Our Father - by Anthony Cooksey
Our Father - by Anthony Cooksey
The Lord’s Prayer: United in Adoption
“After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which are in heaven, Hallowed by thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.” Matthew 6:9-13
Words said by countless people, countless times. Verses uttered by believers and otherwise. Most have heard or know this simple prayer. It has been said around dinner tables, recited by sporting teams before games, spoken from many pulpits. These words, strung together in this specific manner, have become so commonplace in our society, yet the words themselves, if not understood, mean NOTHING. These WORDS have no power to save; no power to heal; no power to do anything. Only when known, do these words bare significance. Only when believed and trusted in, can their true weight be felt. I pray that through these words here and the words of others, that through this template provided to us by Christ himself, we may begin to grasp the meaning of this beautiful prayer.
Part 1: Our Father: Our father, not my father; not my God, but rather OUR father. What does this denote? What does it indicate that we were instructed to pray our father? It means that the same father whom Christ is praying to and has the relationship of father and son with, is your father and is also my father. We are brothers, you and I. All who read these words and are confessing, practicing, believing Christians are therefore my brethren. The true power felt in that statement is immeasurable. The unifying truth to be able to pray “our father” binds us together like a “cord of three strands.” Ecc 4:12. All believers, from every tongue and nation; every color and gender; every time period from past to future, are bound together at the foot of one father. Our minor earthly differences dissolve at the foot of the cross when we are to become one in Christ as He is in the Father.
John 17:21-23 “That they may all be one, as You, Father, are in Me and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe you sent me. And the glory which you gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one: I in them and You in Me; that they be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have love them as You have loved Me.” Can we grasp the words prayed here by Christ to the father? Is it possible to fully understand them? Read them again. Our “one-ness” is to be a shining beacon to the world; it is to be a testimony to the fact that Christ was sent by God. How close must we be brothers and sisters? How small must our differences and prejudices and strife and worry be diminished in the light of our true one-ness provided to us by the same familial blood covering all of us.
“If I love my God who beget me, I must love, from the very necessity of the case, all other who are begotten by God.” -Octavious Winslow
There is to be ONE church. We are all the body of the church. Our differences should not splinter us into factions; scattered us across the globe; separate us into denominations that would never intermingle.
It is shameful what we have become. Shameful what we have allowed our sin and the world to do to us. The cross should bind us closer than blood relatives. We are eternally bound. Earthly strife which does not last cannot diminish eternal bonds. We must, therefore, begin again to be our brothers’ keeper. We must rejoice with one another in our victories, mourn with one another in our losses; support, enable, and “spur one another on toward love and good deeds” Heb. 10:24.
Our starting line is the cross, but we must continue in our journey to become a church that could actually be considered a body; all working together for the glory of God. We must not neglect one another but rather actively engage with fellow Christians. There should be within you an overwhelming connection with anyone who is under the same banner of Christ that has saved you from your sin; under the same banner of Christ that brought you out of your darkness and into newness of life.
Any man or woman throughout time that is in Christ is therefore of the same body that we are currently in. Dear reader, I pray that this truth will sink in so deep that you will never look at a brother or sister in Christ the same way. I pray that you will never again walk through the doors of your church and miss out on the true and deep relationships that are possible to grow between two believers in Christ.
I pray that we all will see how vital it is for the world that we become one; a united front; a body of believers that all utter the same words: “Our Father” and that these words bind us to one another so that we may be a clear picture to the world that God is the one true God and Christ was sent by Him to make so, our adoption into His family. May that we be so united, the world shall see us as “fair as the moon, clear as the son, and dreadful as an army with banners.” Song of Sol. 6:10.
One final thought: who is delivering this prayer initially? Christ is. Christ, himself, is praying “our Father.” We are all brothers and sisters in Christ; through Christ, because of Christ, alongside Christ.
“For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.” Rom. 8:29-30.
Christ’s willingness to humble Himself, take on the form of man, and empty out all His glory on the cross so that we may be adopted into the family of God and justified through faith in Him and His death and His resurrection, gives Him the title of Elder Brother.
“For both He who sanctifies and those who are sanctified are all of one, for which reason He is not ashamed to call them brethren, saying: ‘I will declare Your name to My brethren; In the midst of the assembly I will sing praise to You.” Heb. 2:11-12.
His act of sanctification makes us sanctified and therefore when God looks at us He does not see our sin, He sees Christ. Dear reader, that you may be able to take on the eyes of God when you look upon your brothers and sister and see Christ that is in them. That we may be able to look past our flaws and shortcomings, our differences and biases and see only the blood of Christ; see primarily a fellow brother or sister who, along with us, is an eternal being; an eternal being that will share in the glory of Christ, our elder brother from this day and evermore.
Rejoice therefore, because the relationships we forge with one another will last eternally and will only deepen after we pass from this earth and are brought into right relationship with our creator.