Daily Bible Reading 30th August 2026 // Luke 11:1-4
1 Now Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.” 2 And he said to them, “When you pray, say:
“Father, hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come.
3 Give us each day our daily bread,
4 and forgive us our sins,
for we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us.
And lead us not into temptation.”
The appellation 'Our Father', rightly understood, is an exclusive one. Not all can say this, and it is not true when all say it. Jesus once said to the Pharisees, 'Ye are of your father the devil'. John says, 'As many as received Him, to them gave He power to become sons of God....' And Paul, echoing this idea, says, 'Ye have received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry Abba, Father'. Clearly, to be able to say 'our Father', something needs to have happened to us, to bring us into a true filial relationship with Him. If, then, true prayer is based on a right relationship to God, clearly to be in a wrong relationship to Him disqualifies a man from prayer. Indeed, the only prayer that such a one can pray is 'God be merciful to me a sinner', for this is the only way for them into that right relationship with God.
Matthew includes the Lord's Prayer in the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount, in a passage in which true and false attitudes in spiritual life are contrasted. There, Christ deals with, and exposes, a real error and danger in prayer - vain repetitions and much speaking. What does this mean? It is that the emphasis is shifted from the real heart of prayer to something else. Something else is made the ground and efficacy of prayer than a true relationship to God the Father. We are not heard for our much speaking, says Jesus. Then for what are we heard? It is this question that is answered for us in the Lord's Prayer, and it is in this light that we need to understand it.