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7 Powerful Prayer Points Found In The Lord’s Prayer
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7 Powerful Prayer Points Found In The Lord’s Prayer

7 Prayer Points Jesus Used In The Lord’s Prayer

The Lord’s Prayer also commonly called the Our Father prayer by Catholics was never meant to be something that was just memorized and prayed as some mantra or magical prayer. It was expected to be a teaching on how to pray. Jesus gave us prayer points to use as an outline in our prayers.

In this series, I am going to teach these prayer points, and we are going to learn the model prayer that Jesus gave, and together maybe we will all learn better how to pray. In the end, you will find yourself praying for 1 hour a day with no problem.

You will learn…..

  • How to pray relational prayers rather than religious ones
  • How to pray for God’s will to be manifested in your life.
  • How to pray for God’s provision in your life and the lives of others
  • How to pray to have peace and good relationships with others.
  • How to avoid temptation and live a victorious life.
  • How to place God in control of every situation in your life.

Let me give you just a little background. The disciples came to Jesus while He was praying and asked Him to teach them how to pray. Luke 11:1

I find this necessary because it is implied that they wanted to learn to pray as Jesus prayed.

So the Lord’s Prayer is not just how we are to pray, but also how Jesus prayed! Remember that Jesus is our model for how we are to live our Christian life.

I will look at different parts of the prayer of the Lord, and we will see some key prayer points that we all must-have.

Prayer points

The Lord’s Prayer

Matthew 6:9-13

9 In this manner, therefore, pray:Our Father in heaven,Hallowed be Your name.10 Your kingdom come.Your will be doneOn earth as it is in heaven.11 Give us this day our daily bread.12 And 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.

Prayer Point #1 – Our Father

This is probably the most critical prayer point in the Lord’s prayer. It not only specifies who we are talking to, but it assumes that there is a relationship.

I know that in our world of deadbeat dads and missing parents, not always is a father known, but in the time of Jesus and in the mindset of the people of that day, everyone knew who his or her father was.

So the first thing to take out of this prayer is that Jesus was establishing that you had to have a relationship with the Heavenly Father. This is important because if you don’t, then you are wasting your breath. You are talking to the ceiling.

If you do not know if you have a personal relationship with God, if you are not confident of that, and wonder if God even knows you exist, then please go to the Peace With God website, and you can know for sure that you can call Almighty God, Our Father.

Hallowed Be Your Name

We do not use the word hallowed in the common language anymore. The word means to honor and revere. To place it in a place of prominence.

The names of God in the Bible were used to describe His character. For instance, Abraham called Him The Lord who Provides, and Moses Called Him The Lord our Healer.

So to hallow, the name of the Lord also means to respect and lift up all of who He is.

Application – Call upon your Heavenly Father in prayer

So this morning, as you start your prayers, begin by once again affirming your relationship with God, by calling Him your father and taking time to just meditate on the fact that He is your Heavenly Father, and that you are His child.

Think about what it means to have a good relationship with a father, and how precious that relationship can be and then apply it to your conversation with God.

That is the definition of prayer by the way. Prayer is having a conversation with God. So, apply how you would speak to a good father in your communication with Him.

Then honor and revere His name.

Thank Him for being the Lord who heals, the Lord who saves, and the Lord who provides. Put His character and nature above what you see or feel.

Prayer Point #2 – Thy Kingdom Come

What Does It Mean to Pray for the Kingdom of God to Come?

In the second sentence of the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus starts off by praying for two things. He prays for the kingdom of God to come and for the will of God to be done.

For us to understand precisely what He is praying about, we must first understand what these terms mean. I will give you a basic understanding of these terms’

The Meaning of the Kingdom of God

Some believe that it is synonymous with the church. That the church is the kingdom of God. We are citizens of the kingdom but not the kingdom.

Some believe it means heaven. The kingdom of God exists there, but it is not the kingdom of God.

Simply put the kingdom of heaven or the kingdom of God means wherever the rule and reign of Jesus exists.

Application – Praying For the Kingdom Of God to Come

So when you are praying for the kingdom of God to come, you are praying that the rule and reign of Jesus would become manifest in a particular area of your life or the lives of others.

You see Jesus rules and reigns in people, not countries or situations. It is when the people in those countries or those situations submit to the jurisdiction and reign of Jesus that then the kingdom of God becomes manifested in those things.

