I have a series of blog posts, which are my sermons restructured, on the Lord’s Prayer and particularly the holy emotions behind each line. This prayer charged with holy feelings that ought to take our hearts on an emotional rollercoaster!
If prayer has become mundane to you, then these string of posts will help recapture your feelings for God and prayer, I truly believe!
I find it easy to prayer with no heart when it comes to thanking God at dinner. When we fall into routine prayers, especially the Lord’s Prayer, it can contain emptiness and become a robotic prayer. When I am just saying words, it becomes boring, monotonous, feels like a waste of time, and feels as though it’s ritualism.
This is common because we are sinners and tend toward sinfulness, laziness and sensuality. And prayer is totally the opposite of those things. If you and I pray, it’s kind of a miracle!
The General Lack of Feeling for God in Prayer
There is a general lack of feeling toward God in prayer among the majority of people who pray. Now, I’m talking everyone, as obviously some Christian pray much! but if we look around this world, we would see a prayerless world and likely many churches are not praying either.
Why is that?
To many, God is only a Creator
If you were to ask the average Canadian today, many of them are praying fairly regularly. But most are not praying with passion, feeling, affection, fondness. They’re not moved when they look up to God in prayer, it’s a prayer of going through the motions to speak the requests before the throne and get out of there kind of transaction. The requester doesn’t want to dwell there at the Throne, nor exchange any personal sentiment, it’s mostly a cognizant ascent to deity to beg for the deity to bless the creature. So, to many, they don’t pray with any feeling toward God, because God is simply a Creator who can create things for them.
2. To others, God is simply like any other man-made god needing to be appeased
They pray to God because He is a like any other manmade god to them, where if you do something good you deserve something back from the deity. You scratch his back and he’ll scratch yours. If you do good things, then you deserve blessing and answers to prayers. Most other religions are geared around this idea and their gods are constructed after this sort of model. A Hindu feels the same toward his many gods, it’s like a business transaction. The Muslim would feel the same toward her god.
3. To many, God is a meager wingman or sidekick
To others, God is their wingman. He is there to follow them around and pick them up if they fall, help them whenever they need it, and lay down His robes for them as they walk through life on a shiny red carpet. God is like a guardian angel, their wingman, sidekick or personal butler. And when they turn to this image of God to them, they may perhaps have some sort of sentiment like a general appreciation and friendliness toward this butler-God. But it’s no deeper of a feeling. How can that person being the master look at God as their servant and have any respect or reverence?
4. To others, God is the unspoken elephant in the room
Now, there are some people who don’t even believe in the existence of God, but we know the Bible says they do, they just suppress or ignore it emotionally. And so, they have feeling toward God, it’s a hardheartedness, and they try to push Him away by denying Him and try their best not to pray. But, even the atheist finds it difficult not to look up to Heaven.
What’s common in all these? It’s praying with no feeling for God.
Jesus instructed us not to pray like this. That we aren’t to pray like the rest of pagans or Canadians are now doing, verse 7 of Matthew 6, “And when you are praying, do not use thoughtless repetition as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard because of their many words.”
Many ritualistic church people may do this with even with the Lord’s Prayer, calling it the “Our Fathers”. ‘Say 3 Our Fathers and you’ve curried some favour!’ Lots of words! No feeling.
But Jesus teaches us and says, “pray like this”. ‘Like’ means He doesn’t want form but feeling in our prayer first!
The Lord’s Prayer is a prayer of feelings to God. Martin Luther comments on it, “the manner is, to pray with few words, but with a deep feeling of the matter. The fewer the words, the better the prayer, the more the words, the worse the prayer. It is Christian to pray with few words and much feeling; but with many words and little feeling, heathenish (or non-Christian)”
in this post, I want to bring you to the feeling found in the first line of the Prayer.
Mathew 6:9 says, “Our Father in heaven”
Now we could get humanity to recite these words, but there’d no heart. So, how are we to pray the Lord’s Prayer? Jesus instructed us to do so. Answer: God needs to rekindle the heart again!
God’s Remedy to Rekindle the Human Heart for Him
We used to feel toward God as a race. But when humanity rebelled, the curse of sin was put upon us and our hearts, which were pure were inclined and yearned for God, now no longer. We are born now apathetic toward God, no feeling, “no one seeks God no not one”, Paul quotes.
