The one string banjo player strikes again.

“True life.”

“Respect the Lord and be humble. Then you will have wealth, honor, and true life.” Proverbs 22:4. I know no other way to humbly respect God than the moment when I say with all due reverence and respectful adoration the following words:

“Our father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name thy kingdom come.”

“Thy will be done on earth as it is done in heaven.”

After that in humble submission I acknowledge my dependence on him by asking him to give us this day our daily bread and forgive our sins as we forgive those who have sinned against us and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the Evil one.

Close that prayer in the same way as you begin acknowledging respectfully that His is the kingdom and his alone is the power to save therefore his alone is the glory and honor forever and ever amen. Yes, it is “The Lord’s prayer.” It is the most concise, the most succinct, the clearest confession of faith to God to whom all respect, honor and glory and humility belongs.

Yes! And humbly believe with all your heart, soul, strength and mind. According to Scripture man is dead in his sins and transgressions. There’s no one good, not even one. How could a man come up with a prayer like this that gives true life?

Therefore, it must never be forgotten that this is The Lord’s Prayer taught by God the Son addressing to God the Father in the power and wisdom of God the Holy Spirit who as the head of the church speaks on behalf of the body and is bound to be heard by God therefore answered promptly and effectively by God.

It should not be a surprise to say that the breath of God in the nostrils of man is not just oxygen or air Just to keep us alive like a gas in the combustion chamber.

Prayer is what God has breathed in us so that when we pray we are breathing out that of God. Apart from God, man does not know how to talk to God. The mystery of the mind, of memory, of thought, of thinking is deep waters yet as every deep water has a shallow area where children of God must refresh his feet and keep clean the part of his body that has gotten dirty with the dusty streets of this life.

Prayer in order to be effective must include forgiveness because the gospel is the gospel repentance for the forgiveness of sin. A redeemed person who has been forgiven is the only one who has the right to ask forgiveness after his own example. “Forgive as I have forgiven those who sin against me. Prayer is the fellowship of the forgiven in the name of Jesus to the Father himself with the help of the Holy Spirit.

May the Lord add his understanding in our minds as he has promised to give us freely more than what we ask and hope. By grace you’re saved through faith and this not of yourself for it is the gift of God. In the name of Jesus. Amen.

Gerry Gutierrez.