Wednesday after the Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity Sunday
Posted on September 11, 2024 by under
Scripture: St. Matthew 6:9-15 (NKJV)
6:9 “In this manner, therefore, 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 this day our daily bread.
12 “And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
13 “And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.
14 “For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 15 But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”
Devotion
Perhaps you have heard that prayer is a conversation with the Lord God. Many people’s idea of a conversation is one where they do all the talking. That is not a conversation; it is a lecture. In order to have a conversation with the Lord God, He also needs to be speaking to us. This is why study of the Lord’s Word has always been associated with prayer. We hear what the Lord says through His holy Word, and we respond in prayer. Thus, a conversation between us and the Lord God.
Our Lord Jesus, in giving us the Lord’s Prayer, established a pattern for this conversation with our God. This prayer is both the Lord God’s Word, and our response to Him. We pray to our heavenly Father as dear children to their earthly father. We ask for both spiritual and earthly things. The Lord Jesus sums up the Lord’s Prayer by telling His Apostles that at the heart of prayer is forgiveness. We come to our heavenly Father as beggars, beggars unworthy of that for which we pray, on account of our manifold sins and trespasses. But we humbly pray that He would forgive our sins so that we might also learn from His mercy toward us to show mercy toward each other, and forgive the sins of those who have sinned against us.
Collect: O Lord, we beseech Thee, let Thy continual pity cleanse and defend Thy Church; and because it cannot continue in safety without Thy succor, preserve it evermore by Thy help and goodness; through Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost, ever One God, world without end. Amen.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