Haven’t you ever noticed that when you’re sharing the Gospel with people? Many of them look at you as though you are elaborating on most boring subject in the world, and they look around and find a fly more interesting as the spoken glories of Christ fly past their ear!
It’s because their hearts are dead toward God.
In fact, there’s no feeling at all toward Him! Paul describes the world’s heart toward God as, “dead in our trespasses and sins” (Eph. 2:1). We’ve been like this ever since Noah, “The LORD saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time.” (Gen. 6:5).
Now, how can God turn the human heart back to Him? We aren’t capable of it ourselves. We need divine aid because we are beyond saving ourselves.
Ezekiel 36:26, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.”
From a hard heart to a fleshly heart—one that feels for God! He said He’d do it, He’d provide it!
Are you reading this and you don’t feel anything toward God, and you see this as a problem? God says, ‘I can help you! I can give you a pure heart than yearns for Me!’
How does God do this?
The Spirit does it when we hear and believe the message of Jesus Christ. What is the message?
He sent His own heart down to earth, His Son Jesus Christ. And Jesus’ great objective was to reconcile humanity to God in relationship, and relationship by necessity, implies the heart. The heart of God was to bring humanity to Himself like a hen draws in her chicks, so Jesus came to turn hearts back to God by giving them new ones. It’s called the new birth, born anew spiritually with a new heart that feels toward God!
Christ bore on the Cross the sin of lack of love for God, and He lived the life we should lived, He loved God perfectly all His days and when He stood before God earned a perfect standing and credit and said in effect, “Charge these things to those who come to Me in faith, give them my righteous credit and let my Cross’ payment cover their lovelessness.”
Doesn’t that move the heart? This is how the heart beats again for God! Paul says the kindness of God leads a person to repentance. Repentance is a turning to God, the heart to God! When we hear the kindness of God in Christ and the story of the Cross, the scales fall off the heart and God comes in and reforms it anew.
When we’re born anew as children of God, the first words that come out, like many babies, is “Dada”.
Romans 8:15, “the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.”
The feeling and cry of calling God ‘Dad’ comes out of a family bond with God. In being reconciled to God, we are not only made right and acceptable, but made children and God becomes our Father in Heaven!
The Feeling of Familial Affection for God in Prayer
His Feelings Toward Us
I want you to conjure up the memories and feelings that a dad has for his children.
When I pick up my little kids and smother them in kisses, their faces are red from my beard, and when I think it hurts them, they giggle because it tickles them. How do I feel? I feel, ‘How can I love these little things so much? They’re so small and my whole heart is wrapped up these little souls!”
There is the feeling of God for the Christian! Christian, you have God’s heart now. He feels the same way infinitely and perfectly toward you.
John Calvin writes, God is, “called not only a Father, but our Father, as if we were pleading with Him after this manner, “O Father, who art possessed of so much affection for thy children, and art so ready to forgive, we thy children approach thee and present our requests, fully persuaded that thou hast no other feelings towards us than those of a father, though we are unworthy of such a parent.” (Calvin, excerpt from “Prayer”)
One says, “Well, God is love and loves everyone and you don’t need to become a Christian to have God feel the same way toward all people!”
No. So no. Some are adopted by Him, and some are still children of the worldly father, the evil one.
Just imagine if 100 children lined up facing you in a row and your one child was among the hundred. As you scan from left to right face-to-face you feel a certain general love for each face knowing that they’re children and human beings and you have goodwill towards humanity and even have a special spot in your heart for young children. But as soon as you get to that one child who is your own child, your heart automatically and by necessity will leap with special and profound affection.
Here is how the father sees you and I as he scans all the inhabitants of the earth and his eye catches you, truster of Jesus, His child, you are like a diamond in the rough of Creation!
Now, Our Feelings Toward Him
When we are reconciled to God into a family relationship with Him, we begin feeling His affection for us, a fatherly affection. And then we well up with childlike affection toward Him!
We begin addressing Him with passion, feeling, indeed familial affection for God!
