THE KING’S BUSINESS
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disciples is usually called “the Lords Prayer.” It is rather the disciples’ prayer, the Lord’s prayer being found in John 17. This prayer is the model prayer. Only the one who has received Jesus, and therefore has a right to call God “Father” (John 1: 12) has a right to offer this prayer. The characteristics of this model prayer are: (1) It is offered to “our Father in heaven.” (2) It seeks first of all His glory, His kingdom, His will. (3) It is brief. (4) It is right to the point. (5) It is humble, the expression of one who real izes his own proneness to sin. God is to be addressed as “Father”; the Fatherhood of God lies at the very foun dation of the Christian doctrine of prayer. God is everywhere but the chief place of His manifestation is “in heaven” (Ps. 115: 3; Isa. 66:1; John 16:28; Acts 1:9; Mark 1:11; John 12:28). Every true disciple of the Lord Jesus is longing for and therefore will pray for the coming of God’s “king dom,” and that kingdom will only come when the King comes (Rev. 11:15), One of the sweetest prayers a true child of God can offer is “thy will be done.” No one has a right to offer it who is not making God’s will the absolute rule of his life. We can ourselves answer this prayer in so far as we do God’s will in everything. The time is coming when God’s will will be done on earth as perfectly as it is now done in heaven—when the kingdom of heaven shall be established on earth. This prayer teaches us it is right to pray for temporal things (v. 11), but we should seek from God only so much food as we need for the present moment. We should live a day at a time. The only one who can properly ask God to forgive him his sins is the one who is forgiving those who sin against him. For one who is not forgiving others to pray this prayer, is for him to ask God to damn him. God in His infinite wis dom may bring us into a place of tempta tion for our own highest good, but any one who has any realization of his own weak ness will cry to. God not to bring him into temptation (v. 13). This prayer is utterly
ing righteousness, giving alms and praying. The lessons are very plain and simple if one will take Jesus Christ as meaning just what He says. Reality before God and not mere pretfense before men is the central thought. God rewards the real thing that is done in His sight to please Him, and not the grand stand plays that are trying to catch the ap plause of the people. The lesson that Jesus teaches about the importance of secret prayer needs special emphasis in our day. Publicity is the great aim nowadays, and the Church has got the craze for “big meet ings,” but the really great meeting is where the individual soul goes into his closet and shuts his door (really shuts it, shuts the world and its ambitions and cares and pleas ures all out, and shuts himself in with God), and then meets his Father “which is in secret.” God is everywhere, yes, but God is in the secret place in a sense in which He is not anywhere else. There we meet Him face to face. We speak to Him and He speaks to us. Nothing else makes God so real as secret prayer does. In no other place is He so real. There are things that we cannot tell to our dearest and nearest friends, confidences that can be entrusted to but a single ear, God’s. Even Jesus Christ Himself found it necessary to go away at times and tell things to God alone. So must we. It is in the secret place that we get to the very bottom of things. Who of us has not felt oftentimes, when others came in all sincerity and asked us to pray for them, that they did not tell us quite all ? Indeed, they could not. But it can all be told to Him. In the secret place we really get hold of God. It is the place of power. We come forth from it clothed with the power of the Most High. Happy is the man who begins and closes each day by go ing into his inner chamber and shutting his door fast and then praying to Him who is there “thy Father.” He shall indeed recom pense thee. Wednesday, January 13. Matthew 6:9-15. The prayer which our Lord taught His
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