The Written Word as Spoken in the Lord's Prayer

The Written Word as Spoken in the Lord’s Prayer

I have been asked to say a few words about the power and the meaning of the spoken and written word. I can think of no better place to start than with the Lord’s Prayer. For years I have recited the Lord’s Prayer without much thought to what I was saying or for that matter, what Jesus was truly saying when He gave it to the disciples.

Let me start with, “Thy Kingdom Come, Thy will be done.” The modern English translation to this phrase is, “For you to enter into God’s Kingdom, you must first carry-out God’s will here on earth.” This is consistent with God’s word and the salvation of souls. Those who are saved are born again and have surrendered their lives to Christ. They put God before themselves and chose to do His will over their own. True surrender means imagining what Christ would do or say if He were in your shoes. To live in such a manner is to cleanse your temple and to invite the Holy Spirit to live within you. Since the risen Christ, God’s will is written in our hearts and we are no longer subject to the law of the Ten Commandments. As Paul put it in Galatians 4:3-7, “Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world: But when the fullness of time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law, To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. And because we are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying Abba, Father. Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ” (see also Hebrews 8:7-10).   The more we listen, the clearer and louder God’s desires become. When God’s will is in our heart and we choose to follow our heart at any cost, the Holy Spirit lives within us.

“Thy Kingdom Come, Thy will be done” is followed by, “In earth as it is in heaven.” All together, the translation becomes, “For you to enter into God’s Kingdom, you must first carry-out God’s will here on earth as you will do when you are in heaven.” God is telling us to live by example. Regardless of our motives or inner thoughts, in the end, we will be noted for our works. Good intentions mean nothing without works. We must live our lives by example. As we learn in James 2:20, “…faith without works is dead.” James 2:21-24 read in part, “Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar? …by works was faith made perfect. ...Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith alone.” We all want to do God’s will, but to what extent? Do we have the strength to always choose His will over our own? Where do we rank this responsibility and what do we do to show the love of Christ? Just how important is it to us? Certainly a divine and righteous God who created and provides all things has every right to demand that we put forth our very best attempt to live a Christ-like life. We will of course fall short of perfection because we are born to sin. Paul tells us in Romans 3:23-24, “…all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God: Being justified freely by his grace, through the redemption that is Christ Jesus.”  Fortunately, our God so loved us that He gave His only begotten son who has paid the price for our imperfection. However, to give anything less than our very best is to dishonor the sacrifice that was made on our behalf. 

“In earth as it is in heaven” is followed by, “Give us this day our daily bread.” Few realize that this is a promise from God to those who truly love Him and place Him first in their lives; above all others and all things. Proverbs 3:9-10 says, “Honor the Lord with thy substance, and with the first fruits of all thine increase: So shall thy barns be filled with plenty, and thy presses shall burst out with new wine.” See also Luke 6:38 and 2 Corinthians 9:6-8.

Next, we read, “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” Those who are redeemed already know that Christ has paid the price for their sins; past, present, and future. So, what exactly does, “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors” mean and how do we affect our own forgiveness? We learn in 1 Corinthians 3:11 that no foundation can be built, but the foundation that was already laid by Jesus Christ. 1 Corinthians 3:12-15 tells us, “Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble; Every man's work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is. If any man's work abides which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself, shall be saved; yet so as by fire.” Though saved, we shall all stand before judgment one day. Let us hope that in that day the Lord has placed our sins as far from sight as the East is from the West because we have placed the sins of our trespassers as far from sight as the East is from the West; nevertheless, we are saved. Again, we must place God’s will before our own. We must forgive the sins of those who have offended us; by the strength of Christ, we must bury their sins deep in the ground; and we must forget where and what we have buried. Our rewards for such a life are greater than we can imagine. “…Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him (1 Corinthians 2:9).

Lastly, the Lord’s Prayer ends, “Amen.” We are taught as Christians to end our prayers with the word, “Amen” and we generally do this without giving it much thought; sort of like finishing a child’s story with, “and they lived happily thereafter,” or a good book with, “the end.” Imagine how different our prayers would be if we accounted for the true meaning of, “Amen.” The direct English translation of the ancient word, “Amen” is “Believe.” Belief is the basis of faith. How much more will our father want to answer our prayers that we close with a reassurance of our belief and faith that He will love us and keep us, than our prayers that end with, “the end?” There is power in knowing what you say when you say, “Amen.”

Let us pray together in the words that Christ has given us:

Our Father which art in heaven,

Hallowed be thy name.