So the first thing you do is pray for the rule and reign of Jesus in your own life. If you are battling a spiritual battle, pray for His rule and reign. If you are dealing with an emotional struggle, pray for His rule and reign, or even a physical problem, again pray for His rule and reign.

Prayer Point #3 – Thy Will Be Done

The Will of God in the Kingdom of Heaven

He includes in this part of the prayer, the need to pray for His will to be done. Now you would think that a sovereign and all-powerful God could impose His will upon us. Moreover, in theory, He could, but He has chosen not to.

He has instead chosen to partner with us to make it a joint venture. He will only come as we submit to that will.

This is a part that many Christians miss. They want the privileges of living in the kingdom but do not want to surrender and indeed make the King of that kingdom Lord.

Now notice what Jesus uses as the example of what both the kingdom coming and the will of God being done is. He said that we are to pray that it would come just like it looks like in heaven!

Ask yourself this question. What does His kingdom look like in heaven? Is there any pain? Any sorrow? Any anger or strife? Are families broken?

I could go on and on about the differences between how the kingdom of God in heaven looks like there, compared to our reality here.

The same goes for the will of God. If you want to know if you are praying according to the will of God, just think about what it is you are praying about, and ask yourself if it is like that in heaven.

When I pray for the sick, I do not just pray that they get well, I pray that they would have the kingdom and will of God manifested in their life just as if they were already in heaven.

There is no sickness in heaven, no loneliness, no depression, no sorrow. Is there financial distress in heaven? Now it does not say we will all be fat cats, but all our needs will be met.

Application – Praying For The Will Of God To Be Manifested

So this morning, when you pray, try praying this way.

Pray that the rule and reign of Jesus would be manifested over you, your family, the people in your church and community and that His will would be done, that we would start to see a little of heaven on earth!

Prayer Point #4 – Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread

In this part of my teaching on the prayer points in the Lord’s Prayer, we are going to deal with the issue of praying that God will provide. We are going to learn that indeed God will provide for all of our needs.

Praying God Will Provide

Praying for God to provide is more than just a prayer for finances. As most of you can figure out by reading some of my other blog posts, I am not a fan of the prosperity gospel.

I believe it to be a gospel primarily designed to appeal to the lust of the flesh and the pride of life rather than one committed to seeking first the kingdom of God.

However that being said, God does care about your physical needs. He is not interested in seeing his kids starving and destitute.

When Jesus prayed and taught us to pray “give us this day our daily bread” He was showing that our heavenly Father is genuinely interested in our physical well-being.

How to pray that God will provide for your financial needs

  1. Give us. Jesus is showing here that the source of all our provision is genuinely our heavenly Father. Yes, you may get your paycheck from your employer, but….. In all honesty who gave you the strength, health, and knowledge to be able to do your job? Moreover, if you are out of work, who are you going to depend on? Unemployment benefits? The government? Really? Do you have that much faith in the system? Our heart and our focus are always supposed to be on Jehovah-Jireh. The Lord who provides. Consider the passage in Luke 12:22-32. Jesus tells us not to worry about being provided for. That if God does it for the ravens and the lilies, then He will do it for us. Now that doesn’t mean you can sit around on your blessed assurance and not do anything, but it means to keep looking to God as your source, not man.
  2. This day. Again Jesus is teaching us to have a daily dependence on our heavenly father for our provision. There have been more than a fair share of times in my life where I had to depend on Him daily for things like rent, food, utility bills. He has never let me down! Yes, He has used people, or jobs, or sometimes even strangers, but He was my source, and He never let me down. Jesus is showing by example that we need to have a daily trust and be seeking our Father daily for our provision.
  3. Our daily bread. Notice that Jesus is not asking for the moon. He is not asking for more than is necessary. In the States, we Americans get confused about praying that God will provide our wants rather than our needs. We have grown so accustomed to having luxuries, that we think they are needs. This is one of the mistakes of the prosperity gospel teachings. When Paul said that God would supply all our needs according to His riches in Christ, they see the word riches but not the word needs. I honestly think that we would be better of spiritually if we focused less on obtaining riches and more on being content with our needs being met. How many of us work two jobs, have a spouse that works, so that we can afford a particular lifestyle? All that time spent obtaining a certain lifestyle could be so better spent with people and family if we didn’t have to have two car payments, a mortgage and second mortgage, along with all the other so-called necessities of life. I choose to drive a ten yr old pick up, not have a Visa card, etc. This has enabled me to serve Jesus in the little church I serve on a salary of only 1600 per month and have all my needs met. You see my point?

