This, then, is how you should 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 today our daily bread. Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. Matthew 6: 9 – 13

One of the things we seldom notice is the way in which Jesus structured the Lord’s Prayer. The purpose of the prayer is to teach as well as to give us a vehicle for asking for things and speaking our minds. And notably, the Prayer gives a distinct back seat to all the petitionary clauses that we are usually so eager to start our prayer life.
Long before we ever get to “Give us today our daily bread” or “Deliver us from the evil one”, we are urged to take a good long look at God for who He is, rather than to start with what we think and say and need. When we do that, we find Our Father is hallowed. He is more important than anything else.
It is His kingdom, not our wish list, which matters. It is His will that must be done, not ours. And so, in learning the Lord’s Prayer, we learn the right order of things and are taught a bit about how not to be fools.
Today, as you pray, put God first. Praise Him, ask for His will to be done and seek His face. There’s plenty of time for our petitions, understanding and opinions. But they aren’t the most important things. He is.

I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” Revelation 21: 3 – 4

When Jesus stood in front of people and spoke, the only thing some people could see was a somewhat scruffy manual laborer with a bit of Galilean twang in his speech. He ate, drank, slept, and washed just like the rest of us. He was, to say the least, ordinary.

When Peter looked, and then looked again, and kept looking more deeply, he saw inside and through that ordinariness, “the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matthew 16:16). Peter received divine insight from the Father himself and realized that, standing in front of him, against all likelihood or hope, was the very power that hurled the Andromeda galaxy, led Israel from bondage, and created all that is seen and unseen.

It is with that same divine dual vision that John sees the church in today’s verse. Where you and I might see double-chins, a squabbling leadership, a minister with lousy taste in music, or a bad youth program, John reminds us to look again, keep looking more deeply and recognize what the truth is: here is the bride of Christ, adorned for her husband.

And there, on that ordinary altar at that ordinary Sunday morning worship, is the divine Lamb of God, offering himself in the Marriage Feast of the Lamb and dwelling with us. Already, death has been defeated. It’s been dead for 2,000 years. Already, the worst thing that can ever happen has happened. Already, Christ has turned it into the best thing that will ever be. Behind the thin veil of the ordinary, the awesome divine fire of the Trinity is burning at the heart of the church, right there on that altar.

Today, see the Church with John’s vision and rejoice, for the former things have passed away!

He (Jesus) said to them: “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” Acts 1: 7 – 8

On April 27, 1999, sixteen-year-old Cassie Bernall was reading her Bible in the library at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. It had been two years since she had given her life completely to Jesus Christ. Her fellow students knew well how Christ had changed her life, but on this day the whole world would know. Young Cassie was asked at gunpoint by a confused and angry classmate, “Do you believe in God?” She answered, “Yes, I believe.” And then she was murdered. At baptism we received the Holy Spirit, who empowers us to be witnesses. Our earthly life may not end like Cassie’s, but as witnesses of Jesus Christ we should make sure that everything we say and do today cries out, “Yes, I believe.” Today, we would like to share with you a poem Cassie wrote before she was martyred.

“Now I have given up on everything else
I have found it to be the only way
To really know Christ and to experience
The mighty power that brought
Him back to life again,
and to find out what it means
to suffer and to die with Him.
So, whatever it takes
I will be one who lives in the fresh
Newness of life of those who are
Alive from the dead.”

The next day John was there again with two of his disciples. When he saw Jesus passing by, he said, “Look, the Lamb of God!” John 1: 35 – 36

John the Baptist stood at the turn of the ages. So it is not surprising that he would say something that forces us to look both backward, into the remote past, and forward to the climax of history. In calling Jesus the “Lamb of God” he did both these things. For that title, more than any other, evokes the primordial memory of Abraham’s obedience, of the sacrifices of Moses and of the coming renewal of the whole world. Abraham, commanded to offer his “only son” Isaac in sacrifice, obeyed God with the confidence that “God himself” would provide the true Sacrifice. Isaac was spared by God but Abraham’s faith was rewarded when God himself did what he had asked of Abraham: he offered his only Son. Likewise, Moses was commanded to offer a spotless lamb in sacrifice for Passover. Christ, our true Passover, offered himself as both priest and victim. And now at each Sunday service, the Church celebrates, as we worship the Lamb of God in union with all the citizens of heaven in the book of Revelation who sing forever, “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain!” Today take some time to behold the Lamb of God, present with us in holy communion, which is our participation in the Marriage Feast of the Lamb.

