Why We Pray Muestra

On Earth and Heaven

Remember, the Lord’s Prayer uses the literary device called a chiasm. It repeats its ideas. Chiasms are like concentric rings. Imagine you have a bowl full of water at rest, and you drop a pebble in the middle of the bowl. It sends out waves. When the waves hit the sides of the bowl, they return to the center. 

The concentric circles of the Lord’s Prayer chiasm continue with an acknowledgment of God’s authority. The fundamental choice is whether we will accept and trust Jesus as our ultimate Authority or rely on something else.

We tend to think of heaven mainly as a place where God resides. But this verse notes an essential characteristic of heaven: it is a place where God’s will is done. Multiple verses tell us that Satan still has access to heaven for a limited time, but he does not have the power to exert his will in heaven. Only God’s will is done in heaven. When we take Jesus as our prime Authority and do His will, we bring this aspect of heaven down to Earth.

It is in obedience to God that we bring the reality of heaven into the world. One of many reasons to avoid all other gods is that they are not real (Isaiah 44:6–20, Jeremiah 10:14–16, 1 Corinthians 8:4). Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6). 

When we accept Him as our Savior, we begin to experience life with God. As we choose to pray and obey the Lord’s Prayer, we are rewarded with the realities of the Kingdom of heaven while dwelling upon the earth.

The Lord’s Prayer is about recognizing and properly acting in our present reality. It acknowledges our part to make choices, such as forgiving others, walking in obedience to God as the ultimate Authority, and resisting temptation. 

It acknowledges that we will face circumstances beyond our control, that we must rely on God’s help to obtain our daily bread and to overcome temptation. The Lord’s Prayer reminds us that God is the ultimate Authority and that the perfection of heaven rests in the reality that only God’s will is done there.

Embracing these perspectives leads us to the attitudes that Jesus calls “blessed” in the Beatitudes of the Sermon on The Mount. (The Lord’s Prayer is part of the Sermon on The Mount.) Learning to pray is one path that helps usher us to the greatest of God’s blessings.