|
| |
Understanding the Lord’s Prayer Based on a series of college chapel talks by the Rev. Ormond Odhner
(original
pdf) An Overview of the Prayer’s Meaning | Our Father | The Lord is our heavenly Father |
|---|
| who art in the heavens | The Lord is in the heavens. |
|---|
| hallowed be Thy name | Let Thy name be kept holy. |
|---|
| Thy kingdom come | A wish for the church to come on earth as in the heavens. |
|---|
| Thy will be done | The Lord’s will is to give us the happiness of heaven. |
|---|
| as in heaven so upon the earth | Do the Lord’s will as the angels do. |
|---|
| Give us this day our daily bread | Food for the body and food for the spirit. |
|---|
| And forgive us our debts as we also forgive our debtors | Our praying must be in the spirit of forgiveness. |
|---|
| And lead us not into temptations, but deliver us from evil | A prayer for the perpetual presence of the Lord to guard us from evil. |
|---|
| For Thine is the kingdom | We seek to enter into the Lord’s kingdom. |
|---|
| the power | All spiritual power is from the Lord alone. |
|---|
| and the glory | Divinity is the Lord’s alone. |
|---|
| forever | The idea of eternity must be present in our prayers. |
|---|
| Amen | “It is true.” |
|---|
A Closer Look at the Meaning of the Prayer:
| Our Father | The Lord is our heavenly Father |
|---|
| • Our Father in the heavens is the Lord Jesus Christ, Savior, Creator, Redeemer, and Regenerator • When we pray to the Lord Jesus Christ as our heavenly Father, we are praying that His Divine truth—in which He appears and through which He operates—lead us to salvation. • The Divine truth which He revealed in His two advents is the infinite God in visible form. | | who art in the heavens | The Lord is in the heavens. | | All life in heaven and on earth is from the Lord, so He is within all things of heaven. | | hallowed be Thy name | Let Thy name be kept holy. | | • His name refers to the Divine Human—a Divinely Human God of love acting by means of wisdom. • By His name is meant all of the Lord’s Divine qualities. • We keep His name holy by having reverence for the Lord, the Word, and the things of the church. • We keep His name holy by ascribing holiness and justification to the Lord alone and none to ourselves. | | Thy kingdom come | A wish for the church to come on earth as in the heavens. | | • The Lord’s kingdom is established only through His law or Divine Truth. • This is a prayer that His truth may be learned from the Word and received in heart and life. • We can only see the real truths within the Word if we read it for the sake of the uses of life and seek the Lord’s help to understand it spiritually. • Today truth in its fullness can only be learned from the Heavenly Doctrines. | | Thy will be done | The Lord’s will is to give us the happiness of heaven. | | • The will of the Lord is His Divine love wanting to establishing a heaven from the human race. • The inmost will of the Lord is the regeneration or rebirth of each person. • We pray that we may fulfill the Divine purpose in our creation by entering heaven as angels. • To seek heaven is an unselfish desire if we understand that heaven involves the selfless performance of use. | | as in heaven so upon the earth | Do the Lord’s will as the angels do. | | • May the Lord’s will be done through the reception of Divine truths on earth as continually being done by angels in the heavens. • A prayer that the externals of our life will be brought into conformity with our souls as we are regenerated. | | Give us this day our daily bread | Food for the body and food for the spirit. | | • The Lord is the source of all our food, but it is given in a way that strengthens the appearance that life is our own. • It is essential to acknowledge that our physical and spiritual well-being comes from the Lord. • The Lord gives us good and truth for spiritual nourishment, but we have to work for it. • The really essential food for our minds is wisdom in choosing what is good, and intelligence in understanding what is true. We gain this by reading the Word for the sake of uses of life. |
| And forgive us our debts as we also forgive our debtors | Our praying must be in the spirit of forgiveness. |
|---|
| • We ask the Lord to forgive our sins against Him in the same manner that we forgive other people’s sins against us. • A spiritual person is always willing to forgive, just as the Lord continually forgives everyone. But forgiveness cannot take effect without a sincere endeavor to change one’s evil ways. • The steps of true repentance—so the Lord’s forgiveness can be received—include realizing our evil, feeling sorrow, supplication for forgiveness, and leading a new life free from that evil. • When the Lord forgives an evil He removes it from the heart, and He doesn’t do this unless we really want them removed. • The Lord works to establish and strengthen the good in us. We are also asking the Lord not to regard us from the evil that is in us, but from the good (actual or potential) even as we should seek to see the good in others. | | And lead us not into temptations, but deliver us from evil
| A prayer for the perpetual presence of the Lord to guard us from evil. | | • Temptation is the attempt of the hells to drag a person back into evil after he starts to resist it, so it involves a struggle between a love of good and a love of evil. When a person has been strengthened in a good love, the Lord allows the opposing evil spirits to stir up the former love of evil, precipitating a temptation. This is because a person cannot turn away from evil so as to be inwardly averse to it, without struggling against it. This is the only way a person can become averse to evil and have the Lord remove it. • All good comes from the Lord alone, but it may come to us only after the suffering of temptation. • The Lord can only deliver us from evil if we practice repentance and reformation by knowing the Word, self-examination, confessing our sins, asking for Divine aid, and shunning one or two evils as sins. • So we pray for the wisdom to see the strength to take those steps which enable the Lord to regenerate us. | | For Thine is the kingdom | We seek to enter into the Lord’s kingdom. | | It is the Lord’s law or truth that forms heavenly life and grants entrance into it. | | the power | All spiritual power is from the Lord alone. | | The Lord’s power is in His Divine truths from His Divine love. | | and the glory | Divinity is the Lord’s alone. | | As we humble ourselves before the Lord, we exalt or give glory to the Lord. | | forever | The idea of eternity must be present in our prayers. | | The whole of the Lord’s Prayer is for an eternal, not a momentary goal. | | Amen | “It is true.” | | The Lord is the “Amen and the Amen”—the only and the eternal truth. |
| |
|