Thy kingdom come,

Thy will be done in earth, 

as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread:

And forgive us our debts,

as we forgive our debtors.

And lead us not into temptation,

But deliver us from evil:

For thine is the kingdom,

And the power,

And the glory,

forever. Amen.

Be merry and Rejoice! Nobody loves you more than God the Father, God the Son, and The Holy Spirit.

Merry Christmas
David
www.firstvespers.com

A Poet's Testimony (Part 5)

A Poet’s Testimony (Part 5)

I left work nine months short of a bridge to full retirement, with an eleven month continuation of my monthly salary  (a month for every two years of service), and the after-tax cash buy-out of my contributions to the retirement fund. Essentially, I could continue living as I had been for about a year before my world would collapse.

It is always inevitable that as companies grow, regulations increase, and profits become more important than people, success comes with employing new technologies, streamlining tasks, and down-sizing the workforce.  Previous to losing my job, I had survived five company down-sizing efforts and over the course of five years, watched many of my friends and peers lose their jobs. After watching so many of my friends lose their jobs, I decided to make myself financially liquid two years prior to losing my own job. I sold my retirement home on the river and used the profits to put a down payment on two duplex apartment buildings and bought a third larger and newer duplex in the country with no money down on a 30 year VA loan. The third duplex in the country was the one we called home.

Our medical insurance was transferred over to Cobra and skyrocketed to nearly a thousand dollars a month. Seeking another source of income to help pay the bills when my monthly salary would expire in a year, I took the buy-out from my retirement and put 20% down on two additional duplex apartments. We now had a total of five duplexes. As I rushed to remodel the two newly purchased duplexes, it became apparent that we would not be able to keep up with the mortgage on our duplex in the country. We put it up for sale, sold it and came just short of breaking even. Then we moved into one of the apartments I was renovating. By the grace of God, we managed to get the remaining apartments remodeled and rented just before the cash ran out.

Then the new year and income tax time rolled around and we received the shocker of our lives. My after-tax cash buy-out was now taxable as income towards the purchase of our newly acquired duplexes. I had a reported income greater than what I paid taxes on, I owed the IRS $40,000 and interest was accumulating at $80 a day. I had no money to speak of, minimum income from the apartments, and no way to pay them off. I was forced to sell off one of my earlier duplexes that I had put a large down payment on for a loss. When I first attempted to pay off the IRS, they would not accept the check because three days interest had accumulated while it was in the mail and it was not considered payment in full. I ended up having to overpay them and wait another two years to get my money back.

Shortly after paying off the IRS, a couple of roof rafters collapsed from the weight of snow in the apartment we were living in and we awoke to water running all over my wife’s cherry dining-room table and chairs. I managed to get the roof rafters jacked back up and secured from inside the attic and paid some kids to shovel off the roof. We were thankful that it did not happen at one of the units we were renting.

Before losing my job, I was a collector of animal graphic ginger beer bottles from the 1800s.  I had acquired every animal graphic made in Canada, the U.S., and most from England; as well as a few from Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. Considering my circumstances, I quickly realized that the fun had been in the collecting, not the owning. The internet was changing everything; eBay was just coming into its own and some of the rarer bottles that I had paid $50 or $60 for were now selling for $300 to $1200. I began selling off my collection that had taken me since college to acquire; a bottle at a time to help pay the bills.

We had purchased and sold enough properties by that time that my wife had become friends with a few of the realtors. When a couple of the ladies broke off to start their own real-estate company, they asked my wife to come along, and so she tried her hand at real estate. She was the low gal on the totem pole in a start-up company so there unfortunately weren’t a lot of profits to be made in the short-term.

By the end of my second year of being out of work, I had flown out of state for several job interviews and had countless phone interviews, but no job offers. Then one day, long after all the profitable bottles had been sold, my wife was leaving for work and told me that we had only $800.00 in the bank and that she had no idea how we would be able to buy groceries and make our mortgage payments that month. This was the first time that she had shown any outward sign of fear or worry since I had been out of work. I broke down as soon as she pulled out of the driveway and fell to my knees in prayer, “My God, haven’t I done all that you asked of me? What more can I do? My wife is afraid and I have no way to comfort or reassure her. How can I provide for her? My life and subsistence is in your hands.”

