What is the Lord’s Prayer? The Lord’s Prayer is a short prayer but one with layers of meaning, just like the parables which Jesus told. Read our free online book The Lord’s Prayer for Daily Life to start peeling back these layers today.
Regardless of your faith and beliefs, The Lord’s Prayer for Daily Life will challenge your preconceptions, deepen your wisdom, and encourage you to start living life more fully and with more joyfully today.
Just want to read the Lord’s Prayer? Click here. Want more out of the Lord’s Prayer and how to pray? Below you will find all the chapters to the Lord’s Prayer book, as well as translations of the Lord’s Prayer in various languages, including the King James Version, Aramaic, Greek, and Latin. Let’s get started…
The Lord’s Prayer for Daily Life: Where is Our Joy?
Introduction… The Living Hour: The Lord’s Prayer for Daily Life takes a fresh and non-dogmatic look at the Lord’s Prayer to reveal new perspectives on the esoteric teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is an SBNR book for Progressive Christians, Unitarians, Agnostics, & all spiritual seekers interested in discovering a more joyful and fulfilling life… Henry David Thoreau, tucked away in his Walden cabin, famously said that most of us lead lives of quiet desperation. That was in 1845. Today, things are not so quiet. Anxiety and depression are regular rites of passage from which millions never graduate....
The Lord’s Prayer Meaning: Our Father Who Art In Heaven
Chapter 1 Our Father who art in heaven… (Understanding Our Relationship to God) The Lord’s Prayer begins with an idea that seems easy enough to understand. Jesus wants to establish God as our heavenly Father, and we as his children. What we often fail to notice though is what Jesus doesn’t say—yet what he leaves out is just as important. What Jesus doesn’t say is that we should pray to God as “My Father.” We are taught to address him as “Our Father” because prayer is not about individualism. It is not a private wish factory,1 churning out favors so that we can escape the hardships of life. Its purpose...
Understanding The Lord’s Prayer: Hallowed Be Thy Name
Chapter 2 Hallowed be thy name… (Understanding God’s Identity) Jesus establishes God as a heavenly father figure, but that’s not enough for most of us. Without a name, he seems lost in abstraction. Try as we might, we simply can’t bring him into view. There is only the vague presence of someone hovering around us—like the adult of a Charlie Brown Peanuts Special, always outside the frame, speaking in a strange indecipherable language. Jesus understands our predicament, but unlike Moses, who chiseled the Word to fit the hardness of our hearts,1 he isn’t going to bend the gospel around our weaknesses. He’ll...
Teaching the Lord’s Prayer: Thy Kingdom Come
Chapter 3 Thy kingdom come… (Understanding God’s Will) With the second line of The Lord’s Prayer, we arrive at the heart of the matter: God’s kingdom. To understand how Jesus views his Father’s kingdom, we first need to do some–thing that will seem strange. We must take all discussion of “Heaven” off the table. There will be no talk about heaven with a capital “H,” the place we think we’ll go to (if lucky) when we die. We’re just not going to go there. Why? Because as soon as we see heaven and hell as proper names, as specific places where rewards and punishments are meted out, the acceptance...
The Meaning of Lord’s Prayer: Thy Will Be Done
Chapter 4 Thy will be done… (Understanding God’s Will) In the Book of Luke, there is a curious statement about God. Luke quotes the prophet Isaiah as saying that through Christ (the Lord) all mankind shall see the “salvation of God”.1 Considering the ham–fisted way that Jesus’s twelve apostles (not to mention the Pharisees and Sadducees) often handled Old Testament scripture, we might be tempted just to pass over this comment from Isaiah. But that would be a mistake. Christ, through the power of the Holy Spirit, has been inspiring prophets since the beginning of the world. 2 Jewish scripture, like all holy scripture,...
The Lord’s Prayer: On Earth As It Is In Heaven
Chapter 5 On earth as it is in heaven… (Understanding God’s Divide) In the last two chapters on the Lord’s Prayer, we’ve established that our entrance into the kingdom of heaven depends on our sense of wonder; our ability to think and love; our patience; and our acceptance of will as a matter of choice—a choice shared equally with God, the Father. We’ve also learned that the kingdom is filled with potential, and with treasures that can be experienced today and every day. Unfortunately, we often lose sight of this. Even those who have dedicated their lives to preaching the Word of God often remain just outside...
