LITN XI, Verses 1 - 13
1. One day Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when He finished, one of His disciples approached Him and said, "Lord, please teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples."
2. So He said to all of them, "All right...when you pray, say something like this: 'Our Father – not My Father…not your Father…but Our Father Who is in the heavenly realm – may Your name be hallowed by us and always kept holy in our collective consciousness...may Your kingdom continue to come to us, and in us, and through us. May Your will be done on earth…in the physical realm…as it is in heaven…in the spiritual realm.
3. Give us – not Me, not you, but us – give us this day, our daily bread…just the provision that we need in the now…no more…no less.
4. Forgive us, collectively, our sins, as we also forgive everyone who sins against us, collectively. And lead us...together...not into temptation.'"
5. Then He said to them, "Imagine that you have a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say, 'Hey, buddy...lend me three loaves of bread.
6. I'm asking because a friend of mine on a journey has come to visit me, and I have nothing to serve him to eat tonight.'
7. And then suppose that your friend answers, 'Go away...don't bother me! The outer door to my front courtyard is already locked, and my entire household, including the children, is in bed. I can't get up right now and give you anything.'
8. Here's the thing...even though he won't get up and give you the bread because of the obligation of your friendship, because of your shameless audacity...your absolute persistence...he will, no doubt, get up and give you as much bread as you need.
9. So I say to you...keep on asking – never stop expressing your desires, or challenging the boundaries of your faith – and it will ultimately be given you. Keep on seeking – never abandon your sense of wonder or your inquisitive interest in the mysterious – and you will ultimately find. Keep on knocking – never believe that your possibilities are exhausted or that your opportunities are finite – and the door will ultimately be opened to you.
10. Do it because everyone in this life who keeps on asking keeps on receiving. And he or she who keeps on seeking keeps on finding. And to him or her who keeps on knocking, doors will continue to be opened.
11. Look...what father is there of you, if his hungry son asks him for a fish, will ignore the request and instead hand him a snake to eat?
12. Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion for dinner?
13. If you then, with all of your potential for evil, know how to give good and beautiful gifts to your children, how much more will your Father Who is in the heavenly realm lavish the Holy Spirit on those who keep making a demand on Him!"
7 comments:
Talk about timing. Tonight I was at a connection event at my MI church, for our Human Trafficking Ministry. One of the organizers said to the group and guests how she remembers the first time they went to a club/brothel/bar and laid hands on the building to pray, someone said let's pray the Lord's Prayer. To which, she says she thought, oh geez, how wrote, how unoriginal, is that all we've got, remembering it's what she's said since she was a kid, it didn't seem like power for this.
WELLLL.........she continued to say how with "each word" she felt surges through her body to her hands on the wall......and how she realized right then and there those were the only words necessary to get God's attention and HIS will done. (my paraphrasing of what she exactly said) She says it's when she realized she went from going to church to "being church". Also says she hasn't made it through the prayer in it's entirety, for the emotion it evokes as they pray on these buildings and locations.
Our Father.........yep, we know the rest !
Peace,
Northern Light
I'm with you NL. The model prayer offered in faith has the same power that praying for anything in Jesus name does. Because it is a reverent prayer offered in accordance with God's will being done it probably avails much more than countless pleadings otherwise.
This particular rendering from Bishop not only keeps the action moving but gives the reader assurance that there is power in recognizing the collective of we,us and our. A single action of faith can be quite effective but it is the collective faith of all peoples, probably beyond recorded history, that is creating the kingdom of God being established in this physical realm.
I love the miraculous and have witnessed many events of the physical realm being effected for the good from the unseen or mystical realm. But it is the collective efforts of human progress that has really raised my consciousness of who we are because those efforts have come from so many different peoples with varied philosophies of life in relation to the physical and the other worldly realms. It is the faith of the millions before us that we are enjoying the benefits of and that cycle will continue until the kingdom of God is fully established by the collective efforts of continual asking, seeking and knocking.
Our Lord the Master Teacher has shown us in many different ways that it is the effectual fervent faith of the righteous human that avails. There is not a better example of praying effectively than the model prayer in continuity with the persistent actions needed to keep the effect moving forward in this realm. And there is not a better wording of that prayer than the one offered here because it represents the collective of past works and the creative of the faithful now. This makes me think of tending a fire used for warmth in the winter where there is just the right amount of everything for the fire to be the most efficient. It is the tender of the fire that is the warmest partly because they are the closest to the fire most of the time but mainly because their joy is increased by the comfort given to the others that are warmed by the fire they tend.
It is yet another good good day.
Johnny
Wonderful. I really love the activeness in this translation. There is quite a lot of action in this passage: it’s all about what people will or won’t do. We see three actions in vs. 9 & 10, which are all imperative: craving/desiring, seeking with the intent of finding, and knocking. Each of these has an intended result. This passage sets up that when we DO something, we will achieve the goal!
I really appreciate your playing on the infinite and definite at work here: these processes have ends, but they recur throughout our lives. In verse 10, the verbs (ask, receive, seek, find, knock)are in present tense, which shows that they are still occurring at the time we read the verses. We are seeking, and we are finding. And it’s in the doing that we uncover our purpose!
V.1 - Since Jesus was both human and divine, I wonder if the disciples ever hurt His feelings. It was probably an honest, innocent request. But, still... did He sigh when He heard it?
Love verse 9's wording - "inquisitive interest in the mysterious", and 13's, "...lavish the Holy Spirit on those who keep making a demand on Him!" That will be in my cartoon balloon all day.
Interesting that the verses from today's AYITN "Kingdom Blueprint" are also the Lord's prayer; but from Matt. 6.
word ver: prece
"the preaching of peace, precept upon precept!"
Cool NL, "went from going to church to 'being church'".
V.13...Comparing Mt 7:11's "lavish the best gifts"...to Luke's "give the Holy Spirit".
First of all, I'm again very grateful for those who've prepared concordances and study tools to help find "corresponding" scriptures! Trying to find them otherwise could lead me to wonder: did these guys all hang out at the same events?
Following Gospels In The Now line by line, leads me to compare more accounts than I ever have before. Frankly, I'm not sure what I used to do...but it is certainly interesting and fun now to wonder at the different ears remembering the same things that were said...noticing the different paradigms of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
So in this account, did Matthew repeat the "exact" words so Luke filled in what they all came to know later was what Jesus had meant? Surely they met to compare what the Holy Spirit was revealing to them. Once a year maybe? I wonder which event they would have wanted to be together for?
Anyway, all these meandering thoughts lead me to recall Luke's LITN opening..."my own paradigm, while being careful to maintain the integrity of what has already been said."
To me, that's also "being church"...we have our ministries but we do all still sing the uni-verse.
oops...that should have read "lavish the best gifts" and "LAVISH the Holy Spirit"...compared too many versions--(smile)!!
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