In Matthew 6:9, Jesus teaches us how to pray. The sample prayer begins, “Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.” Some object to Christians reciting and praying this prayer because it would fall into the “vain repetitions” category that Jesus condemned in Matthew 6:7. But, is this prayer empty and repetitious babbling? It could be repeated in a superstitious way, depending on the individual and how they repeat what the Lord Jesus taught us. If your heart and mind are engaged, and you are aware of what you are saying and what it means, then it can’t be vain. The Words of the Lord are not empty. It is probably better to repeat what the Lord said than what we might repeat over and over extemporaneously.
The fact that the two instances of this sample in Matthew and Luke are different shows that this was not meant to merely be recited or to restrict prayer to this form. The structure is given so we can learn how to pray and be assured that what we ask for is lawful, beneficial, and necessary. The sample prayer of Jesus helps us to pray in Jesus’s name.
Jesus teaches that our prayers are addressed to our Father. In this day and time of gender confusion, there have been some “preachers” who have taken to calling God “our Mother.” Of course, God is not a man like us, but His self-revelation in the Scriptures tells us He is Father. We do not pattern God after the likeness of fathers, but fatherhood, designed by God, is somehow a reflection of Him. The Lord Jesus teaches us to think this way. For example, in Luke 11:11-13, Jesus points out a sinner wouldn’t give his son a rock for lunch or a snake for breakfast. Therefore, if we know how to give good gifts to our children, how much more the Father? Or, in Hebrews 12:3-11, the comparison is drawn between a father disciplining his child, though it is imperfect, to being disciplined by our Father, who loves us perfectly and desires holiness for us. Newman Hall listed eight ways we can be encouraged by considering the blessings of God, our Father—His love, sustenance, protection, education, discipline, consolation, communion, and inheritance. We do not pray to merely a higher power that we can impute our image on but to our Father.
He is our Father by adoption (Eph. 1:5; John 1:12), as Jesus is the only way to the Father. A Father who pities us (Ps. 103:13). Our Father who receives us, though we don’t deserve it (Luke 15:20). He is our Father who will never abandon us (Ps. 27:10). He is the Father of all comfort and mercy (2 Cor. 1:3). He is also our Father in Heaven. The Heidelberg Catechism says, “These words teach us not to think of God’s heavenly majesty in an earthly manner, and to expect from His almighty power all things we need for body and soul.”
