This part is really neat because it asks God to help us to know the right thing to do, to protect us against the evil that is in the world, and keep us away from it. “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” It is sometimes very tempting to do something you’re not supposed to. If we forgive others, God will forgive us. Sometimes others hurt us very badly, so we need to ask God to help us forgive them. But we also need to forgive people who have done wrong to us. Forgiveness means that we are sorry for something we’ve done, and we don’t want to do it anymore. “And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.” This next part of the prayer is asking for forgiveness for our mistakes. We ask God to provide for us because we love and trust Him. Those are the things that we want we need food, water and shelter. We don’t need video games and princess dolls to survive. Keep in mind that these are things that we can’t live without. “Give us this day our daily bread” means give us today all that we really need. It reminds us that we should be living the way God wants us to everyday. This means we are praying that people would live in peace and love one another, the way it is in heaven. This part of the prayer says let God’s kingdom come and let God’s will be done on earth, both just like it is in heaven.
The Bible says that in heaven there will be no more crying, God will live with us, and there will be no hunger or hurt there. Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.” If we think about where God lives, we know it’s pretty great. Even though God wants us to call him our Father, he is still God, and He is to be respected and honored. “Hallowed be thy name” means God’s name is holy and special. God is our loving Father, and we are his special children.
God likes it when we call Him Father, and He wants us to talk to Him just like we talk to our own father. “Our Father which art in heaven” means we’re praying to our Heavenly Father who lives in heaven. We need to tell Him our needs, give Him thanks, praise Him, and tell Him what we’re sorry for.Īt first, this prayer might be a little hard to understand, but let’s go through it and try to explain what it means. He wants us to pray in a quiet place with our own words. He said this especially to the people that used to stand on the street corners praying, so that everyone would think how great they were at praying. Jesus also says that we shouldn’t show off’ when we pray. Even if you don’t have the right words, God knows what we mean without having to use fancy words. God listens to us no matter if our prayers are long or short. So Jesus gave them the Lord’s Prayer.īefore Jesus teaches the prayer, He says that we should keep our prayers simple.
The disciples were with Jesus all the time and were with Him when He went to pray and heard his prayers to God, as well, yet they still weren’t sure how they were supposed to do it.
Even Jesus’ closest friends, the disciples, wanted to know how to pray. This week, we’re learning about how God would like us to pray.