The Lord's Prayer: Learning from Jesus on What, Why, and How to Pray. Kevin DeYoung. 2022. 160 pages. [Source: Review copy]
First sentence: Is there any activity more essential to the Christian life, and yet more discouraging in the Christian life, than prayer? We know we should pray. We want to pray (or at least we want to want to pray). And yet when it comes to actually praying, most of us feel like failures.
Books on the Lord's Prayer is nothing new. That is what you might be thinking. And, you've got a point. So is this new book by Kevin DeYoung on the Lord's Prayer worth reading? I definitely think so.
DeYoung, like many before him, goes through the Lord's Prayer phrase by phrase. But I appreciate his insight. It isn't so much that the information is completely new or out of the blue, it's just so foundational that it is a blessing to read. Almost devotional, but not in that stereotypical fluffy way, but a substantive, thought-provoking way.
I wasn't expecting this much nourishment in 'just another' book about the Lord's Prayer. I was completely wrong. I definitely benefitted from this one.
Quotes:
- It is the prayer that teaches us how to pray every other prayer. Obviously we don't have to include these exact words or rigidly follow this structure in every prayer, yet every Christian prayer ought to be informed and shaped by the Lord's Prayer.
- The first set of three requests focuses on God's glory--his name, his kingdom, and his will. The second set of three requests focuses on our good--our provision, our forgiveness, and our protection. Of course, the two sets cannot be separated. God is glorified as he gives us what we need, and when we ask for what we need, we must always do it with an eye to God being glorified. That's a helpful way to think of these sets of petitions, God's glory and our own good. God is glorified as he gives us what we need, and when we ask for what we need, we must always do it with an eye to God being glorified. That's a helpful way to think of these two sets of petitions, God's glory and our good.
- We would be greatly presumptuous to think that we could give God a new identity and a new name without doing violence to revelation and usurping God's divine prerogatives.
- The vitality of prayer lies largely in the vision of God that prompts it. Drab thoughts of God make prayer dull. J.I. Packer
- What is important to God is that we rest in his will of decree, we obey his will of desire, and we trust that he is directing our lives through wisdom and good counsel, even when he doesn't show us the exact next step to take.
- Coming from a humble heart, the word give is not just acceptable to God; it is pleasing to him. When we pray, God is not glad for demands, but he is glorified in our dependence.
- What God wants us to see is that we are more fragile than we think, and he is much kinder to us than we imagine.
- Today's grace is for today's trials, and when tomorrow's trials come, God will have new grace waiting for you there. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.
- Anxiety is living out the future before it gets here.
- We seldom realize the danger we are in and sometimes not until it is too late.
- The last thing Jesus wants to teach us in the Lord's Prayer is that we need our Father's help because we are full of danger within us and stalked by danger around us.
- Our prayer is not for the courage to fight but for our heavenly Father to be our refuge, our rock, and our rescue.
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