believing that He has guaranteed that He will accomplish it.