Mensa Otabil - Our Father In Heaven (10/15/2025)
Well, as I said yesterday, from the 23rd of June, we start 40 days of power, and we’re going to go through to the 1st of August. It’s going to be 40 days of prayer and fasting, and I just want to encourage each one of us to be part of that. So, I’m teaching this week on prayer. We go to Matthew chapter 6, verse 9, as we start learning to pray in this manner: therefore pray, our Father in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. These are the beginning words of what we usually call the Lord’s Prayer.
Now, Jesus started teaching how to pray by using the phrase «in this manner, pray.» That means pray like this, pray this way. He didn’t really mean that we should memorize it and recite it, although it’s valuable to memorize and recite it, but he wanted to show us the manner, the way, the principles, and the guidelines to prayer. So, as we learn the Lord’s Prayer, we’re not just learning to repeat the words, but we’re learning the principles that Jesus teaches us about prayer.
Today, there are three things I want you to internalize and understand about prayer. First, he says that God is our Father; our Father. We start prayer with a relationship with God. Prayer is based on a relationship with God. It’s not a distant God that you are shouting to or screaming at, but a God with whom you have a relationship. So, it’s like a father and his child, or a child and their father.
In addition to having a relationship with God, listen to what Jesus said they should say. Throughout the prayer, he repeated «our,» the plural. So, God is your Father, but you are not the only child of God; he has other children. Prayer starts by recognizing God as Father, but you must also recognize the family of God—that there are other people who are God’s children. You have to be in relationship and in fellowship with them. If you miss this relationship with God, your prayer is just going to be words. The relationship with God and the relationship with other believers is the foundation of prayer: our Father.
Secondly, who art in heaven? God is in heaven. All of us have fathers, and some are not good fathers, but they are earthly fathers. You must not compare your earthly fathers with your heavenly Father, and you must not impose the limitation of your earthly father on your heavenly Father. God is a Father like no other; in fact, there is no human being who can approximate the fatherhood of God. There are good fathers, but none of them is in heaven, and none of them has the authority God has, nor the fullness of the character of God. So, although we call Him Father, we must not interpret our earthly fatherhood onto God’s fatherhood. He’s our Father who is in heaven; He is in a higher dimension. We are in a lower dimension, and He operates from heaven.
The third thing we learn is that when we’re praying, we must honor the name of the Lord. His name is hallowed; His name is treasured. The name of the Lord is the Lord Himself; the Lord and His name are one. So, when we say, «Hallowed be Thy name,» we are exalting Him-not just the name, but the person of God. This is a call to prayer of thanksgiving, of adoration, of worship, of a declaration of who God is over us, and His holiness and His awesomeness. So, true prayer starts with God as our Father, with a relationship with God. You must know Him relationally; you must know He’s not your earthly father. He’s your heavenly Father, and you must know His name must not be joked with; His name must be honored in prayer.
Let us pray. Say with me: Heavenly Father, thank You for making me a part of Your family. I honor Your holy name. In Jesus' name, Amen.