Lord’s Prayer: Give Us This Day
Chapter 6 Give us this day… (Gathering the Moment at Hand) Up to this point in the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus has been laying a foundation—one that establishes our relationship to God and his creation. When we recite the beginning of the prayer, we are thus engaging in an act of grounding, reminding ourselves that at the core of our existence we remain rooted in Christ.1 With the foundation complete, Jesus moves on to what many of us think is the business of prayer: asking for things. But as we mentioned in Chapter 2, prayer isn’t about asking for special favors. In fact, it isn’t even about “asking” at all—since,...
Lord’s Prayer: Our Daily Bread
Chapter 7 Our daily bread… (Gathering Our Inheritance) Knowing that we can claim ownership of our inheritance in the living hour is one thing. But what are we supposed to do with that knowledge? The childhood keys of wonderment and immediacy help unlock the door to the kingdom of heaven, but they don’t have the power to usher us across the threshold. To cross into the kingdom and gather our inheritance, we have to move beyond the carefree world of the child and into the care-driven world of adults—to expand our concerns beyond the “me” to include the “us”. We can begin by recognizing that although the spontaneity...
Lord’s Prayer: And Forgive Us Our Trespasses
Chapter 8 And forgive us our trespasses… (Removing Our Hindrances Part II) We’ve just described our journey toward a life in Christ as a rising. But the act of “rising” (such as rising above petty arguments and concerns) can sometimes get us into trouble, especially we Christians. The reason is that when we rise toward our divinity, we often look down on others with a misguided sense of superiority.1 Jesus condones none of that. He knocks us off our pedestals by insisting that we wash the feet of others if we are to have any part of him.2 To keep us grounded Jesus also teaches that our rebirth in Christ is owed to both...
Lord’s Prayer: As We Forgive Those Who Trespass
Chapter 9 As we forgive those who trespass against us… (Removing Our Hindrances, Part II) Removing the hindrances that block the coming of Christ involves more than just seeking forgiveness. It means giving forgiveness, too. And that can be pretty tough sometimes. As Christians we often think that unless punishments are meted out swiftly and severely our communities will turn into modern day Sodoms & Gomorrahs. In America this fear fuels our continuation of the death penalty, world record incarceration rates, and overflowing court dockets. There is not a lot of forgiveness going around—to put it mildly. Christians know (or...
Lord’s Prayer: Lead Us Not Into Temptation
Chapter 10 And lead us not into temptation… (Overcoming Our Pride) Having led us through forgiveness, the Lord’s Prayer turns to temptation. Jesus approaches the subject from a curious angle. He asks us to pray that the Father will not lead us into temptation. This inevitably causes us to ask: Why would an all–good God lead us to the devil’s doorstep? If we believe in the Lord, does he not reward that faith by leading us away from temptation? Before answering those questions, we need to remember that we are partners with God in this life. Although he regularly grants us blessings in the form of our “daily bread,”...
Lord’s Prayer: But Deliver Us from Evil
Chapter 11 But deliver us from evil… (Overcoming Our Egos) When pride is overcome, we cure a symptom of our separation from God not its root cause. We are like the frog born at the bottom of the well, who is unaware of the larger world that exists beyond the walls of his home. These walls are what psychologists have come to call the ego, and the well itself what Jesus (lacking our modern lingo) called the pit, where the fire (i.e. our desire) is never quenched.1 It is what some have called our “original sin”. Yet “sin” is the wrong word. For sins are connected to choices. And we did not choose to be placed in the well—although...
Lord’s Prayer: The Kingdom, The Power, & The Glory
Chapter 12 For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, forever, amen. (Understanding God Time) The Lord’s Prayer began by grounding us in our relationship with the Father, and it ends now by solidifying our faith in that kinship. We have already talked about how the kingdom, power, and the glory of God are played out within the living hour; but most of us are not satisfied with this daily bread. We want to know that there is a divine plan, with a definitive beginning and end, that’s been arranged by the Father. Our desire to see the culmination of God’s plan is what led Jesus’s early Jewish followers to...
