The Lord revealed to me today that The Lord’s Prayer recorded in Matthew chapter six, is not just a good suggestion for how to pray. It really is a gift given directly from God the Father to His children to enable them to walk in His provision of healing and freedom. My apologies in advance if I jump around a bit, but please stay with me as I go through this prayer and highlight a few aspects that the Lord has begun to show me.
Firstly let’s take a look at the prayer itself as taught by Jesus to His disciples:
“In this manner, therefore, pray:
Our Father in heaven,
Hallowed be Your name.
Your kingdom come.
Your will be done
On earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts,
As we forgive our debtors.
And do not lead us into temptation,
But deliver us from the evil one.
For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.”
Matthew 6v9-13 (NKJV)
The first thing to mention is the prayer’s very first line, “Our Father in heaven,” which establishes that we aren’t just throwing up a prayer of wishful thinking to some impersonal force, but praying to a specific person—our heavenly Father. And, by referring to Him as “Our Father” we are also identifying ourselves as His children.
There’s really no point in praying any further if we are not actually one of His children. By this I mean, if we have not first completely surrendered our own will and are not living in full submission to God. I’ll come back to this in a moment.
We continue the prayer with “Hallowed be Your name”. Following on from the first line, this is taking a posture of worship, respect and reverence toward God. It’s also recognising God’s greatness and that His name should be honoured and respected above all else and throughout all the earth. This statement leads in to the truth of the following lines, “Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
The Lord began speaking to me about this part. What do I think it is like in heaven? Is there any sickness or bondage there? The answer He gave me is a definitive “No. There is no sickness or bondage in heaven”. When we pray those words, we are asking for God to bring His rulership and for His will to be established on earth. Jesus is teaching us to ask for that—no sickness in our bodies or bondage in our lives, and also no sickness or bondage in the whole earth, just as it is in heaven.
Initially, it might sound like a bit of a stretch to apply this concept to ourselves, to our physical healing and freedom. But, I felt the next line really connects it together, “Give us this day our daily bread.” While this does encourage us to look to God alone for our daily provision, I don’t believe Jesus was only talking about food. I am reminded of another scripture relating to this:
“Then Jesus went out from there and departed to the region of Tyre and Sidon. And behold, a woman of Canaan came from that region and cried out to Him, saying, ‘Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David! My daughter is severely demon-possessed.’ But He answered her not a word. And His disciples came and urged Him, saying, ‘Send her away, for she cries out after us.’ But He answered and said, ‘I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.’ Then she came and worshiped Him, saying, ‘Lord, help me!’ But He answered and said, ‘It is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the little dogs.’ And she said, ‘Yes, Lord, yet even the little dogs eat the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.’ Then Jesus answered and said to her, ‘O woman, great is your faith! Let it be to you as you desire.’ And her daughter was healed from that very hour.”
Matthew 15v21-26 (NKJV, emphasis added)
There are so many valuable treasures found in this scripture. Not least is that Jesus went out of the towns of Israel into a Gentile region. This is special because even though He came to earth as a Jew, for the Jews, He went out of His way to demonstrate God’s love for all people, foreshadowing God’s offer of salvation to the Gentiles so they too could be called the children of God. Having mentioned that, the parts of this scripture that I really want to highlight, I have underlined above. They are the mention firstly of demon-possession, the subsequent mention of healing from that, and then most importantly is Jesus’ reference to that healing and deliverance as, “the children’s bread”.
This brings us back to The Lord’s Prayer, “Give us this day our daily bread.” I believe Jesus was not only talking about the provision of food. I believe He was also talking about “the children’s bread”—healing and deliverance from demonic spirits. Yet another reinforcement of this notion is included just a few lines later in the prayer, “And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.” Here, Jesus is instructing us to boldly ask our heavenly
Father for deliverance. As the children of a powerful King, we can expect His provision in this.
This healing and deliverance is not without conditions though. I’ve already mentioned what might be considered the first condition, that is, that we are actually the children of God. That we have completely surrendered in submission to Him, that He is our Father and we have the assurance of His Holy Spirit that we are His children. This is a whole topic in itself, and I would encourage you to take a look at the link in the footnote below if you don’t yet have that assurance for yourself. [1]
The second condition for healing and deliverance found in The Lord’s Prayer is stated in verse 12, “And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.” Shortly after teaching the prayer, Jesus went on to say a bit more about this:
“For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”
Matthew 6v14-15 (NKJV)
Another word for “debts” or “trespasses” is sins. Jesus spoke about this condition of forgiveness more than once and used parables to reinforce the important truth of our necessity to forgive others (see Matthew 18v21-35).[2] I believe in the context of The Lord’s Prayer, this “daily bread”—“the children’s bread” of healing and deliverance—is also conditional on the words that follow in The Lord’s Prayer about forgiveness. Making the decision to forgive others, and that’s really what it is—a decision, is the appropriate and necessary response based on the goodness of God in forgiving our own greater debt of sin toward Him.
The closing words, “For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever” ends the prayer with the familiar posture of worship and reverence that we began with, and leaves us rejoicing in praise toward our heavenly Father. It almost needs an exclamation point, or maybe even three exclamation points to really bring home the significance of God’s greatness, and our thankfulness toward Him for His provision of healing and deliverance.
I wanted to include the prayer again below so we can read it aloud with a renewed understanding and reinforce what we have uncovered today. May this prayer be our prayer, and may we walk in the same freedom and wholeness here on earth just as it is in heaven.
“.… Our Father in heaven,
Hallowed be Your name.
Your kingdom come.
Your will be done
On earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts,
As we forgive our debtors.
And do not lead us into temptation,
But deliver us from the evil one.
For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.”
Matthew 6v9-13 (NKJV)
The first and most important step in becoming reconciled to God as your true Father is, without question, repentance. Please take a look at the Repentance Prayer here for more help with this: Repentance Prayer ↩︎
Matthew 18v21-35 (NLT) “Then Peter came to him and asked, ‘Lord, how often should I forgive someone who sins against me? Seven times?’ ‘No, not seven times,’ Jesus replied, 'but seventy times seven! Therefore, the Kingdom of Heaven can be compared to a king who decided to bring his accounts up to date with servants who had borrowed money from him. In the process, one of his debtors was brought in who owed him millions of dollars. He couldn’t pay, so his master ordered that he be sold—along with his wife, his children, and everything he owned—to pay the debt. But the man fell down before his master and begged him, “Please, be patient with me, and I will pay it all.” Then his master was filled with pity for him, and he released him and forgave his debt. But when the man left the king, he went to a fellow servant who owed him a few thousand dollars. He grabbed him by the throat and demanded instant payment. His fellow servant fell down before him and begged for a little more time. “Be patient with me, and I will pay it,” he pleaded. But his creditor wouldn’t wait. He had the man arrested and put in prison until the debt could be paid in full. When some of the other servants saw this, they were very upset. They went to the king and told him everything that had happened. Then the king called in the man he had forgiven and said, “You evil servant! I forgave you that tremendous debt because you pleaded with me. Shouldn’t you have mercy on your fellow servant, just as I had mercy on you?” Then the angry king sent the man to prison to be tortured until he had paid his entire debt. That’s what my heavenly Father will do to you if you refuse to forgive your brothers and sisters from your heart.” ↩︎