Now, we come to our prayer given to us by Jesus. He teaches us how to pray and says in verse 9 of Matthew 6, “pray then in this way”. Not pray these exact words daily without feeling, but when you pray, pray with the heart now that you have a heart for Him! Out of familial affection for God now our hearts cry,
“Our Fatherin heaven”
And how does the child feel toward a loving dad? Great fondness and affection. It’s a special affection. Children will cut through crowds and ignore a bunch of other dads to get to his or her personal dad because of the special affection and knowledge that child has for that one man. So, the Christian has a special affection reserved for the Heavenly Father alone.
Now, I know we live in a dysfunctional world, someone might be thinking, “Why would God take the role of fathers, they are the worst!”.
Well, this Father is heavenly one, our “Father is in heaven”. His fatherliness is heavenly, and transcends any earthly father here, both good and bad ones.
This means we can love Him as Father more than any other father or family member down here since He is heavenly. We can’t help but have a heavenly, high affection from Him! Our love for Him rises higher than our love for anything else, it’s a feeling that cannot be described only felt by those who’ve had it.
Well, when a familial affection is the grounds that a Christian stands on in prayer, it results in some other feelings that flow out of this central feeling of affection.
There’s a feeling of accepted and safety now: As children, we aren’t trying to become children of God, we received this by faith through Jesus. And so now, we pray with a freedom, not worried whether He’ll cast us out or disown us. Do we think He will un-adopt us if we behave unbecoming a child of God? Do we think He’ll reject us because we don’t pray rightly? He is our Father now. Enough said. Let us talk to Him freely knowing we’re accepted and safe!
When I come home, my children run to me with joy. Why? My son wants to tell me about the most exciting things in his day. So, I bend down and sit him on my lap and hear everything!
Christian, when you turn to God in prayer, He bends down and picks you up under your arms and sets you on His lap and says, ‘Tell me everything, cast all your cares upon Me, for I care for you!’
Feeling honest in prayer because He knows our desires and hearts, no eloquence is needed, nor many words, only heart-feelings need arise. He knows all our sins already too, knows our hearts through and through, nothing escapes His understanding our motives, pure and impure. Yet, He loves us still as our Father. So, we can be honest with Him and don’t have to hide things. His eyes know us well, just as an earthly father knows the heart and intentions of his children.
Feeling confident in prayer as His children! We come with holy boldness in prayer knowing we have His ear, His heart and His hand to work things for us!
A Roman emperor was celebrating a triumph and he was going through the streets with his captives and trophies. And his family, empress, and little children, were on the platform on the side of the street. One of his little sons jumped off the platform, burrowed through the crowd and dove into the road. A tall soldier picked him up, “You can’t go on the road, it’s the emperor!” The child replied, “He may be your emperor but he’s my daddy!”
That’s the Christian right there! “He may be Creator of the Cosmos, dwell in approachable light, judge all mankind, cause demons to shake and mountains to quake, but He’s still my daddy!”
Feeling familial love for others even. “Our Father” Not my father. Our. So, every time we come to the Father, we remember He is called upon by other children, too. It should cultivate feelings of familial affection for other Christians. Whether differing in doctrine or opinions, they’re our spiritual siblings.
Feeling of familial affection toward Christ!
Being a child of God, means Jesus is our brother now! Let us pray to Jesus with familial affection, too!
Imagine Him then, He takes his arm and puts it around yours and says with a smile, ‘I am your brother now, I will teach you how to become a child and act like a child toward God the Father! Welcome to the family!”
You drop to your knees and say, “But you are the Lord!”
He picks you up, and says yes, “It is true, I am your Lord, and I will always be the Lord, but I am also your Brother and I don’t want my Lordship to turn you away, I want my Brotherhood with you to draw you to me and My Father in comfort. I am your family now and you are mine, my brother, my sister!’
Feeling of Familial Affection Toward the Spirit
Now this is novel thought. But the spirit that connects you and I to each other and to Jesus and to God the Father, is the Holy Spirit. He is our family bond. He unites us all. As we draw nearer to God as Father, we will feel nearer to the Spirit, too.
How now will you pray? To feel Him to be mere Creator, or a God of works needing appeasement, or a simple guardian angel, will you pray with empty and many words? Or will you pray with familial affection toward God as Father now?
Let’s pray our Lord’s Prayer with familial affection toward Him now,
