A prayer of the Bible
The Lord's Prayer
Prayed by Jesus · Matthew 6:9-13
The Lord's Prayer is the model Jesus gave when his disciples asked him to teach them to pray, moving from God's name and Kingdom to daily bread, forgiveness, and deliverance. It is not a magic formula but a pattern: worship first, then need, then mercy.
The prayer
The moment, and what it teaches
The disciples had watched Jesus pray, often, alone, at length, and one day they asked him to teach them how. He did not hand them a technique. He handed them a shape. Every clause is a school. It begins not with our needs but with God: 'Our Father,' intimate and reverent at once, then his name, his Kingdom, his will. Only after we have looked up does it turn to us, and even then to the simplest things: bread for today, forgiveness given as it is received, protection from evil.
Notice the order, because it is the whole lesson. We pray as if our anxieties were the headline; Jesus starts with worship, and by the time we reach our own needs they have been resized against a Father who runs heaven. Notice too the daring hinge in the middle: 'forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.' Our willingness to release others is bound to our own release. And notice how ordinary the request is: not wealth, not success, just daily bread, gathered fresh like manna, one day at a time.
Jesus did not give us words to recite so much as a shape to grow into: worship first, then need, then mercy.
Pray it yourself
These prayers were not written to be admired from a distance. They were prayed by frightened, hoping, ordinary people, and the same God still listens. The Living Bread is a quiet place to pray, to be prayed for, and to learn to talk with God honestly, at your own pace.
Jesus Christ is Lord.
Frequently asked questions
- What is the Lord's Prayer?
- It is the prayer Jesus taught his disciples when they asked him to teach them to pray (Matthew 6:9-13; Luke 11:2-4). It moves from God's name, Kingdom, and will to our daily bread, forgiveness, and deliverance, serving as the pattern for all Christian prayer.
- What does 'give us this day our daily bread' mean?
- It is a request for what we actually need today, not a storehouse for the future. Like the manna in the wilderness that could not be hoarded, it teaches daily dependence on God rather than self-sufficiency.