Ten minutes later, the phone rang with what would turn out to be the best  job offer of my entire life from an interview that I had had three days previous. I got off the phone and was driven to my knees by the power of the Holy Spirit. I lifted my arms and began to weep. I praised God for His mercy and grace. This was a job in Wisconsin and it took every bit of our $800.00 to get out there and get set-up. My first paycheck was just in time to pay the mortgages and buy some groceries.

Once there, God spoke to my heart through the power of the Holy Spirit; saying, “This is your time on the mountain. Use it wisely.” This was an answering to prayer and I knew then that my time alone was meant to serve God. I began to pen First Vespers and God again spoke to me through the power of the Holy Spirit to reassure me of my path. The miracles that I have seen are more than this testimony and too many to list. By the grace of God, Jesus has stood in my filthy, dirty house and He has washed it clean with the brightness of His light.

A Poet’s Testimony (Part 4)

A Poet’s Testimony (Part 4)

Finally out of college, I landed what most would consider a dream job; I was an Instrument & Controls technician for a nuclear power plant still under construction in Oswego, New York. Once built, the plant had an expected life of forty years. If I played my cards right, I would be set for life. While under construction and before the NRC established mandatory fatigue rules, I was working twelve hours a day, seven days a week, and rolling in the dough; however, I had no time to spend any of it. All I did was sleep, eat and work.

I obviously have no justifiable right to complain about work, as most people would have done almost anything to have the job I had, but the grass is not always greener. My wife, the boys, and I lived comfortably, but I was miserable. After the construction was complete, things weren’t much better. I went into management and quickly found out that I could get paid the same for working sixty hours as for forty hours and that fifty plus hours were expected each week. Still I managed to go to college nights for the next ten years and finished my Engineering Degree, usually one course at a time. I even went after my Master’s Degree for a bit, but finally had enough and dropped out nine credits short of finishing. My additional education hadn’t earned me an extra dime at work and I was tired of spending every free minute studying. I wanted some kind of normalcy in my life.

One emergency, one project, one cause evaluation, just leads to another. As soon as I finished working weekends to get some new thing up and running, it would be time for me to gear up for the next new thing. It never stopped and my time was never my own.  My wife and I tried going to church on the weekends when we could and I still read the Bible when I could, but that was the extent of our Christian life. I had no fellowship with other Christians and I was about as far from God as a believer could be. After twenty years, I didn’t like myself much. I was short with people and often lost my temper with my boys. My wife seldom got the attention she deserved and I complained incessantly. Deep down, I knew that I wasn’t living the life that God had intended for me; I had chosen profits and material goods over spiritual growth.

After my sons had left home and they began taking care of themselves, I became a little bolder and more outspoken at work. The last two years I spent daily praying that God would somehow free me from my bondage so that I could come to know Him and live the life He had intended for me. I couldn’t imagine how God could do this without destroying everything about me, but I knew that if anyone could pull it off, it would be God.

Twenty-two years into my career, my six co-workers and I were called into a closed door meeting with our Director. The Director began to belittle us for not contributing to a company sponsored charity. I won’t mention the name of the charity, but I will tell you that they had just received a considerable amount of negative press concerning misappropriation of funds, exorbitant salaries, private jets, and expensive out-of-town parties. It was known at the time that less than 60% of a given contribution would actually reach the charity and I had a list of all the senior management contributors in my pocket. I could have kept my mouth shut like everyone else that morning and I could have been a good employee, but I just couldn’t take the hypocrisy and lying anymore. Before I knew it, the words just came out of my mouth, “I have a list here of all the senior management contributors and you’re not on it.” The Director stuttered for a bit and finally managed to spit out, “I have a wife and three kids.” Again, my mouth moved without restraint, “So does everyone else in this room so you have no right to tell us what charities we should contribute to.” The meeting was quickly adjourned and I went from being an exemplar employee to an employee needing improvement in one day. Every line of my six-page performance appraisal was lined out and replaced with the same hand-written note; “David does not know how to act professionally in a public meeting.” Two weeks later, the company had a downsizing based on people’s performance appraisals. Mine was one of the lowest on site and I at last found my freedom.

For me, an enormous weight was lifted off my chest on the day I was let go; I felt a peace that I hadn’t experienced in over twenty years.  Not everyone of course took the news so well and security guards were present when the notifications were made. My Director personally escorted me off-site; he apologized for the way things turned out and seemed puzzled as to why I was selected. I reminded him of my most recent performance appraisal, but also assured him that he should not give it another thought. I remember saying, “This might just be the best day of my life.” I left there with the biggest smile on my face, absolutely confident that God had other plans for me.

