A while back I wrote about the 8 most dangerous Christian prayers. Afterwards, I realized that one of the most dangerous prayers of all was the Lord’s prayer, which we have also looked at briefly before.
Let us now take a closer look at the Lord’s Prayer and see why it contains several dangerous prayer requests.
The Lord’s Prayer is full of dangerous prayers which can destroy your life.
Each line of the Lord’s prayer is designed to invite God into your life to overthrow, upend, and destroy your life. When you pray the Lord’s prayer, God enters your life like a bull in a china shop.
Afterwards, however, God takes all the shards of crystal and glass that He left behind, and makes the most beautiful mosaic you have ever seen.
If you pray the Lord’s prayer, get ready for destruction … but the beauty that rises from the ashes will be incomparable to whatever plans you had for your life previously.
Here is a quick run-through of how each line in the Lord’s Prayer will upend, overturn, and destroy your life as you know it.
Hallowed be thy name
In praying this, we announce that we want God’s name to be glorified. Sounds good, right?
Yes, except that usually, when we pray this, what we mean is “Hollowed be they name in and through me.” We want God to be gloried, and we want to ride His coat tails to some glory of our own.
But the prayer doesn’t say this will happen. It is a prayer for God’s name to be glorified; not our name.
Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven
This seems fairly safe, right? Haven’t many of us been taught to close out our prayers with “Not my will, but thy will be done?” Don’t we want God’s will to be done on earth?
Sure!
… Just not in our lives.
When it comes to our own lives, we want our own will to be done. God’s will for our lives usually looks much less enjoyable than our plans for our own life.
And besides, God’s will often seems to lead into death, slavery, obscurity, and suffering. Who wants that? Not me.
So this prayer is dangerous when we include ourselves in it.
Give us this day our daily bread
Daily bread means “enough food for today.” It means barely scraping by. But who wants that? I need a full fridge and a growing retirement account. I need a new car, a shinier cell-phone, a faster internet connection, and maybe an Apple iWatch.
And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgiven those who trespass against us
Of course we want God to forgive us, but are you ready to forgive the person who has wronged you?
… Um, maybe not yet.
Enough said.
Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil
God doesn’t actually lead anyone into temptation, so this phrase probably means something closer to “Help us resist temptation when it comes.”
But regardless, we don’t really mean it. We like our pet sins. We don’t want God to point them out to us, nor do we want to get rid of them.
Instead, what we usually do, is invent other “sins” that we “struggle” so that we can make ourselves feel better about the small victories we gain over these fake sins while completely ignoring the bigger sins we harbor in our lives every day.
What sorts of sins? Oh, greed, pride, anger, and judgmentalism to name a few.
The Lord’s Prayer is Dangerous
So be careful about praying the Lord’s Prayer. Every phrase is a minefield just waiting for you to step on it so that your life can get turned upside down.
Here is a video in which I teach a bit more about the Lord’s Prayer:
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“God’s will for our lives usually looks much less enjoyable than our plans for our own life.
And besides, God’s will often seems to lead into death, slavery, obscurity, and suffering. Who wants that?”
Jeremy, are you sure you’re not longer a calvinist?
ha! Pretty sure… why? Maybe I am just a non-Calvinist unlike any you have met before?
You know, The Father works in ways that we cannot possibly dream of. I discovered this blog by “accident” yesterday while reading Amazon reviews. And today, a reminder of exactly what I needed to hear pops up. thank You for this post.
A little background. My wife and two kids moved to Southern California six years ago. It was great. Perfect weather, friendly people, mexican food, and a career that was hitting it’s stride. Around that same time, after a lot of prayer and reflection, we purposefully un-churched. In doing so we were able to separate the Things That Mattered Most from The Things that Probably Don’t Matter at All in our theology and practice of following Jesus. About a year ago, we were studying, as a family, The Lord’s Prayer, and we begin to close all of our prayer time as a family with it. And then I started to include it in my private prayers. My youngest (10 yrs old) confessed that she prayed it to help her focus at school (ADHD issues…). We got into it. Our family Bible studies stopped being Dad talking to the rest of the group and began to be a discussion among equals. More times than not about the Lord’s Prayer and how it shaped how we related to God, each other, friends, family and everyone we met. It was a blessing and a huge teaching experience.
