ISAIAH 55:1 - "Come ye to the Waters"

"And He said unto them, When ye pray, say, Our Father which art in Heaven, Hallowed be Thy Name. Thy Kingdom come. Thy Will be done, as in Heaven, so in earth. Give us this day our Daily Bread. And forgive us our sins; for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil." (Luke 11:2-4) As I have mentioned before, and feel I must mention again; I am convinced that this chapter of the Bible is speaking to us that are believers. Yes, it can be used to illustrate God's Mercy to a fallen world; but for this study, I want to look at it from the point of Grace. We are saved by Grace, and it is not of what we can do, or of anything we have done; that being said, once we are saved, we must live for God. We must walk in the Grace that we have been so freely given; and for duration of this study, I want to consider that God's Grace is this Water. There I said it; now if you choose to, you can comment to what I have said, and I will consider what you have to say; but I am going to keep on typing what I feel God is speaking into me. How do we come to the Waters? The first thing we must do is to pray; yes, pray; (what a strange concept), but if we are going to approach God, we must take a lesson from the Master. The verse above is known as, "The Lord's Prayer", and this Jesus did as an example of how to pray, after his disciples asked Him to teach them to pray. As we look at this prayer, we can sometimes glean over the significance of what Jesus is saying about, the who, the how, and the why of our approach to God. It is either because of what we are accustom to, or just because we do not realize the relationship Jesus had with the Father; that we can sometimes minimize the meaning of this prayer; and thus missing the point of how powerful prayer can be to us as believers. While I am going over each part of this prayer, remember that this is a general prayer and was not intended to be what to pray, but was to be how to pray. "Our Father which art in Heaven": We must approach God with the knowledge of who He is; He is our Heavenly Father, He is on the Throne; His domain is stretched out beyond the stars in the skies. This places us in a right perspective in relationship to who He is, and the awesome power that He has over our very existence, and causes us to realize just how mighty He is. "Hallowed be Thy Name": We must know and realize that God is holy, and we must approach Him as such. To know what a privilege it is just to call upon His Name, and that we are even able to approach Him is such an honor in of itself. Jesus made this possible; the veil of the temple being torn in two. "Thy Kingdom come": This is not us giving God permission for His kingdom to come, but a proclamation of God bringing about His perfect plan; wherein we are acknowledging that we anticipate Him bringing His Kingdom into completion and that it is being established. "Thy Will be done": This part is for us to ask that God would have His perfect will performed in our lives. Where we are asking for Him to use us for the furtherance of His kingdom. "As in Heaven, so in earth": Now then; this part is simply spectacular; for here we can partake of the glory that is, that was, and always will be; as we come to God acknowledging that we have already been glorified in heaven, and we come asking Him for that glory to be demonstrated in our lives, here on this earth. This is our position in Jesus Christ that we looked at in the book of Ephesians. "Give us day by day our daily bread": We are asking God to supply us with His Word for each and every day. That His Word would guide our very lives, and that He would cause it to go deep within our hearts; to feed and to be substance for our eternal soul. "And forgive us our sins": This is pretty much self explaining; we must ask Him to forgive us; and then we must believe that He has. Knowing that we have been washed in the Blood of the Lamb, and we have been redeemed for all eternity. "For we also forgive every one that is indebted to us": We don't ask God to let us forgive others; we acknowledge to God that we are to forgive others, because He has forgiven us. "And lead us not into temptation": We must ask God to pour out His Holy Spirit into our lives, and then we must make a determination in our hearts to follow every direction that the Spirit gives us. When we are lead by the Spirit, we will not be able to go beyond being tempted; it is when we ignore what the Holy Spirit is telling us to do, that temptation will take root, and will lead to sin. "But deliver us from evil": God has everything we need to be complete in Him; it is when we go away from His perfect will for our lives that we can be captivated in the things of this world; which can lead to evil. Anything that is contrary to God and His Holiness, is evil; and when we begin to move away from His will, we must cry out for deliverance, and He will deliver. "And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know Him that is true: and we are in Him that is true, even in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life. Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen" (1 John 5:20 & 21)