Application – Putting your dependence back on your Heavenly Father

So today, as you go to prayer, place your reliance back on your heavenly Father. Ask for today’s needs to be met. Place your faith in the fact that God will provide.

Moreover, if you have allowed Americanism to put you in the place of needing more than your needs, then I encourage you to have a long heart to heart with your heavenly Father and ask Him for wisdom on how to get back to His priorities.

Prayer Point #5 – Forgive Us Our Debts

The importance of forgiveness cannot be overemphasized. Forgive us our debts is not just something to be memorized or prayed verbatim, but it is a prayer point in the outline on how to pray. Remember this is the same method of prayer that Jesus used.

This brings up an exciting thought. If Jesus prayed this way, then He too had to practice the art of forgiveness. He was fully aware of the importance of forgiveness.

It is not only just us mere mortals that have to go to God for help in forgiving others, but Jesus also had to go to our heavenly Father and release those that did him wrong.

The Importance of Forgiveness in Prayer

Forgiveness is not easy. Trust me; there have been plenty of times in my life that I have struggled with releasing somebody of the emotional debt caused by the wounds they inflicted on my heart.

Just yesterday I had to walk out this principle. I ended up speaking with someone who in my mind’s eye, had done me wrong. I had to let it go, release it, and call it resolved.

It is not easy, especially with the deep wounds caused by some relationships. This is how Jesus taught us to pray.

Forgiveness is writing off debt.

A long time ago, a good friend of mine named Rick Trimble, said to me that he had been struggling with forgiveness until he had come to understand that if you look at forgiveness like you would a financial debt, it makes it a whole lot easier.

He explained that just like in the financial world, the debt in our emotional world needs to be charged off. It needs to be written off as unable to pay. Just like the bank writes off bad debt that is unsecured, as a charge off, so we too must write off the emotional debts people owe us as unable to pay and charge it off.

Too many times we try to foreclose on the debt or become the bill collector. It was unsecured debt, you cannot foreclose, it is impossible, and in doing so, we set ourselves on a course that puts us in a futile attempt to collect on something that is unable to be obtained.

We can forgive when we realize that we have been forgiven even more.

Our debt to God was unable to be paid. There was no way we could make up for the sin that we committed against His heart. Our Father’s heart was broken by the actions we did.

Our debt was so massive that we could not have paid it in a thousand lifetimes, yet we came to Him, and we asked for His forgiveness, and what did He do? Of course silly! He forgave us!

This clear teaching in the scriptures gives us the key to unlocking the door of forgiveness. If we consider how much we have been forgiven for. (Remember to think of it as a charge-off.) Then how much easier is it for us to forgive someone who had only did a much smaller thing?

In the Big picture, their debt was 20 bucks, and our debt was millions. It is much easier to be gracious when we look at it that way, isn’t it?

Application – Take a Moment To Pray The Prayer Of Forgiveness

So this morning I encourage you when you pray, take a second to think of the people you still might be trying to foreclose on and charge it off emotionally. That way you will receive the joy of understanding how fully your heavenly Father has forgiven you.

He has already done it at the cross of Calvary, but you will not experience the knowledge of that forgiveness until you learn what it is to forgive really.

Prayer Point #6 – Lead Us Not Into Temptation

The need for guidance from God.

There is more in this verse than the casual observation leads us to believe. It is not a prayer point asking the Lord to keep us from sinning. That is only a secondary point to the real emphasis of the verse. The real points to this verse are…

  • Lead us. Jesus when He prayed this prayer, and when He taught His disciples to pray in this fashion, was asking for and acknowledging the need for divine guidance. Many times we get so busy in our lives and with the mundane elements of living here on planet earth that we forget that we need to be led by the Spirit. Remember Jesus said, I only do what I see the Father doing. John 5:19. The only way that Jesus was able to do this was by being able to hear and see the guidance of the Father. Now once again I remind you that Jesus was the model that we are to follow after. When Jesus prayed not to be led into temptation, although sin can be part of that equation, He was praying not to be led into the traps and testings of the devil. The same word used for temptation here was the word used when Jesus was in the wilderness fasting for 40 days, and the devil tempted Him. He is telling us to pray that God would reveal and lead us around those temptations.
  • Deliver us. When you understand this verse, then it even makes more sense what I said in the first point. We are to pray that we are delivered, set free, released from the Evil One. The word for evil is a title, and most scholars believe it means Satan. Satan will always try to lead the unwary believer into traps and the bondage that will hinder or stifle their spiritual walk. He will try to kill their faith and ability to walk in any power or authority with these traps. Think about it. As you are walking through your day, how many times do you have things happen that can lead you right down the path to chaos in your life? I can always tell when a believer is being Spirit-led or falling into a trap. Just look at where they are headed. So we are to pray that we are delivered from the snares and enticements of the enemy.