Then we lost everything. Not in a slow, drawn out way. Suddenly, painfully, without warning. Long story short, we were forced to move from California to Mississippi, the place where I was born and left as a child and my parents retired too some years ago. In mid April, on my 44th birthday, I drove a moving truck full of what was left into the town in which I was born to move in with my Father. It has been a long 3 months, full of anxiety, questioning and anger. But also grace and blessing without measure. “Give us this day our daily bread” has taken on a whole new meaning, and has been met with honest to goodness gratitude.
Thank You for the reminder that when we conform our lives to the Word, and not vice-verse, we will be shaped into the image that he wants. After a long 6 months, “accidentally” finding this was the encouragement and nourishment I needed this week.
Blessings.
Hi Lane
I also discovered Jeremy’s post by accident at a time when I thought I had blasphemed against the Holy Spirit. I was in turmoil! His posts have helped me find peace again and to know I am alright with God. I hope you will keep reading his posts, join in with the comments and find as much help from Jeremy and the other comments as I have.
Many blessings
I am glad that you found this and it was a blessing. Thank you for sharing part of your story. It sounds incredibly difficult, faith-testing, and painful. But I am glad that you are learning to rely on God in this difficult time.
A closer look at the Lords Prayer
“Our Father” —Wow! Jesus, who made known God to the world, called him a “Father.” I would imagine a lot of the Jews sitting there were quite astonished at this shift in relationship with Yahweh and Elohim. Jesus opened to them the tender side of a loving God, not One on the smoking mountain unto whom they were afraid to come. “Father” opens up images of one whose lap you can crawl into, one who teaches alongside of you, and not one from whom you must hide.
Most people open their prayers with “Dear God” and “Heavenly Father” which seem to be pretty standard. But usually the next word uttered is “I”…” (“Thanks” is quite popular also) There is not one single “I” in the whole prayer. The closest we see is “us,” a word that reminds us that we belong to one another, that we prosper or suffer together, that our sins and our triumphs affect not only ourselves, but also the rest of the Body of Christ.
What is the next thing Jesus taught? “In heaven”–a prepositional phrase telling us where our Father resides, and reminding us that He is God Almighty, whose perspective of both our lives and the world around us is far broader than our own.
“Hallowed be your name”—After acknowledging that God is our Father, and before we get to our own needs, we PRAISE Him!
I am reminded how God, answering Job out of the storm, never addressed his suffering or his needs, but instead points out to Job how great He is!! Why? Because He’s a pompous attention-grabber? NO. God is Love, and as Love, He seeks the best for us. When we focus on Him and His greatness, what fear, what need, what despair can consume us? None. So, God our Father in heaven, we praise you!
“Your kingdom come” —the Hope! Next in line Jesus reminds us to look forward to our glorious future, when the Devil will be an afterthought.
“Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven”—We are to recognize that God has a will, and do our best to line up with it. I’ve heard some mighty teachings on prayer being an invitation to God to come in and knock the Devil on his butt.
Now, finally, we come to “us.” “Give us today our daily bread.” This statement could be taken very subjectively. Note that the word “us” was chosen instead of “me.” As a body of believers who live and move in diverse individual circles, we are nonetheless intricately connected to one another. We must ask ourselves how we define our personal “daily bread.” Has God prospered you above and beyond your needs? Perhaps it was not for you alone, but also that you could help someone else. Come to think of it, giving is itself a need, and we therefore must have something to give.
If we define our “daily bread” way beyond what we need, we will likely become unthankful. I submit that God keeps His Word, and that He does give us our daily bread need. Our modern society, however, would like us to believe, as Eve did, that God is withholding good from us, that our needs are not met, that we can and should have what we want, and have it now. I love Colossians 3:15, which states as an imperative, “And be thankful.” An “imperative” is a command: “(You) be thankful.” This is the only sentence in the entire prayer that addresses physical need.
