Our Daily Bread July 6
Not Fatherless / By: Albert Lee The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children.
Romans 8:16
Today's Scripture & Insight:
Matthew 6:5–13 (NIV):
5 “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. 6 But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. 7 And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. 8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.
9 “This, then, is how you should 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 today our daily bread. 12 And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. 13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.’
John Sowers in his book Fatherless Generation writes that “No generation has seen as much voluntary father absence as this one with 25 million kids growing up in single-parent homes.” In my own experience, if I’d bumped into my father on the street, I wouldn’t have known him. My parents were divorced when I was very young, and all the photos of my dad were burned. So for years I felt fatherless. Then at age thirteen, I heard the Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6:9–13) and said to myself, You may not have an earthly father, but now you have God as your heavenly Father.
In Matthew 6:9 we’re taught to pray, “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.” Previously verse 7 says not to “keep on babbling” when praying, and we may wonder how these verses are connected. I realized that because God remembers, we don’t need to repeat. He truly understands, so we don’t need to explain. He has a compassionate heart, so we don’t need to be uncertain of His goodness. And because He knows the end from the beginning, we know His timing is perfect. Because God is our Father, we don’t need to use “many words” (v. 7) to move Him. Through prayer, we’re talking with a Father who loves and cares for us and made us His children through Jesus. Today’s Hymns
Our Father
I Am Loved
Scripture and Respond
Psalm 103:13
13 As a father has compassion on his children,
so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him;
1 John 3:1-2
1 See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. 2 Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears,[a] we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.
Reflection:
When did you try to use many words in your prayer to “move God”?
When God has become your heavenly Father and you have become His beloved child, how does this make you trust Him more?
Prayer:
Dear heavenly Father, thank You for making me Your child and for being a Father that welcomes me into Your presence through prayer.
Wong Wai Tung (Chief executive officer of The Great Wall Education Foundation) & Sam Chow (Administrative officer of The Great Wall Education Foundation)
Reflection and Prayer Translated by Jenny Hung
“The content of this article is taken from Our Daily Bread. Copyright by Our Daily Bread Ministries. Used by permission.”
