A House of Stones

Matthew 6 contains the great prayer that Jesus taught his disciples to pray. It has come to be known as “The Lord’s Prayer” and is found in verses 9-13 of Matthew 6.

The first word of the Lord’s Prayer – Our – reveals that to properly pray we must see ourselves as part of the community of God’s people. There is no “churchless Christianity.” We are not like space capsules with two passengers – God and us. That is a good picture of the heights we can go with Jesus, but that model alone is “too lofty” an analogy for us. We are something more earthy, more practical than that. We need to keep our feet on the ground and realize that we have come up out of the dirt. We are stones. But, the good news is that the Bible says we are living stones, and that we are being built into a spiritual house – God’s house (1 Peter 2.5). God lifts up the stones not by throwing them into the outer reaches of space, but by building them together into his house.

We are saved to be in the community of God’s people. So when you pray, you can say, “My Father.” That is good, but it only goes so far. “Our Father” goes a lot farther, building us into the family of God.