“Forgive us our debts”: reminds us that we are sinners in need of forgiveness, “as we also have forgiven our debtors.” Boy, if you first recognize your own personal need for forgiveness, if you first look in the mirror and see the real you looking back, it sure makes it a lot easier to forgive someone who wrongs you.
And finally, “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.” Jesus reminds us that life is a battle, and that we’re all in it collectively. It is imperative that we pray daily for one another to succeed in this war against spiritual powers. None of us is above that need, and our God is a God Who delivers!
As Jesus came to make known God, he came to also lead us into a relationship with Him, and certainly prayer is an indispensable component of that relationship. It is a prayer of recognition of who God is: a loving Father who forgives, supplies, and delivers. It is a prayer of praise that acknowledges the hope of a future life filled with God’s will. And it is a prayer that acknowledges our need now for community, forgiveness, help, deliverance, and of course, our daily bread.
Excellent insights into the Lord’s prayer. This packed prayer is full of depth and meaning!
It’s been a while since I really thought about this prayer. Thanks for posting this!
Thinking about it,we do invite trouble with these words.I certainly have.These words eventually, are suppose to deliver us to higher heights.Of which I have yet to experience.The good expectations anticipated from these words, take too long to materialize.
I have to politely agree to disagree… I work for a world renowned minister (not to mention one of the best and most amazing people I’ve ever worked for and with) as his spiritual warfare research and development assistant. My boss is a deliverance minister and uses the lords prayer in his job every day as one of the prayers he uses, does that mean he’s doing his job wrong? He has saved my life twice from the bondages of satan and his minions with this prayer with God working through him to deliver me and others out of darkness and from oprression and possession. This is one of the most powerful prayers out there… I was being taught this prayer before I could ever talk. People can’t just uproot their life from this prayer even though it means atoning for sin and requiring change…
God wants us to change not stay the same. God intended for us to have spiritual growth in life. we were not called to spend our lives crawling… We need to get up and live life the way and manner he taught us. God wants us to grow by changing our lives and how we live. We were called to live for and follow him. We cannot give honor and glory to god if we are never willing to be confronted with truth in relation to change. God loves when we pray and keep a strong faith but he does not honor those with no faith or those who refuse to acknowledge his existence. We are his children and He calls us out on our sins and mistakes and will not come into his kingdom unless we repent.. God teaches us to love and forgive no matter how hard we may to learn life lessons.
My boss who is one of the sweetest people I’ve ever met, and I have had our share of bumps in the road. We have even had times of even not talking to one another as a result of anger… But then god spoke to us and told us that we were brought together in life for a reason and we were called to work together and to move past the anger and forgive no matter how hard it is. We can only learn through trial and error and we must be held accountable for our actions, and words in life.. Sure it may hurt but it’s the only way we will ever learn to grow in our faith strengths and courage and if God can love us unconditionally and forgive us when we have such a hard time with forgiveness of others and even ourselves, then we should learn to do our best to forgive and love as well.
Of the 10 commandments is to love our neighbor as ourselves… Didn’t god say to us : ” love one another as I have first loved you or however the saying goes? Sorry I’m drawing a blank right now as I am having a huge rush of thoughts crossing over other thoughts. But you get the idea of what I’m saying. God didn’t say I love you as my child but it’s ok to hate someone else simply because of their mistakes in life.
So since this is the most powerful of the prayers god uses, other than being called out on sins that need repenting how is this prayer dangerous and going to ruin our lives? If it’s dangerous I better tell my boss to quit his job because he’s been a deliverance minister for 30 years and I better find another minister to work for and and train in sprititual warfare under. God wants us to learn from our mistakes and move on not say oh crap I’ve sinned and I’m going to hold it against someone for life. God wants us to learn and being called out is how we grow. what’s wrong with God calling us out on our sins? Do you think people will get to share with him in the glory of heaven if we glorify a life of sin? God put us here to learn not live without repenting mistakes and sins and asking for forgiveness. Let me leave you all with this thought…. if this prayer is all we know as christians, how else are we supposed to pray and live according to? God teaches faith not a life of sin.