I want to emphasize the three points that are mentioned in the Lord’s prayer or this model prayer. There are three points that I think are very important. Number one, you have the matter of the name of God: “Let Thy name be sanctified”. Then you have the matter of the Kingdom of God, “Thy Kingdom come”, and then you have the matter of the will of God, “Thy will be done”. These are three important points in this prayer: Thy name, Thy Kingdom, and Thy will. These things are related to spiritual warfare.

Let’s cover the Lord’s prayer point-by-point. At the very beginning He says, “Prayer like this”. In some translations you get different connotations. In some cases you get the impression you have to pray exactly what it says, word-for-word, right out of the King James’ translation! I don’t think, that is really the sense in the Greek. Another translation says, “Pray like this”. I kind of like that translation—“Pray like this.” You need to realize that the different English translations translate this differently. Some people get hung up thinking you have to pray the Lord’s Prayer exactly like it appears, from the beginning word to the last word and you cannot stop, you cannot pause, and you cannot interject any other prayer in the middle of it. I have done this myself too. Then some pray all over the place. So there are two extremes. Proper prayer mingles or mixes the Word of God in with your prayer. So it is okay to take part of the Lord’s Prayer and pray it back to God. For instance, consider the words, “Thy will be done”. Sometimes you are aware of a situation where God’s will needs to be done. You may be aware of a situation—a family situation a financial situation, or a health situation and maybe you are not even sure what God’s will is. It is always safe to pray, “God, Thy will be done in right here in this situation just like it is in heaven.”

Okay, let’s go through this prayer point-by-point. The first point it says, “Our Father Who is in Heaven.” Now it doesn’t say, “O God” or “Our Heavenly Father”, but it says, “Our Father”, indicating a couple of things. Number one, “Father” indicates a family relationship, an intimate relationship with God. In the book of Romans Paul says that our spirit is crying, “Abba Father”. It is like our spirit or the spirit of His Son in our heart is crying, “Father, oh Father”. This phrase, “Our Father” indicates an intimate relationship with God. And also it indicates that God wants to have an intimate relationship with us. Now, it also indicates something else. When you say, “Oh God”, or, “Our Father” or, something like that, it is a statement of the existence of God. You see, today the enemy doesn’t want people to think that God exists. For example, in the study of biological systems and biological studies and things like that you have things like evolution taught. To me, when you get into evolution, you find that it is really not a very scientific system; it is a very biased, one-way view. In the first chapter of the book of Romans, it says when people turn away from God they do not like to remember God or retain God in their knowledge. They don’t like to think God is around, but in this prayer there is a statement, “God exists.” Evolution is a system of thought designed to make people think that God isn’t real. If you get into a study of evolution, you will find it is not very scientific at all. Now I realize that when it comes to science, you want to present a lot of different viewpoints. Evolution is one way you can present things scientifically, but when you say it is the only way, you are not really a scientist, but kind of a biased person. But in this prayer we have the statement, “Our Father”, which is a statement that God exists. Not only that, it is an indication of an intimate relationship. Not only that, this indicates God is the source. A father in the family is the one who provides for the needs of the family. God provides for our needs. So in this prayer, “Our Father” is a statement, first of all, that God is real. Secondly, God wants an intimate relationship with us. Thirdly, God is our source.

Let’s continue on. The second point in this prayer is, “Let Your name be sanctified.” I know some translations have, “Let Your name be hallowed” or, “Hallowed be Thy name.” I like the word, “sanctified”. Or if I could take the liberty to translate it a little differently I would say, “Let Your name be lifted up in the earth.” When I think of that phrase it reminds me of the other places in Scripture like the psalms. Psalm 8:1 says, “Oh Lord, our Lord, how excellent is Thy name in all the earth.” It’s interesting that the psalmist would say that. Most of the psalms were written by David and he kind of goes up and down, up and down. If you read his psalms you will see sometimes he is depressed and other times he is up in the heavens. He kind of has these mood swings—up and down—kind of like you and I have. Sometimes we really feel good and sometimes we don’t feel good. Well, in Psalm 8:1, he is up. So here is something related to the Lord’s prayer where he says, “Your name is excellent in all the earth”, it is similar to, “Let Your name be sanctified” in the Lord’s prayer.

Now one other place in the Bible related to this is in Philippians, “And being found in fashion as a man”, that is speaking about Jesus Christ, “He humbled Himself, becoming obedient to the cross, even to death on a cross. Wherefore also God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him a name, or the name, which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those who are in heaven, on earth, and under the earth. And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.” This is a statement about how Jesus went through death and resurrection, and then He was exalted. When He was exalted He was given a name. Listen—everything else has to come under that name. That means things in the heavens, things on the earth, and things under the earth.

Okay, this is related to the name of Jesus. We realize, today, that just about everything has a name. Trees have a name, citifies have a name, lakes have a countries have a name. You and I have a name. Our cars have a name. The street we live on has a name. But according to this verse, the name of Jesus is higher than any other name on the earth. This is a very good way to pray, because when things come along to trouble us, distressful things and things that are out of line with the will of God, we can pray this way. We can say, “God, in the name of Jesus, we claim that all other things have to bow under, or come under the name of Jesus.” They have to come under the name of Jesus. Why? Because that name is a lifted up name. That is the highest name in the universe. In one of the first television programs I said that when Jesus passed through death and resurrection, He attained to highest management position in all the universe. In other words, He is Lord of lords. He is King of kings. In the book of Philippians it says that at the name of Jesus, the highest, most powerful and exalted name—everything else in the universe, especially on the earth, has to come under the name of Jesus.

