Our: Jesus, help me notice and understand why this prayer includes others besides me. Show me why it starts off with “our” Father rather than “my” Father. Show me that from this moment on, I will start becoming concerned with not only my problems here on earth and my eternal life, but, I will also care about the earthly and eternal life of all humans everywhere. Make this my first step into learning how to love others and be concerned about their welfare.

Jesus, teach me how vital it is to allow You to help me with my life’s problems and help me with spending eternity with my heavenly Father. Show me that as I learn how important it is to enter God’s Kingdom, You will help me start feeling a desire for my friends to make the same decision.

Teach me that the thing that will be happening to me is, as You start healing me from having problems with drugs and the other problems I face, and as I learn how important eternity is, I will start to see how important it is for my acquaintances. If it is that important for me, then it is that important for them.

Our Father in heaven: Jesus, help me understand that this is the place in Your prayer where I ACCEPT God as my heavenly Father. I am opening my heart to Him and am GIVING Him permission to CAUSE me to be born again. When I say: “MY heavenly Father” and “OUR heavenly Father,” it gives me the born again experience. At that moment I AM born again as a child of God, and He IS my heavenly Father.

I didn’t have any say in the process of being born on this planet as a human; that decision was made for me. Help me appreciate the fact that at this moment I am being given the privilege of making my own decision by accepting God as my heavenly Father. Make it real to me that when I call Him my heavenly Father, I am giving Him permission to make me His child.

Jesus, help me be willing to be made one of God’s children. Help me simply call Him my heavenly Father and KNOW that He will cause me to be born for a second time. Reveal to me that this will be a spiritual birth; AND, just like it did in my first birth, it will take me some time and study to understand this second existence.

When I was born as a baby, I had a family and a country that I was born in. The family provided me with certain rights and privileges; and, the country I was born in did the same. And, from that example, help me understand that by becoming God’s child I will gain all the rights and privileges of entering into His family and Kingdom. Then after I have had some time to learn more about these rights and privileges, let it help me appreciate what this prayer did for me.

If you are willing, then first go ahead and say: “Our Father in heaven.” Then after you say that, say: “MY Father in heaven.”

Hollowed: Jesus, help me understand that this word means holy; that means that the God I have just accepted as my heavenly Father is pure and does not have anything in His attitudes, character, or existence that is wrong, bad, or evil. Make it clear to me that He doesn’t think, feel, say, or do wrong, bad, or evil things; He is perfect. Show me that He has excluded all lying, cheating, stealing, hatred, murder, and evil from His being. Help me always understand that He IS love, IS truth, IS generous, IS gracious, IS merciful, and IS perfect.

Show me that the thing that makes His Kingdom such an awesome place where I will be spending eternity is the quality of its God. Show me that I will soon find that God thinks, feels, says, and does only right, good, and righteous things. If I allow Him to show me the full reasons behind all of His principles and systems, I am going to be completely impressed with Who He is. But for now, help me understand the fact that God is incredibly generous.

Hallowed be Your name: Jesus, teach me that the name, “God” (Elohim in Hebrew), represents the only Being over everything that exists. He is all powerful (omnipotent), knows everything (omniscient), is everywhere (omnipresent), and is perfect. That means He could be anything He wanted to be. But, He chose to be holy, pure, godly, righteous, loving, merciful, and gracious. Help me love, appreciate, respect, and always thank Him for making that decision.

Teach me that the generosity of my heavenly Father is demonstrated by the fact that He is gracious (gives me gifts not deserved) and merciful (exempts me from penalties and side effects deserved). If I say “hallowed be Your name,” I am accepting the fact that He is going to give me things I do not deserve (grace). I am also accepting the fact that He is not going to let me be punished for the things I deserve to be punished for (mercy).

Your name: Jesus, I and a lot of other people got our names based on someone’s name in the family, or, based on a name our parents liked the sound of. But, show me that in God’s realm, a name is the description of the attitudes and character of the person. Help me understand that God’s name describes Who He is and What He does. When I say, “God,” He expects me to think of that name as meaning a Being that is holy, pure, only good, very generous, gracious, merciful, loving, and all powerful.

As I get more and more chances to experience God, His attitudes, His character, and my relationship with Him, let His name cause all these feelings and thoughts to come up inside me. When I talk about Him, let love, appreciation, respect, and closeness to show up in my words, my tone of voice, and my facial expressions.

If you can appreciate to some degree these two gifts (grace and mercy), then say: “Hallowed be Your name.”