Application – Praying For Guidance

So my dear friends, When you pray this morning, ask God for guidance. Ask him to lead you around those temptations and trials that would get you off course in your Christian life.

Ask Him to reveal to you what He is doing and what the Evil one is doing.

Ask Him to protect you from those traps and set you free of the ones you may have already fallen into. Life already brings enough to your plate without Satan dishing out his delicacies. Aren’t you tired of stewed stewing or strife ala mode? I know I am.

Prayer Point #7 – For Thine Is the Kingdom, Power and Glory Forever

In this last prayer point from the Lord’s Prayer, we will be looking at having faith in your heavenly Father. Jesus ends this teaching on how to pray with the acknowledgment of 3 things.

These three things encompass the entirety of all the things that we have no control over.

It is the releasing of control in our lives that He ends this prayer with.

How appropriate that He would, as the example of how we are to live, would end this prayer with the ultimate exercise of true faith. You see many confuse faith with feeling positive, or believing beyond reason, or having faith in faith.

Jesus shows that true faith is not about believing in something, but believing in someone! He explains this with these three key things

3 Keys To Having Faith In Your Heavenly Father

For Thine is the kingdom.

Here Jesus is acknowledging the sovereignty of God. His lordship, His reign, His authority.

He is saying that God is the one in charge, not him.

One of the hardest things about true faith is the relinquishing of control of our lives to the heavenly Father. Placing our lives and destiny into His hands.

If we are to have both an effective prayer life, and victory and kingdom rule here on earth, we must release control into His hands. We must no longer be the one that drives the car. God cannot be just the co-pilot, but the pilot.

And the power.

Here Jesus is acknowledging the omnipotence of God. He is saying, that only our heavenly Father has the power to change things.

Once again this is an example of true faith. It is one thing to pray and then go and try to do something in your power; it is quite another to pray and wait for God actually to move and change things.

We usually pray and ask God to bless our plans, but it takes real faith to pray and wait for God to show and work His plans.

It also takes faith to realize that our power is so small compared to an all-powerful God. To let God be God in our lives. Not just some exercise in rationality.

And the glory.

Here Jesus shows humility by declaring that all glory goes to our heavenly Father. He models the example that when all is said and done, we do not get the glory, but He does.

Many times the reason God does not move in our lives is that we have set things up that we will get the glory and not God.

We will be praised for our intelligence, or our hard work, or our good fortune even.

God has declared that He will not share His glory with another. We must remember not to make it look like we will get the glory. It is His glory and His glory alone that is to be shown.

Application – Having Faith In Your Heavenly Father

Take a moment to end your prayer time with God by surrendering to him. Place everything you have prayed into His more than capable hands. He is the one that is the King. He is the one with the power. He is the one that deserves all the glory.

Praying This Prayer Outline

As you can see dear reader, The Lord’s Prayer is not just something to be memorized and prayed as an incantation or catch-all prayer in and of itself. It is meant to be an outline of how to pray.

If you want to know how Jesus prayed, this is how. If you want to know how Jesus wants you to pray, this is how.

I want to encourage you. Open that Bible up to Matt 6:9-13 and start using this prayer as your model to learn how to pray. Use the Lord’s prayer as your prayer points.

You will find that as you do this, your 5 or 10 minute prayer time will be transformed into a beautiful and intimate experience with your heavenly Father. Your prayer life will be relational and not just a habit or duty.

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Pastor duke taber
Pastor Duke Taber

Pastor Duke Taber

All articles have been written or reviewed by Pastor Duke Taber.
Pastor Duke Taber is an alumnus of Life Pacific University and Multnomah Biblical Seminary.
He has been in pastoral ministry since 1988.
Today he is the owner and managing editor of 3 successful Christian websites that support missionaries around the world.
He is currently starting a brand new church in Mesquite NV called Mesquite Worship Center, a Non-Denominational Spirit Filled Christian church in Mesquite Nevada.