A Paraphrase on the Lord’s Prayer, in Scripture Expressions
1. Our Father in heaven (continued)
Enable us to come to You with humble boldness and confidence, (Ephesians 3:12) as to a Father, a tender Father, who spares us as a man spares his son who serves him; (Malachi 3:17) and as having an Advocate with the Father, (1 John 2:1) who yet has told us that the Father himself loves us. (John 16:27)
You are a Father, but where is Your honour? Malachi 1:6) Lord, give us grace to serve You as becomes children, with reverence and awe. (Hebrews 12:28)
You are a Father, and if earthly parents, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to their children, how much more will our heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him! (Luke 11:13) Lord, give us the Spirit of grace and pleas for mercy. (Zechariah 12:10)
We come to You as prodigal children who have gone from our Father’s house into a far country; (Luke 15:13) but we will arise and go to our Father, for in his house there is more than enough bread, and if we continue at a distance from him, we perish with hunger. Father, we have sinned against heaven and before You and are no longer worthy to be called Your children, treat us as Your hired servants. (Luke 15:17-19)
You are our Father in heaven, (Matthew 6:9) and therefore to You, O Lord, do we lift up our souls. (Psalm 86:4) To you we lift up our eyes, O you who are enthroned in the heavens! As the eyes of a servant look to the hand of his master, as the eyes of a maidservant to the hand of her mistress, so do our eyes look to You, O LORD our God; (Psalm 123:1-2) a God whom heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain, (1 Kings 8:27) and yet whom we may have access to, having a High Priest who has passed through the heavens as our forerunner. (Hebrews 4:14)
[…to be continued over the next weeks. DV]
- from Matthew Henry’s Method of Prayer