Derek Prime suggests we analyze the Lord's Prayer and let that progression of thought direct us in our own prayers. After all, it is how Christ answered His disciples when they asked Him to teach them how to pray (Matthew 6).
Derek Prime shares these thoughts with us:
There are 6 basic parts to the Lord's Prayer: the first 3 are concerned principally with God, and the remaining 3 with our personal needs and interests -- that immediately suggests the kind of balance which we should endeavor to strike.
Our prayers for God's Glory and Kingdom....
Our first concern must be for God's own Name and glory: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.
This expresses our desire that men and women everywhere may know the truth about God and love and respect Him; and also that those who claim to know Him may live in a way that brings praise to Him.
Our second concern is for the coming of His Kingdom: your kingdom come.
The expresses our concern that the number of those who believe in God's Son and enter His Kingdom may increase day by day, so that His Son's return may be brought forward.
Our third concern must be for doing God's will in the world: your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
In this we pray for our own obedience, as well as the obedience of men and women everywhere to the purposes of God, and the doing of His will in spite of our frequent disobedience and misapprehension of His will.
Having given priority to the things that relate to God Himself, we may now pray for ourselves with confidence, because God, through the Lord Jesus' saving work, has become our heavenly Father.
(The last three sections of the Lord's Prayer brings our focus to our own concerns. Concluded in Part 2)
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