Use the Lord’s Prayer as a model for your own prayers.
Write out a personal prayer after each line below:
Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins
as we forgive those who sin against us.
Save us from the time of trial
and deliver us from evil.
For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours now and for ever. Amen.
We’ve been looking at the story of Christian faith as a six act play, beginning with creation, rebellion, then a time of trying to reconnect with God on our own, even with God’s help, that failed.
Imagine you were the director of the school play gone so horribly wrong. The actors have totally thrown away their scripts, making up their own lines, with disastrous results for the story. The audience is confused and upset. What do you do? Stop the play?
No, the show must go on, but how would you do it? By getting on stage.
The director, instead of shouting lines from off stage, gets on stage, and interacts with actors to show them how the play is supposed to work…how the script was actually written.
This is what God did..
In the person of Jesus Christ, God came to earth.
He not only showed us how things are meant to be, but made it all possible.
In miracles, showed us a world without sickness and pain – the way it was meant to be.
In teachings, he told us about a world of love and peace – the way it was meant to be.
In actions, showed us a world of justice and mercy – the way it was meant to be.
In death and resurrection, made it all possible once again.
He destoyed the rebellious power that kept us from knowing God and following his script. Death had long been humanity’s ultimate separation from God, no matter how well we followed the script, rebellion and death would always get us in the end. But by dying and rising again, he destroyed death’s power to separate us from God.
If you were an actor in that play gone wrong, how would the director’s intervention change the play, and you?