Matthew 6:32
For after all these things the Gentiles seek.
For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.
Sometimes in the silence of the night when words no longer come to us Holy Spirit takes the groanings of our heart and prays for us. Carla
Matthew 6:7-13
And when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do. For they think that they will be heard for their many words.
8 “Therefore do not be like them. For your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him. 9 In this manner, therefore, pray:
Our Father in heaven,
Hallowed be Your name.
10Your kingdom come.
Your will be done
On earth as it is in heaven.
11Give us this day our daily bread.
12And forgive us our debts,
As we forgive our debtors.
13 And do not lead us into temptation,
But deliver us from the evil one.
For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. NKJV)
The focus changes here from hypocrites to Gentiles (ethnikoi). Their many words In Graeco-Roman religions, repetition was used to pester the gods so they would grant someone’s request. After describing how not to pray, Jesus gives a positive example. Matthew 6:9–13 and the parallel passage of Luke 11:1–4 provide a model for prayer. The Gospels make no explicit claims regarding Jesus’ intentions for creating this prayer, but the context indicates that He is teaching people how to pray. Jesus prays similar words as He faces arrest and crucifixion (Matthew 26:39, 42). The people of rural Galilee were poor and oppressed, and resources such as food were scarce. This prayer reflects the real needs of people living in difficult times. The language used here for debt can reflect an Aramaic idiom referring to sin (Luke 11:4). Into temptation refers to hardship in a general sense. The evil one is a Greek term used here it may indicate a specific entity (such as the devil; Ephesians 6:16) or evil in its many forms. Faithlife Study Bible
From the motives for praying (verses 1–6), Jesus turned to methods of praying. Why one prays determines how one prays. Nothing is wrong with repeating prayers (26:39, 42, 44). The prayer is composed of six requests. The first three ask for the kingdom to come (verses 9, 10) and the last three are for God to meet the needs of His people until the kingdom arrives (verses 11–13). Hallowed be Your name is not an ascription of praise to the Father. The verb is an imperative and means “May Your name be hallowed.” This recalls Ezekiel’s prophecy in Ezekiel 36:25–32, where the prophet says Israel has profaned God’s name among the nations. One day God will gather His people from the nations, cleanse them, and by this means vindicate the holiness of His great name. The hallowing of the Father’s name means the arrival of God’s kingdom. Daily bread is a reminder of God’s daily supply of manna to Israel in the wilderness. The NKJV Study Bible
1 Kings 18:26–29
So they took the bull which was given them, and they prepared it, and called on the name of Baal from morning even till noon, saying, “O Baal, hear us!” But there was no voice; no one answered. Then they leaped about the altar which they had made.And so it was, at noon, that Elijah mocked them and said, “Cry aloud, for he is a god; either he is meditating, or he is busy, or he is on a journey, or perhaps he is sleeping and must be awakened.”…
Proverbs 30:8
Remove falsehood and lies far from me;
Give me neither poverty nor riches—Feed me with the food allotted to me;
Many people I speak with right now are carrying grief. You can feel it in conversations. You can feel it in the quiet pauses when people try to describe what this moment feels like. War does that. Even when the bombs fall far away, our spirits know something sacred has been broken.
Grief is not weakness. Grief is what love feels like when life is threatened.
But grief can slip into despair. St. Thomas Aquinas taught that despair was the most dangerous of all human conditions. Despair tells us a dangerous lie: that nothing we do matters anymore.
This is the same wisdom the prophet Jeremiah gave to a people who believed their world had collapsed. Jerusalem had fallen. Their leaders had failed them. They were living in exile under an empire they did not trust.
And the prophet told them something surprising.
Build houses.
Plant gardens.
Seek the welfare of the place where you live.
In other words: keep tending life.
Good religion has always known this truth. We cannot control the great movements of history. None of us can stop the machinery of war alone. But we are not powerless.
We can decide who we will be while history unfolds around us.
We can keep loving our neighbors.
We can keep telling the truth.
We can keep protecting the vulnerable.
We can keep tending the earth.
We can keep planting trees.
We don’t know what tomorrow will bring. But we know who we are called to be today.
We are in this together.” Sabbath Moments
No comments:
Post a Comment