A Poet's Testimony (Part 3)

A Poet’s Testimony (Part 3)

My first job out of college was a three month Co-Op from Rochester Institute of Technology that turned out to be a nine month position as a Project Coordinator for Pennsylvania Power & Light Company out of Allentown, Pennsylvania. Fortunately, my sister lived in nearby Whitehall where I was able to rent a room from her. By then, my girlfriend and I were serious about our relationship and commitment to one another. She would try to drive down and see me for the weekend when she could and I would try to drive up to New York and see her for the weekend when I could; typically every other weekend. It was a long and grueling six hour drive after a full day’s work on Friday.

This was at a time early in my Christian walk, a time before I had an established personal relationship with Christ. I longed for a return to the innocent and blind faith of my youth, but had no idea how to get there. One weekend when I was driving back to Whitehall from New York, rather than listening to the radio, I decided to pray for the entire six hour drive. I was a much undeveloped Christian at that point and still very immature in my praying life. I had no idea how to speak to God, let alone how to pray for six hours, so I recited the Lord’s Prayer for the entire trip. I have no idea what I was praying for, maybe that God would just grab hold of me and say, “Here I am.” I was obviously looking for some kind of intervention and guidance in my life. God did not speak to me on that trip, but I did experience a peace and comfort in my life the following week at work that I hadn’t remembered feeling in a long time. I decided to do the same thing on my trip back to New York a few weeks later.

There was a terrible snow storm that weekend. I was driving a two wheel; rear drive Toyota Corona two-door with summer tires and the quickest route required that I take 15 North over the Pocono Mountains.  From experience, I knew that the road might soon close due to the weather. I raced to get to the top of the mountain where rather than getting turned around and having to take a three hour detour, I would simply be forced to go down the other side of the mountain, as I intended anyway. I was no doubt driving too fast for the road conditions. As anyone who has taken this route can attest, when you near the top of the Poconos on Route 15, it is a shear drop off of several hundred feet on one side of the road and mountain on the other side. As I drove along reciting the Lord’s Prayer at 55 to 60 miles an hour, I had no idea that I was driving on an eight inch thick sheet of ice, now covered by fresh snow. Not surprisingly, I did not see another vehicle on this well traveled road for my entire climb to the top.

Just as I reached the top of the mountain and going around a curve that followed the contour of the mountain, I lost control of the car. At 60 miles an hour, on a sheet of solid ice, my car began spinning around in complete 360 degree circles. I saw my headlights first shine over the drop-off to my right, then against the mountain to my left. By the time I had spun around three times, I could see that my car was drifting nearer to the edge and not across the lane to the mountain. I had only time to say one thing; I yelled, “Jesus!” I wasn’t swearing and I wasn’t necessarily calling for help; I was simply calling to Jesus because I knew in that instant that in a very few seconds, I would be seeing Him. I had innocent blind faith and no doubt. As soon as the word, “Jesus” left my lips, I heard a loud explosion to my left. My car spun past the thin guard rail to the outside of the road and to the lane in front of me just in time to see the flash of two red lights that were the taillights of a eighteen wheeler, the first vehicle I had seen on my entire drive up the mountain. The explosion that I heard was the truck in front of me bouncing up and down. The weight of the truck, the roughness of the road, and the hand of Jesus had broken-up the ice. Just as I saw the taillights, I saw enormous eight inch thick blocks of ice flying to the right and left of the truck. It was like the parting of the Red Sea. My car dropped into the trench created by the displaced ice and my spinning tires touched blacktop for the first time in a long time. The spinning tires screeched as they hit the blacktop and I gently touched my breaks to slow down to keep from hitting the truck in front of me. I was able to slow down to around 30 miles an hour before I hit the bump that was the edge of the ice and placed me again on top of the ice, directly behind the tractor-trailer truck, but going much slower. I followed the tractor-trailer down off the mountain where he pulled into a truck stop and restaurant and I continued on my journey home.

Many who have experienced similar circumstances may chalk them up to chance, good luck, or even fate. As a younger man, I may have even agreed with them, but not today. I have a degree in mathematics and I know full well that I have long since passed the probability of chance. If left up to chance, good luck, or fate, the odds are no longer in my favor. I can no longer take the most often traveled and easy road. I admit that there is one greater than me, one in whom all things are possible. As a matter of fact, I want to shout it from the rooftops. Jesus is Lord! I called upon His name and He saved me in an instant. I drove on dry blacktop between the displaced ices and walked on dry land between the parted seas! I saw the finger of God come down to earth. Amen.

