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WEEK FIVE: Friday, Dec. 23—Thursday, Dec. 29, 2005

THE LORD'S PRAYER to meditate upon Him and upon His nature, in preparation for the year to come. So, we will pause and "stand down" from our three prayer points this week.

In lieu of that, we want to share another teaching from the book, The Way, by E. Stanley Jones, focusing on the Lord's Prayer. This week we will examine the first half of that prayer; and then return to the second half during Easter Week. This week's teaching is found on pp. 198 -202. "Alone" and they "with him." Physically they were together but actually they were poles apart. He had a secret they didn't share, and the secret was prayer. He prayed and He was power; they didn't pray and they were powerless. He was always well; they were always sick of themselves and others He was masterful as He moved from task to task; they fumbled over the simplest tasks. The afflicted boy "had a better case of demon-possession than the disciples had of God-possession so they couldn't meet the situation." They weren't God-possessed because they weren't prayer-possessed. So they asked him to share His secret: "Lord, teach us to pray." And He taught them the Lord's Prayer, which might be better named "The Disciples' Prayer." It is the essence of right prayer.

The prayer breaks up into two parts -- the God-side and the man-side: (1) "Our Father, Thy name,

Thy kingdom, Thy will." (2) "Give us, forgive us, lead us, deliver us." The first side is Realignment and the second side is Result. In the first side we realign our life to our Father, to His name, to His Kingdom, to His will, and in the second we get the result -- He gives us, forgives us, leads us, delivers us. These are the alternate beats of the heart of prayer: Realignment -- Result, Realignment -- Result. And each side of the heartbeat is equal -- four things in the Realignment and four things in the Result. In other words, you get as much Result as you have Realignment, and only that much. The more you realign your purposes to God's purposes, the more results you get. The emphasis, then, should be on the Realignment, and the Result will take care of itself. If you are always looking at results you're on the wrong side of things. Look at the means, and the ends will take care of themselves. "You have one responsibility, and this is to live in union with me." When he lived in union with God, then God undertook to look after all the rest. "He has a Christlike indifference to results," was said of a Christian who looked after the means. The results took care of themselves. Learn the first part of the Disciples' Prayer, and the second part takes care of itself.

"O Christ, how tenderly wise Thou art. Thou dost always get first things first and therefore results always come out right. I am nervously looking after results and nothing comes out right. Forgive me, and help me. Amen."

"OUR FATHER; THY NAME" and Result. Today  we look at the first two steps: Our Father and Thy Name.

The first is: Father. In the conception of "Father," a new conception of God, there are two things:

Love and Rulership. And these two are one: His rulership is through Love. No matter how apparently stern that rulership may be, the animating motive behind and through it is love. God cannot do anything other than the loving thing. In everything that happens to you, God will do the best thing that love can do in those circumstances. God doesn't love, "God IS love." He acts according to love, for He could not act against His own nature. When you pray then to the Father, you may know that love is going to do the best that love can do for you, in the long-range and short-range purposes of life. Love will always respond either with "Yes" or "No," but whichever one it is, it is always love.

But there is one qualifying word to Father, the word "Our." That determines the nature of religion.

Suppose it had been "My?" That would have changed the nature of religion. Instead of being social and we-centered, it would have been individual and I centered. That would have started us off wrong; the whole prayer would come out wrong. That word "Our" means a shifting of the emphasis from me to the Father and to my brothers. In other words, it means renunciation, a renunciation of myself. . . . So in this first word "Our," we find a hidden but positive demand that we start off self-surrendered to the "Father" and to "Our." If so, then everything is open. If not, then everything is closed. The rest of the prayer turns dead if the "Our" is not alive. And what would "alive" mean? It would mean that "Our" must stretch beyond family, class, race, color, religion, reach to everybody, everywhere. For the word "Our" is unqualified and therefore without restrictions or limits. When the high priest, when he went into the Holy of Holies, wore upon his breast the names of the twelve tribes of Israel. When we go into the Presence of the Father, we wear a simple word, a word that goes beyond the tribal relationship, the word "Our." So when we say "Our Father," in those two words are the Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of man.

Two worlds revealed in two words . . .

"O Father, I come to Thee wearing within my heart the word "Our," and that word is now being cleansed from all limitations. Make it truly "Our" with everybody -- those I like and dislike. In Jesus' Name. Amen" character in Scripture. To pray "In Jesus' name" means to pray "in Jesus' character." In other words, we pray a prayer consistent with the character of Jesus, the kind of prayer Jesus would pray. This is the thing that determines whether the prayer is Christian.

