OUR FATHER

It is the idea of God Himself to picture himself as a Father. This may be because all of us have a earthly father and can understand the implications of this relationship.
I believe that therefore Jesus started the prayer HE is teaching us with "Our Father"
It is also very significant that it starts with the word "OUR'. And the idea of "our" is also repeated throughout the rest of the prayer. There it is mentioning "us
instead of "me'. This in order to let us realize that we all, as believers are included as children of our Father. God is not only my God but "Ours'
Sometimes I seem to be inclined to personolize God for myself, but the Holy Spirit always corrects me. I believe it is good to think of yourself as a child of God. However, we must realize that we are one of many others.
The prayer continues to indicate who and where our Father is. 'Who art in Heaven" and then it expresses our desire that His name will be Hallowed. This means that we want that His name is always honored and glorified.
Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven. We are in a way saying that we know that His Kingdom and His wiil is not yet realized here on earth. But that we want it to come. as it is promised during the 1000 year reign of our Lord Jesus. Now His will is done abolutely by His Angels in Heaven, since he has trown Lucifer and His rebelious Angels out.
"Give us this day our daily bread". This is the only simple request for our physical needs. Quite different from so many of our human prayers which are filled with
"Lord give me,give me, give me! This day and daily shows that it is needed to pray every day for this. One day at the time.The Next sentance continues with the word "and". It showes me also that here our daily bread is connected to our forgiveness. "and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors". This is such an important issue that In Mathew 6:14 and 15, on the end of the prayer, Jesus emphasizes this again. The quality of the forgiving we do is also in focus ,because sometimes we think that we forgave but it is not completely done in our Spirit.
"And lead us not into temptation". This seems to be in contradiction with James 1:13. There God stated that He tempts no one ! However, from other scriptures
[1 Cor.10:9/14]we know that temptation come either from our own lusts or from the Evil One. God does test us sometimes and the Bible uses the word tempt in place of test. I believe that this request of "lead us not into temptation" could be rephrased by saying" Lord do not allow the evil one to lead us into sin"Ti idea is inforced by the follwing,'but deliver us from evil."Some translation say "from the evil one"
" For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, for ever " Here we are expressing our desire and admittance that those 3 things are God's possesions and rights. they are mentiones in others parts of God's Word. Rev. 4 says Glory ,Honor and Power. AMEN!
iT IS VERY MUCH NEEDED THAT WE PRAY THIS PRAYER EVERY DAY! ANS ALSO USE IT AS A PATTERN FOR OUR OTHER PRAYERS.
Johannes G Weiss

RECONCILIATION, THE HEART OF GOD

When I read God's Word, the Bible, I get a picture of our Father God as a loving Father who is always seeking reconciliation with us, His creation. The story of the prodigal son is a good example of our relationship with our Father God.[Luke 15:20]
The message of God through the Bible is actually very simple and can be called “the gospel of good news”. It is apparent that God created us to have fellowship with Him and bring Him glory,honor and power.[Rev.4:11]. It seems clear that he wants to receive this for now on a volunteer basis.
Even His angels had the ability to make a choice, either to follow Lucifer in His rebellion or keep serving God. [Isa. 14:12] When He created us humans, He also gave us a choice. Either to obey or disobey Him. And of course we all know that Adam and Eve did not obey God's demand not to eat fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil.[Gen2:17]
Our Father God does not want us like robots, without our own will and choice. As proof of our responding love for Him He is asking for obedience.[John15:14]. Because of the disobedience of Adam and Eve, the human race was and is alienated from God. Basically, all disobedience to God is ca
lled “sin”, which separates us=2
0from fellowship with our Father God. It is the sin of disobedience which separates the human race from fellowship with our creator. However, from the beginning of His creation God made a plan of reconciliation,which is already revealed in Rev. 3:15.
God's method of reconciliation is through His son Jesus Christ, whom He did send to earth in Human form to teach us and to suffer for our sins by death on the Cross. This in order so that we might believe in Him and be restored as children of God and have fellowship with Him for eternity
.[John3:16].
It seems impossible to shake of our sinful nature,because we are all born in sin. But when we accept Jesus and His suffering for our sins, a miracle happens. We become creatures who are born again with a new natur e and over whom sin does not have dominion any longer.[Rom.6:14 and 22].
God does this through the power of the Holy Spirit, whom He did send after Jesus went to heaven.
The Holy Spirit is also the one who brings us to repentance. He is God and His working agent here on earth. .He probably made you read this article, in order to understand the simple Gospel of Good News. . After we come to repentance, we as believers in Jesus Christ want to obey His commands. Then we will know that He created us to bring Him glory and Honor
One o
f the best ways to do that according to Jesus is to bear much fruit.[John15:8] Fruit bearing means multiplication of believers through being a witness.
Already in the beginning of His short ministry He refers to the Promise of the Father, which is the out poring of the Holy Spirit[John7:37/39]. He gave us as His disciples the great commission to make more disciples and baptize them.[Math.28:18/20 and Mark16:15/18].
Jesus did use His last words here on earth to tell us about receiving the Baptism with the Holy Spirit. This in order to an effective witness in all the world.
So here we have the simple gospel of Jesus Christ.. Did you repent from your sin and are you forgiven through the Blood of Jesus Christ? Do you read the Bible regularly? Are you a believer and bearing fruit so that others will believe ?
I Pray that you can answer these most important questions with a resounding “ Yes Lord “

Johannes G Weiss