Note: John MacArthur (JM), pastor of Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California, has some of the best developed thoughts on the Lord’s Prayer that I could find. I would like to devote a number of Prayer 101 postings to excerpts from his sermons.
“Look just at the last three elements. The bread, provision, the forgiveness, pardon, and the leading not into temptation, protection, and you find the three time dimensions of life. Our daily bread, present. Our debts, sins from the past. And lead us not, that's the future. This little prayer encompasses the past, the present and the future provision sustenance of God. Bread, that's physical, forgiveness, that's mental it relieves the anguish of guilt, and leading not into temptation is spiritual, that's the maintenance of spiritual life. Whether you talking about past, present, future, whether you're talking about physical, mental, spiritual, whatever it is you're talking about it's here, it's here. And by the way all of the petitions in this verse are in the imperative mode in the Greek which means there's an intensity to them, a tremendous intensity, there's a fantastic brevity in every phrase, but it's an intense thing, "Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done." There are no qualifying elements. Everything in this prayer beloved seeks to glorify God, seeks to lift up His name, seeks to exalt His holiness. And I would just tell you right now that's the purpose of all prayer, if you think prayer is for you you've missed the point, you've missed the point. That's why we get so messed up, we're praying for ourselves we don't take into account the whole community of faith and we don't take into account the whole will of God and the perimeters of His own Kingdom.”
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