Let’s continue on here with the Lord’s prayer. The next portion says, “Thy Kingdom come.” Now why would He say this? Well, today there are lots of kingdoms on the earth. You and I have our little realms and the devil has his realm. But God’s Kingdom needs to come to this earth. Whenever I read that portion or pray that portion, “Thy Kingdom come”, I think about this little phrase in the book of Revelation that says, “The kingdom of the world has become the Kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ, and He will reign for ever and ever.” Now this is really the conclusion of the Bible. The book of Revelation is kind of split in half. The first eleven chapters are one portion, and the second eleven chapters are another portion. They both begin and end. So here in chapter eleven, we actually have a conclusion of the entire book. Let me read this verse from the book of Revelation, “The kingdom of the world has become the Kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ, and He will reign forever and forever.” This is in chapter eleven, and it is one of the conclusions of the book. This is the first conclusion and there is another in chapters 21 and 22. But here it is saying that finally this world, this earth, has become the Kingdom of our Lord. In the Lord’s Prayer, the model prayer, we are taught by Jesus to pray, “Thy Kingdom come.” Why? Because His Kingdom, the Kingdom of God has not yet fully come to this earth. So we need to pray that prayer.

Now the next portion of this prayer says, “Let Your will (God’s will) be done on earth as it is in heaven.” He is very specific in this prayer. He doesn’t just pray; “Let Your will be done anywhere” because here is no problem with God’s will being done in heaven where God’s throne is. When God speaks, His will is carried out, but on the earth there is a problem.

It is very interesting. In the book of Genesis it talks about when God first created man, When God created man He wanted man to have dominion. There is a list of things there God wanted man to have dominion over: the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, the creeping things, and the beasts on the earth. Then He says, “Over the whole earth”. God’s intention from the very beginning when He created man was that man would manage this earth, rule over this earth. So here Jesus is teaching us to pray this way, “Father, let Thy will be done on the earth just like it is in heaven.” In other words, we need to bring God, Who is in the heavens, to the earth. We need to bring the things of God, the feelings of God, the will of God, the desires of God, and the things God wants to do to this earth—not just let them stay up in heaven where everything is okay and there are no problems. God originally created man to rule and reign on this earth. Here, in this prayer Jesus is teaching us to pray, “Thy will be done on earth just like it is in heaven.” Now I believe this portion of this prayer, “Let Your will be done on earth” is somewhat related to following God’s will even in our lives personally. There are several places in the Bible that talk about knowing the will of God and following the will of God. For instance, you might ask the question, “How do you know what God’s will is?” In the book of Galatians it says, “Walk by the Spirit.” In other words, the Spirit reveals to us God’s will. Then it says, “And then you will not carry out the desires of the flesh. Further in this passage it says, “If you are led by the Spirit.” So we have seen, “Walking by the Spirit”, and “Being led by the Spirit”. So if you ask the question, “How do you know the will of God”, you know by the Spirit. Now in the book of Acts, chapter 16, we have Paul and someone else attempting to go to a certain place to do some ministry. It says that the Spirit of Jesus suffered them not, or prevented them from doing that. In other words, there was a feeling in his spirit from Jesus saying, “No, you are not supposed to go there, Paul.” So Paul knew the will of God by the Spirit. Also, in Acts 13 when Paul was being commissioned for his missionary journey, it says the Spirit said, “Separate me Paul for this work” or something like that. Here you have the Holy Spirit speaking. How do you know the will of God? You know the will of God by the Spirit.

Let’s go on to the next portion. It says, “Forgive us our debts as we forgive others.” Or you could say, “Forgive us our sins, our mistakes, and our failures.” We need to admit that we, as human beings, make mistakes. A lot of people try to say that if you are a man of God or a Christian, you should not make mistakes. But if you read the Bible it is hard to find a character or a person who did not make mistakes. Even when Jesus chose His disciples, two of them specifically, made some real big blunders, and others had some problems too. One of them He chose was Judas, and he was the treasurer. He handled the money and he betrayed Jesus. Then the leader of the twelve, you could say, Peter denied the Lord, not once, not twice, but three times! He didn’t do this in front of the supreme court, but just in front of a woman servant. Servants, at that time, were really low class. I mean you could care less what a woman said in that day, but Peter couldn’t stand up to anybody and say, “Yes, I am a follower of Jesus.” Peter failed. We fail also. All human beings have failures and problems. Here He is saying that we need to be forgiven. We need to be forgiven for our problems and things that we do wrong, as we forgive others. Often we look at others and say, “They goofed. They are bad, we don’t like them anymore. We don’t accept them anymore. We don’t want to be around them. We are going to look down on them forever and ever.” We get that way about people, but the problem is we never see ourselves. If you look at yourself and I look at myself, we can see we have had a lot of problems and we have made a lot of mistakes in life. We realize that if we could do things over we would not do that again. We wouldn’t get involved in that, or if I could do it over I would not have said it that way. If I had the wisdom I have now, I would have done better. We all have a history of mistakes in our life. We need to forgive others as God has forgiven us. When we hold things against others, it holds God back in our experience, so it is important to forgive others.

As we continue on with this prayer it says, “Lead us not unto temptation and deliver us from evil.” Jesus was admitting that there are temptations out there, and we will face evil. But in prayer we ask to be delivered from these things. But sometimes we fail, and the Bible makes provision for our failures. Not only does the Bible record the positive things people they have done, but it also records their failures. King David’s failure was recorded in the Old Testament.

As an eBook on Olive Tree see The Lord’s Prayer by Drew Haninger

Taken from a Cable TV broadcast called In the Beginning by Drew Haninger  Message number: TV0023 web site:  www.DrewHaninger.com