A Poet's Testimony (Part 2)

A Poet’s Testimony (Part 2)

I didn’t know it at the time, but when I awoke on that couch the next morning, some thirty plus years ago, my life would be forever changed. This was the absolute first time in my life that I had recognized an answer to prayer as doing something beyond my capability as a man to accomplish. God had done something beyond me that could not possibly be attributed to chance. I had prayed a prayer with a good heart to do what God would intend me to do and God had answered my prayer in a night. Skeptics might simply call this a self-fulfilling prophecy, nothing more than my subconscious causing something to happen that I sincerely wanted to happen, but they were not there. I was in a bad place and I was heading down a very dark road.

God had turned hatred to love and planted a seed of faith in a night. That morning I knew that there was nothing that God could not accomplish. The answer to my prayers was limited only by my faith and the Godly intent of my prayer. I set out on a mission to build my faith with God’s help and to be strong through affliction where He would talk to me the loudest. Faith was daily in my prayers.

A few weeks later, my then girlfriend, now wife of thirty years, told me that she had glaucoma and that she had an appointment to see her doctor. She was worried about the outcome because her eyes had been under pressure and she was having headaches. I secretly read-up on glaucoma and discovered that people with glaucoma often times go blind. I will not lie to you; my initial thoughts were selfish thoughts of how my life would be impacted by her blindness, but I quickly snapped out of it and remembered my vow to be strong in affliction. Allowing myself one McDonald’s chocolate milkshake a day, I fasted for breakfast and lunch for three days and prayed for a positive outcome from the eye doctor that week.

When I picked-up my future wife at the eye doctor, she was quiet and somber. She gazed out the front windshield of my truck and didn’t say much of anything. After a few minutes when I couldn’t take it any longer, I asked her how it had gone at the eye doctor. Her response was precious; she said, “Oh, everything is fine, just like always. My pressure has not changed much and my headaches are probably due to all the pollen this summer.” I had been hoodwinked; her eye pressure had been relatively the same since she was first diagnosed and began treatment; but I assumed the worst and never asked. I wasn’t sure if it was the devil or God Himself playing tricks on me. In the end, all I could do was laugh at my own stupidity and acknowledge that although probably not necessary, my prayers had been answered.

I continued on my faith building quest. Today, my faith is unshakable, but still not a mustard seed. I still struggle to find a worldly answer to what can be accomplished by God with man’s faith. He has no worldly bounds that I can define as a man and His love pours forth like a never-ending mountain spring.

A Poet's Testimony (Part 1)

A Poet’s Testimony (Part 1)

One evening while studying for a test at college, I found myself reading the same three to four chapters of an electronics book over and over; nothing was soaking in. I no sooner read it than I forgot it. I couldn’t figure out what was wrong, had years of substance abuse caused me to be incapable of learning or was I just too stupid to learn? As I mulled over all these excuses in my mind, the answer suddenly became clear; my mind was so absolutely full and preoccupied with something else that nothing new was capable of getting in. I had been hurt by someone and I hated them for it. My heart had been broken and sorrow had turned to loathing. It had so completely taken me over and I didn’t even see it coming. It was a deep, deep hatred; a kind of dark and shameful disdain. It was the kind of hatred that seeks revenge and takes comfort in other’s pain and misfortune. It was the first time I recognized it and I was ashamed. I saw that I had chosen to do the ungodly thing and that I had been willfully feeding my anger for nearly two years.

I prayed as I never prayed before that night; My God, my God, I am so ashamed! I know now that I continue to willfully offend thee, but I can no longer control these feelings that now control me.  I cannot do this without you my God. Please cleanse me and take this hatred from me that I may live again. I fell asleep that night weeping with the Bible in my hand. When I awoke, I was a new man; my hatred had been replaced with love, understanding, and forgiveness. My thoughts were once again my own.

Twenty-five years later, after I had been saved and I had chosen to follow Christ, I found the strength to contact the one who had so devastatingly nearly brought me to my end. I immediately told her that I harbored no ill will towards her. We corresponded by e-mail for a bit and one day she apologized for what had happened. I told her that I never again wanted to hear her apologize for something that had happened so long ago. Never bring it up again; those demons were put to death twenty-five years ago. She later told me that she cried for three days and I knew that it had been wrong for me to withhold my forgiveness from her. It was something that she needed to hear. The circle of forgiveness was then complete and all wounds were on the mend or healed.

To be continued...