Teaching The Lord’s Prayer
The Living Hour: The Lord’s Prayer for Daily Life is an SBNR (Spiritual But Not Religious) book based on the belief that reason and faith must walk hand in hand. It is the perfect book for exploring your own spirituality, as well as teaching the Lord’s Prayer to others. It will challenge your preconceptions and help you acquire new perspectives on The Lord’s Prayer, Christianity, and a life of faith, while also encouraging you to ask new questions and seek fresh answers within the context of your own experience. The book is split into two parts: the Living Hour commentary and the New Century Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke,...
The Lord’s Prayer: King James Version
The following is The Lord’s Prayer from The King James Version (KJV) of the Holy Bible, the prayer which Jesus taught his disciples when they asked him how to pray, the prayer which is the Rosetta Stone for understanding the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The prayer appears twice in the KJV Holy Bible: in the Gospel of Matthew 6:9-13, and in the Gospel of Luke 11:1-4. The prayer which Jesus teaches his disciples and appears in the Book of Luke is slightly different than Matthew’s version, which appears below. One difference is that the last line of the prayer is not included. The Lord’s Prayer – King James Version Our...
The Lord’s Prayer In Aramaic
There have been many translations of The Lord’s Prayer in hundreds of languages. But the one which perhaps is most fascinating to Christians is the translation in Aramaic, the language which Jesus spoke. The following is an Aramaic translation of The Lord’s Prayer, the prayer which Jesus taught his disciples when they asked him how to pray, the prayer which is the Rosetta Stone for understanding the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The Lord’s Prayer in Aramaic Abwûn: Oh Thou, from whom the breath of life comes, d’bwaschmâja: Who fills all realms of sound, light and vibration. Nethkâdasch schmach: May Your light...
The Lord’s Prayer In Greek
There is a humorous story about an American congressman who, fighting for the sanctity of the English language, exclaimed that if English was good enough for Jesus Christ it’s good enough for him! As most of us know, Jesus did not speak English. His native language was Aramaic. And the Gospel scriptures were written in Greek. For those curious, the following is a Greek translation of the Lord’s Prayer, the prayer which Jesus taught his disciples when they asked him how to pray, the prayer which is the Rosetta Stone for understanding the Gospel of Jesus Christ. ΠΑΤΕΡ ΗΜΩΝ Ο ΕΝ ΤΟΙΣ ΟΥΡΑΝΟΙΣ ΑΓΙΑΣΘΗΤΩ...
The Lord’s Prayer – In Latin Translation
It really is a shame that we no longer teach Latin in our schools, for Latin has a grace, beauty, and music that English has a difficult time rivaling. This is not to say that Latin is better than English, only that each language has different strong points; and gracefulness is one area where Latin usually triumphs. The following is a Latin translation of The Lord’s Prayer , the prayer which Jesus taught his disciples when they asked him how to pray, the prayer which is the Rosetta Stone for understanding the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We suggest that it be read it out loud for full appreciation. PATER noster, qui es in caelis, sanctificetur...
The Lord’s Prayer: In Pennylvania Dutch (Deutsch)
The Lord’s Prayer played a strong role in the services and worship of the Germans who settled in Pennsylvania. Pastor David, the director of LivingHour.org, numbers his ancestors among these German settlers. In homage to them, we offer a Pennsylvania Dutch (Deutsch) translation of The Lord’s Prayer, the prayer which Jesus taught his disciples when they asked him how to pray. It is this prayer that Jesus advises us to pray instead of making requests for specific things, as God already knows what we need. The Lord’s Prayer Unsah Faddah im Himmel, dei nohma loss heilich sei, Dei Reich loss kumma. Dei villa loss gedu sei, uf...
The Lord’s Prayer: In A German Translation
German theologians such as Paul Tillich and Gerhard Ebeling have had a tremendous impact on what we call the Progressive Christian movement today, their works being as vital and contemporary now as when they were written. In tribute to them and other German theologians, we offer the following German translation of the Lord’s Prayer, the prayer Jesus taught his disciples when they asked him how to pray, the prayer that is the Rosetta Stone for understanding the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The Lord’s Prayer Vater unser im Himmel, geheiligt werde dein Name. Dein Reich komme. Dein Wille geschehe, wie im Himmel so auf Erden. Unser tägliches...