The Lord's Prayer Part 2

"Our Father in Heaven'.                                                                   Matthew 6:9.   NKJV

To emphasise the strong, intimate meaning of the term, 'Our Father,' William Barclay gives a wonderful example set in Roman times:

'There is an old Roman story which tells how a Roman emperor was enjoying a triumph. He had the privilege, which Rome gave to her great victors, of marching his troops through the streets of Rome with all his captured trophies and his prisoners in his train. So the emperor was on the march with his troops. The streets were lined with cheering people. The tall legionaries lined the streets' edges to keep people in their places. At one point on the triumphal route, there was a little platform where the empress and her family were sitting to watch the emperor go by in all the pride of his triumph. On the platform with his mother, was the emperor's youngest son, a little boy. As the emperor came near, the little boy jumped off the platform, burrowed through the crowd and tried to dodge between the legs of a legionnaire and to run out on the road to meet his father's chariot. The legionnaire stooped down and stopped him. He swung him up in his arms, 'You can't do that boy,' he said 'don't you know who that is in the chariot? That's the emperor. You can't run to his chariot.' And the little boy laughed down, 'He may be your emperor,' he said, 'but he's my father.' That's exactly the way the Christian feels towards God.'            Copyright William Barclay.

Instead of, 'My Father,' God made this prayer personal to each one of us. The words, 'I, me or mine,' are not in the prayer. Jesus in life replaced these type of words with, 'We, us and ours'.
Even if we matter to no one else, we matter to God. He has given us back our self-respect. Did you get that? No matter what you have done, or been involved with; no matter how badly you may have messed something up or made a fool of yourself, Our Father in Heaven, has given you back your self-respect. You haven't had to earn it, He's given it to you, freely.

Tomorrow, we'll look a little closer at The Lord's Prayer. Have a great day!

Copyright 2019 Grahame Howard

dailylifewithjesus@protonmail.com