Housegroups 

The Lord’s Prayer Week Ten 14thth Feb – 20th March

Overall Theme:A framework of prayer to enable us to embrace all God offers us through His friendship and His kingship
 
Week’s Theme:                 The Lord’s Prayer as a whole
 
Welcome10 pray 2
  • How many times have you said the Lord’s Prayer without any thought to what it says, to the nearest 100?!!
 
Worship
  • Think of all the great things about God and proclaim them in prayers of praise to God.
 
Word    The Lord’s Prayer             Matthew 6:9-1310 deliver us from all evil
 
9 This, then, is how you should pray: 'Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, 10 your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. 11 Give us today our daily bread. 12 Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. 13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.'
 
  • The Lord’s Prayer starts with a focus on who God is. How can this help us pray? (v.9a)
  • The first three of the six petitions in the prayer are about how God wants us to focus our lives on His purposes (v.9b-10). Can you suggest what these petitions might practically look like in our lives here in Ashtead in 2010 – individually? corporately?
  • How might these first three petitions affect the priorities in our lives?
  • The second three priorities are about our physical, relational and spiritual needs (v.11-13). Which ones do you tend to forget to pray despite a need in your life?
  • The prayer is very much a corporate prayer beginning “our” Father and later saying “our” daily bread. How do you think might this affect the different elements of the prayer?
  • For yours is the kingdom, the power and the glory. Now and forever.” This end section of the Lord’s Prayer as we say it in church is not actually in Matthew 6 or Luke 11 but found in some later manuscripts. Did you know the Lord’s Prayer was in the Bible twice and slightly different in the two versions? Why do you think that might be?
  • What do you feel might be the value of knowing the Lord’s Prayer “off by heart”? Have you ever found knowing it (or another passage in the Bible / set prayer) of great personal value? How do you think we could make more use of this special prayer that Jesus gave us?
 
Witness
  • The Lord’s Prayer encourages us to look at God first, then at His priorities and lastly at our needs and the needs of others. If prayer is the foundation to Christian action, how might our lives as witnesses be changed by this prayer?
 
Prayer
  • Together, pray through each of the different elements of the Lord’s Prayer – don’t miss any out!
 
Reflection
  • If we looked at the prayer structure as a guide to God’s priorities, then bringing glory to God (Hallowed be your name) would go before everything else thing we prayed. Might this bring a much-needed new perspective on our prayer requests?

 


James Levasier, 12/03/2010