This, then, is how you should pray. Matthew 6:9
This last phrase of the Lord’s Prayer makes everything right. Earlier in the prayer we spent time acknowledging sin and our need for forgiveness. We admitted how hard it is to forgive others. We asked God to provide what we need each day for food and of Himself to give us life. We’ve requested safety from evil and strength against our ability to fall into temptations. This is necessary work if we are to have a vibrant and growing relationship with Jesus.
Now, at this point in the prayer, we turn our focus off of the things we need and onto God himself. In this phrase of the Lord’s Prayer we declare that the entire kingdom of heaven belongs to him. He rules with absolute and perfect power. No one and no thing gets any of the credit. Only God. Along with the kingdom and the power to run it, God also gets all the glory.
This glory isn’t the kind a celebrity receives for starring in a movie. Neither is this glory like the sun on a cloudy day–shining in one place for a little while until something heavy and dark moves in to cover it up. The kind of glory the Lord’s Prayer is talking about is the glory that shines brighter than sunlight reflected on water. It is blinding with its purity and holiness. God’s gracious love is what is shining through this dazzling glory. For describing its brightness, sunlight is the closest example we have. For describing its warmth, the bluest flame of a fire is the best representation.
The hottest part of the fire is the place that burns blue. Have you ever seen lightning in a summer sky? The bolts appear blue to our eyes. The purest, brightest light also carries the most intense heat.
So it is with God’s glory. In the Lord’s Prayer, we ask for God’s purity and his holiness to burn bright and intense in our world and in our hearts. For how long? Not just for an hour or for a day or a lifetime, but forever. Without beginning and without end. It just is–this perfect, holy, power stands at the center of everything reflecting shining glory on everything around it.