“For God so love the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” John: 3: 16

It defies logic. It is a divine insanity. A holy incredibility. Only a God beyond systems and common sense could create a plan as absurd as this. Yet, it is the very impossibility of it all that makes it possible. The wildness of the story is its strongest witness. For only a God could create a plan this mad. Only a creator beyond the fence of logic could offer such a gift of love.

God will do what it takes — whatever it takes — to bring his children home.

There are some who position themselves between you and God. There are some who suggest that the only way to get to God is through them. . . Jesus’ message for complicated religion is to remove these middlemen. . . We are all brothers and sisters and have equal access to the Father.

God is patient with our mistakes. He is longsuffering with our stumbles. He doesn’t get angry at our questions. He doesn’t turn away when we struggle. But when we repeatedly reject his message, when we are insensitive to his pleadings, when he changes history itself to get our attention and we still don’t listen, he honors our request.

The purpose of God’s patience? Our repentance.

( From Max Lucado’s: And The Angels Were Silent )

After Your Last Day On Earth:

1. God won’t ask what kind of car you drove. He’ll ask how many people you drove who didn’t have transportation.
2. God won’t ask the square footage of your house. He’ll ask how many people you welcomed into your home.
3. God won’t ask about the clothes you had in your closet. He’ll ask how many you helped to clothe.
4. God won’t ask what your highest salary was. He’ll ask if you compromised your character to obtain it and who you helped with it.
5. God won’t ask what your job title was. He’ll ask if you performed your job to the best of your ability.
6. God won’t ask how many friends you had. He’ll ask how many people to whom you were a friend.
7. God won’t ask in what neighborhood you lived. He’ll ask how you treated your neighbors.
8. God won’t ask about the color of your skin. He’ll ask about the content of your character and your prejudices.
9. God won’t ask how many people talked to you about salvation. He’ll ask how people you talked to about salvation.
10. God won’t ask why it took you so long to seek salvation. He’ll lovingly take you to your mansion in heaven, and not to the gates of Hell.

God won’t ask what you will do after reading this.  He already knows you.  Question is, do you know God?

We know that God does not listen to sinners.  He listens to the godly man who does his will. John  9: 31

The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective. James  5: 16

This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.  And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him. 1 John  5: 14 – 15

Most of our prayer lives could use a tune-up.

Some prayer lives lack consistency.  They’re either a desert or an oasis.  Long, arid, dry spells interrupted by brief plunges into the waters of communion. . . .

Others of us need sincerity.  Our prayers are a bit hollow, memorized, and rigid.  More liturgy than life.  And though they are daily, they are dull.

Still others lack, well, honesty.  We honestly wonder if prayer makes a difference.  Why on earth would God in heaven want to talk to me?  If God knows all, who am I to tell him anything?  If God controls all, who am I to do anything? . . . .

Our prayers may be awkward.  Our attempts may be feeble.  But since the power of prayer is in the one who hears it and not the one who says it, our prayers do make a difference

( From ‘He Still Moves Stones’ by Max Lucado )

You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God?  Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.  Or do you think Scripture says without reason that the spirit he caused to live in us envies intensely? “But he gives us more grace.” James  4: 4 – 6

John the Baptist would never get hired today.  No church would touch him.  He was a public relations disaster.  He “wore clothes made from camel’s hair, had a leather belt around his waist, and ate locusts and wild honey” (Mark 1:6).  Who would want to look at a guy like that every Sunday?

His message was as rough as his dress: a no-nonsense, bare-fisted challenge to repent and be baptized because God was on his way.

John the Baptist set himself apart for one task, to be a voice of Christ.  Everything about John centered on his purpose.  His dress.  His diet.  His actions.  His demands.

You don’t have to be like the world to have an impact on the world.  You don’t have to be like the crowd to change the crowd.  You don’t have to lower yourself down to their level to lift them up to your level.  Holiness doesn’t seek to be odd.  Holiness seeks to be like God.

In a 1987 commencement address at Duke University, Ted Koppel, the news anchor for ABC’s Nightline said, “We have reconstructed the Tower of Babel and it is a television antenna, a thousand voices producing a daily parody of democracy in which everyone’s opinion is afforded equal weight regardless of substance or merit.  Indeed, it can even be argued that opinions of real weight tend to sink with barely a trace in television’s ocean of banalities.”