Luther on Prayer

Matthew 6:9
Jesus said when you pray, pray like this, "Our Father in heaven, holy is your name..."

Martin Luther wrote, "because Jesus is the author of the prayer in this passage, it is the greatest and the best prayer. If this good and faithful teacher had known a better one, he certainly would have taught it to us. It doesn't mean a prayer that doesn't use these exact words has no worth. Prior to his birth, many believers never heard of such words but prayed. But we need to be cautious about other prayers as they don't convey the meaning of this one. Prayers might be good, they might even express the same thoughts you find in the Lord's prayer, but they don't express them as clearly. So it's a mistake to prefer other players over this one. Be careful especially for those prayers that are written out with titles decorated with red ink, in the hope God might grant you long life, possessions, honor, indulgences, or some such thing. These kinds of prayers are about pursuing our will and our honor; not God's!

Many have begun regarding such prayers more highly than the Lord's Prayer. It is not that one should never engage in such prayers, it's just that people put far too much confidence in them. Subsequently the Lord's prayer, which is inward and spiritual, becomes despised and ill-used. All forgiveness, all blessings, all that is useful and everything else that a person needs for this body or soul on Earth, or in heaven, flows from this prayer. It would therefore be better for us to pray the Lord's Prayer, with all our heart, thinking about the words, and letting it change our life for the better, than to say any other prayer or all other prayers put together."

It's certainly not a surprise that Martin Luther found the Lord's Prayer particularly useful and important. After all, 1/5 of his catechism is devoted to explaining it! But in our modern day, prayers and praying have become so uncommon amongst us, that on those rare occasions we actually do pray, it is really more like wishing . For someone to pray God's will be done, would probably be a most unusual and unexpected prayer to hear! Yet Luther called Lord's Prayer the "perfect prayer" not because it was crafted so cleverly, or used words more impactful than other prayers....he meant it contained everything one could ever possibly imagine they might need.

All fell under two petitions; "Thy will be done on Earth as it is in heaven" and "give us this day our daily bread." These two petitions cover every need in every time and place. Add this to the fact that it was Jesus himself who taught and encouraged us to use this prayer, and you have the "perfect" prayer! When I first became a pastor it was a habit of many groups to start meetings with the Lord's Prayer. At first I found this a bit off-putting. I thought to myself, "gosh, we're supposed to be a praying people! Surely we can come up with our own prayers once in a while!" But as I've grown older, I have come to appreciate the wisdom of those people, and to appreciate both the tradition and the intentions behind it. I have concluded that the Lord's Prayer is indeed the "perfect prayer" and we should pray more often, not less. Also that we should listen to the words, and place them at the heart of all of our church endeavors. How can we go wrong using Jesus's own words and to ask God for what He knows we and the world need!