Short articles of the, "Yes Jesus" Book on prayer. # 48

 

Jesus said, “This, then, is how you should pray:

“Our Father who art in Heaven”

 

The opening words of how we should pray is carefully chosen by Jesus to teach us that prayer is directed to God on the basis of a relationship, that of a believer as a son to God as Father. 

 

It is no secret that from the beginning of time Satan has tried to make us doubt the fatherhood of God over us.

 

In the Garden of Eden Satan speaks of God to Eve in untruthful and unfair terms. He speaks of God as a Joy-Killer who prohibits pleasure by keeping His creatures in ignorance and putting restrictions on them. But the real temptation that Satan offers Eve was the same temptation to which he himself yielded, the desire to be like God.

 

If Eve had just remembered that He was, “Our Father in Heaven”, she would not have suffered the identity crisis that visits those who forget that we have the highest honor possible in the Universe: to be the  children of God, and that is what we are in Christ Jesus, Our Lord.

 

In the desert Satan speaks about God to Jesus as an uncaring God for not providing bread for a hungry man. Notice that just forty days before God had spoken about Jesus after His baptism, saying, “This is my beloved Son; in Him I am well-pleased. But Satan, who loves to contradict God and aims to control our wills, seeks to make Jesus doubt. 

 

He says: “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread. There is nothing wrong with converting a cow into a big hamburger or a stone into bread if that is God’s will. The temptation is to do Satan’s will instead of God’s will. One will never fall into that kind of temptation if he remembers God as:  “Our Father who art in Heaven.” # 48.

 

This is the teaching elder on duty in matters of Prayer.

 

Gerry Gutierrez.