In our daily meditations, we are studying Jesus' teachings to His disciples in what is commonly called The Sermon on the Mount in chapters 5-7 of the Gospel of Matthew. Yesterday, we began looking at the prayer that Jesus taught them in Matthew 6:9-11. It is possible the disciple’s prayer was meant as a model or an outline for our prayer life. We said that there are five parts to the prayer and looked at the first two. Today, we look at the other three parts of the prayer:
3) Give us today our daily bread.
a) At this point in your time of prayer, thank Him for His provision to you and your family. Then, pray concerning your work, i.e., that which God uses to supply you and your family with food on your plates. Ask for direction and wisdom on what you do for Him.
b) Use the time here to remind God of His promises of blessing. Ask for God to expand your area of influence and to open doors of blessing.
c) Ask Him for specific guidance in the stewardship of your time, energy, and money for His kingdom purposes. Be open for the Lord to speak to you about helping others with material support.
4) Forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors.
Our time of prayer now focuses on our being in a right relationship with God and others. The Lord makes our forgiveness conditional to our also forgiving others. Grace has not reached the level of our hearts if we have not forgiven others. The overflow of God's forgiveness in our lives is to such a degree that we, in turn, want to forgive others and set them free from any obligation to us. If we have not truly forgiven others from our heart, we have not fully seen what it cost God to forgive us.
a) In asking God to forgive us our debts, we are to open our lives to inspection by God and be rigidly honest before God about sin. David prayed for God to “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts” (Psalm 139:23).
b) Confess your faults to God. Ask Him for specific strategies to overcome your sinful nature. Job wrote this about his plan to overcome his sensual lower nature: “I made a covenant with my eyes not to look lustfully at a girl” (Job 31:1). He thought through specific strategies to overcome, so go and do likewise!
c) In this time of introspection, ask God to show you anyone whom you have not forgiven, e.g., someone who may have hurt you. Ask Him to operate on you so that you can genuinely forgive from the heart. Pray for God’s blessing on those that come to mind.
5) And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.
a) Ask God to deliver you from every occult influence or any curse directed at you because of your desire to live a life pleasing to God.
b) Pray that the armor of God will be on you. At this time, you may want to ask God for the belt of truth to be buckled around your waist and for His righteousness to be like a breastplate over your heart. We need our feet fitted with readiness to walk out the Gospel of peace, that you have a shield of faith with which you can extinguish the flaming arrows of the evil one, the helmet of salvation to protect the mind, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, to be used powerfully in you and through you (Ephesians 6:13-17).
c) Pray that when temptation and trials of your faith come, you may stand and not fall into compromise.
The closing of your time of prayer should be with an acknowledgment of the One you live for and to whom you are committed. Finish with a song or a psalm of praise.
Prayer: Father, please continue to teach us how to live free from every occult strategy against me and my family. Amen. Keith Thomas
This meditation is from the complete study found at the following link: https://www.groupbiblestudy.com/engsermon/4.-the-heavenly-rewards-of-the-believer