"Hallowed be Thy name," meaning "Thy name be revered." In other words, "Thy character be revered" is my first consideration. "Thy character be revered as first, before my desires, my petitions." This puts God's character first and my claims second -- puts us both in the right place.

It also clarifies the next two items: "Thy Kingdom, Thy will." The "will" of God, as expressed in the "Kingdom" of God, is not arbitrary and whimsical. It is an expression of the character of God. A  thing is not right because God says so. He says so because it is right.

"O God, I see that Thy laws and decrees are not the arbitrary rulings of an omnipotent potentate, but the very expression of Thy nature -- a revelation of Thyself. Amid them we feel a heartbeat, the heartbeat of Love. Amen."

"Thy kingdom is an everlasting kingdom and thy dominion lasts from age to age." (Ps. 145:13)

"Thy Kingdom Come"

Kingdom the first consideration after establishing the fact of the prayer as being according to God's character. Any prayer or program or creed that does not put the Kingdom first is not a Christian prayer, a Christian program, or a Christian creed. For Jesus said, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God . . . ; and all these things shall be added unto you." If you seek something else first, all these things shall be subtracted from you. In a town in Alaska I found all the electric clocks "off." When your loyalty is not the Absolute, then everything is "off."

Judged by that standard, is it any wonder that the Church has had nothing but problems through the ages? When it drew up its creeds, the Apostles', the Athanasian, the Nicene, it mentioned the Kingdom of God once in all three of them, and then only marginally, beyond the borders of this life, a heavenly Kingdom. No wonder the Church has stumbled from problem to problem when its supreme value was lost or only marginally held. The Church will never get straightened out until it puts the Kingdom where Jesus put it in this prayer -- the first consideration and the first allegiance.

I read a very scintillating commentary on the Acts of the Apostles, and after I read through the comments of the first two chapters covering some sixty pages, I woke up to the fact that something was missing -- the Holy Spirit had not been mentioned -- not been mentioned in  commenting on the chapters where the Holy Spirit was given! It was a Holy-Spiritless Christianity.

Hence anemic. The same strange mission has taken place in regard to the Kingdom of God. It is the motif running through everything Jesus taught. But I pick up a Confession of Faith drawn up by a denomination, and the Kingdom of God is not mentioned. The Kingdom of God and the Holy Spirit are the two missing notes in much of our Christianity. And Jesus made both of them central -- one the pattern, the other the power.

"O Christ, I thank Thee that Thy Kingdom may come through me now. My channels are open. I know the Kingdom is the answer, the answer to all our needs. So may Thy Kingdom come through me this day in everything I say and do. Then I shall be the agent of the Answer. I shall be the Kingdom -- in miniature. Amen."

"Thy Will Be Done" Prayer: "Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven."

This last portion explains the previous portion: the coming of the Kingdom of God is the doing of the will of God in earth as it is done in heaven. So "Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven means a complete totalitarianism for us.

And this is to be "in earth." Perhaps the phrase "in earth" more nearly expresses the meaning than "on earth," as sometimes used. The Kingdom is not to come "on earth," as something imposed; it is to come "in earth," as something inherent. The earth and all it contains has a single law of its being, that law is the Kingdom of God. That law is the law of its life, the way life is made to work.

When that law is lived, then the being is fulfilled, it finds the Way. When that law is not lived, then the being is frustrated, it finds not-the-way. There isn't a law of your body that contradicts the laws of the Kingdom. They are the laws of the Kingdom, they are "in earth" and in everything on the earth.

When the psalmist says, "Thy rule and order last today, for all things are thy servants." (Ps. 199:91), he stated not an idea, but a fact. When "all things" serve God, they serve themselves.

When they serve themselves, they go to pieces. Again, when the psalmist says, "Only rebels have to live forlorn" (Ps. 68:6), he was lifting up an inherent fact, for those who obey the Kingdom are not forlorn, they are fulfilled.

The kingdoms of this world will be secure only when they become "the kingdom of our Lord, and of his Christ." "Your kingdom shall be secured for you, after you have learned that it is the Heavens who reign." (Dan. 4:26) That is our world security and only that. "I see a limit to all things, but thy Law has a boundless range." (Ps. 119:96) A boundless range? A universal range. For the will of God is the life of all beings; "outside of God there is only death." For "Thy hands made and  molded me, to understand thine orders." (Ps. 119:73) We are made to understand the Kingdom. All other knowledge is ignorance.

"O God, our Father, Thy hands fashioned me for Thy ways and Thy Kingdom. When I take my ways I am attempting the impossible -- to live against the laws of my being. How can I do that? I cannot. Amen."

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