Jesus, after I have prayed The Lord’s Prayer over and over again, sometimes it gets to the place where I lose interest and either skip it or quickly go through it as a ritual. But You said, “This, then, is how you should pray.” Help me understand that You are giving me this as a prayer to pray. And You said in the prayer: “Give us TODAY our DAILY bread (Mat 6:11),” Help me realize that I am to pray it every day. So, the question is, how do I keep this from becoming a ritual or a drudgery?

Jesus, why do I need to pray this prayer every day? Teach me that the answer is, there are some major Bible principles that I have to always keep in mind. They are found in four very important verses:

1. In John 15:5b You said: “Apart from Me you can do nothing.” Teach me that this means I really need Your help and input into my day.


2. In James 4:2b You said: “You do not have, because you do not ask God.” Teach me that this means that if I just try to meet my own needs, I will fail.


3. In Matthew 7:7 You gave me the three keys to all of Christianity: “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.” Teach me that this means that if I don’t pray, I won’t just automatically get my needs met.


4. You said in Romans 8:26b: “We do not know what we ought to pray for.” Teach me that this means that if I just pray in a general, unguided, or untrained way, I will typically be asking for the wrong things.

As I take a look at these four major Biblical principles one at a time, help me learn them, understand them, and be empowered to apply them to my every day life. Help me understand WHY You laid this prayer out as a daily prayer. And, help me be able to pray it everyday without it becoming boring, ritualistic, and meaningless. Help me use it to grow and mature in my relationship with my heavenly Father.

Jesus, help me understand that the “nothing” You are talking about is the spiritual accomplishments that give me eternal life and the power to help myself and hurting people. Show me that anything that amounts to anything of value in this world or in eternity is impossible for me to accomplish without You. Help me not disagree or have difficulty understanding this; help me see that I will find myself making decisions that will hurt me, those around me, and God’s plan. Teach me that The Lord’s Prayer gets me and You working together through Your prayer so I can start doing those things that count for time and eternity.

Jesus, You have all knowledge, all foreknowledge of the future, all understanding, and all wisdom; I don’t. When You say: “This, then, is how you should pray,” You are inviting me into asking for God to give me access to all this information, power, and provisions. Help me understand that it starts my day off with miracles, blessings, revelations, and information that are supernatural and God-sized. Help me get a relationship with God, that is a DAILY relationship.

Jesus, You said in Prov 3:5-6 that if I trust in You with all my heart and lean not on my own understanding; and if I in all my ways acknowledge You, You will make my paths straight. Make it clear to me that without me praying these things You told me to pray every day, I will be at the wrong place, doing and saying the wrong things, with the wrong people. Help me keep praying Your prayer so God will make my paths straight; then He will help me be at the right place, doing and saying the right things, with the right people.

Jesus, help me realize that it is easy to trust God one day and then slip back into looking to myself the next. If I pray and invite God into every decision I make ONE DAY, and then find myself trying to MAKE SURE I get my needs and wants taken care of THE NEXT DAY, then THAT DAY I will be going against what would have made me happy and would have brought me blessings and miracles.

Jesus, if ONE DAY I seem to know God is on my side, and the NEXT DAY I am afraid God might not come through for me, or, I am concerned that He might not do it in a way I could appreciate, then I probably am doing things on my own. And that will produce solutions that cause me a lot of problems. Teach me that The Lord’s Prayer is the process of making sure I ask God for everything I am going to need for each day. Show me that it fulfills the ASK GOD requirement and produces wonderful results. AND, it helps me have a DAILY relationship with my heavenly Father.

Jesus, teach me that if ONE DAY I am talking to God, asking Him questions, listening to His words, and basing my decisions on Him, I will be enjoying my relationship with Him. But, if the NEXT DAY I don’t start off my day with The Lord’s Prayer, I will find myself NOT talking to God, NOT asking Him questions, NOT listening to His words, and NOT basing my decisions on Him. Why? Show me that it is because You said: “This, then, is how you should pray.” Why? Help me understand that it is because You know how to get me ready for my DAILY relationship with my heavenly Father.

Jesus, help me see that You are promising me incredible results from using this three-key procedure. You are giving me the three keys that unlock all the great and powerful provisions of God. Help me understand that in order for me to take advantage of all my rights and privileges as a child of God and a citizen of His Kingdom, I am going to have to know how to ask, seek, and knock. Teach me that all my daily personal needs, all the daily needs of those around me, and all the daily provisions of God come through this three-key procedure. Teach me that The Lord’s Prayer covers the major foundational issues for me to ask for, seek, and knock on for each day.

Jesus, I prayed The Lord’s Prayer yesterday; but, help me see that I need to start THIS DAY with praise, appreciation, and thankfulness for all God did yesterday. Show me that I need to give Him an invitation for His Kingdom and will to come into my life TODAY. Help me realize that I have different needs today than I had yesterday. I have new issues of forgiveness today that I didn’t yesterday. Help me want this day to be one where my issues with temptations are dealt with. Show me that I don’t just want yesterday’s temptations to be addressed. Help understand and want to be delivered from the evil one TODAY. Yesterday was great; but, I need God’s help with the evil one again today.

Jesus, teach me that The Lord’s Prayer presents the outline for a growing and powerful prayer life. At first, I started out just saying those exact words; and, I only had a small understanding of why I was saying them. Then gradually they became more and more meaningful to me. Let this introduce me into another phase in my prayer life; help me start saying the first sentence and then get more words to add to them from my heavenly Father. Let it be on the same theme as the sentence in The Lord’s Prayer; but, let it broaden and increase. Let each word in The Lord’s Prayer take on greater meaning and inspire more words to express that meaning. Let this bring maturity into my prayer life.

Jesus, I can do EVERYTHING through You Who gives me strength (Phil 4:13). Let The Lord’s Prayer help me go from not being able to do anything of eternal, spiritual value to being able to do everything of eternal, spiritual value. Let me go from “What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul (Mark 8:36)?” to “He who overcomes will inherit all this, and I will be his God and he will be my son (Rev 21:7).”