"Thy will be done" (Matthew 6:10).

The formula taught by Jesus is easy to repeat, but it is often more difficult to grasp. It is with good reason that God says through the mouth of the prophet Isaiah : "For my thoughts are not your thoughts ..." (Isaiah 55: 8). Are we able to grasp at all times what the will of God is ?

Are we not inclined to confuse sometimes our will, or that of our religious system, with the will of God ? Now, alone, the will of God is sovereign.

It is because the will of God has been confounded with the will of this or that religious system that the history of the Church has been marked by persecutions, exactions, crimes, wars of religion ; Now, God did not want them any more than he wants them to-day. How often man confuses his desires, his prejudices, his ambitions with the will of God, has been the source of many tragedies, sufferings, and even the origin of the rejection of faith by the unbelievers who Saw such actions !

Another way of misunderstanding the will of God is to make God responsible for every good or bad event: the slightest encounter, the relief of a migraine, personal trials and collective dramas, everything would be Receive as wanted by God ! Ah, how we understand the revolt of those who live today the drama of famine, those overwhelmed by disease or any natural cataclysm ! Let us remember that certain events, happy or unfortunate, arise from human actions.

In connection with prayer, let us note one of the most assertive wills of God : What God wants is the salvation of all men : "God did not send his Son into the world to judge the world, But that the world may be saved by it" (John 3:17). Peter writes : "God does not want any one to perish, but all to come to repentance" (2 Peter 3: 9) ; And Paul says : "God wants all men to be saved ..." (1 Tim 2.3 / 4).

However, let us not forget that God willing that this will be fulfilled had to send his Son into the world. In the same way, our prayer, for the salvation of men, must lead us to commitments of love to our fellow men.

My prayer on this day :

Teach me Lord to understand what your will is, not to take my will, or that of a religious institution, for your will. And when I know what your will is, I am ready to accompany my prayer, to fulfill it, with a commitment of concrete love.

Paul Calzada

"Thy kingdom come" (Matthew 6:10).

This prayer joins what is said in Psalm 2, where it says : "Ask of me, and I will give you the nations for an inheritance, the ends of the earth for possession" (Psalm 2.8).

We are told that one of the prayers of the son (in whom we see the person of Christ) is to ask the nations for an inheritance (verse 8). If he is asked to ask the nations for inheritance, what should we do ? Nothing but what he does. That is, to ask that the reign of the Messiah come upon all nations. The book of the apocalypse ends with this prayer of the Church : "Amen, Come Lord Jesus" (Revelation 22:20). In other words, the church's prayer is to ask that Christ come to establish His reign of righteousness, peace over all nations.

It is the ultimate prospect, the culmination of our hope: that the kingdom of God be established over all the nations of this world. Now we know that it is with the return of the Lord that this kingdom will be established! So to ask God : "Thy kingdom come ..." is to desire the return of the Lord. It is not only the desire but also the act of hastening its return, as the Apostle Peter reminds us : "... you wait and hasten the advent of the day of God" (2 Peter 3:12).

How can we hasten this advent ? Certainly by praying, but by accompanying our prayer with a testimony of the Gospel to all nations. It is not enough to pray for the nations but to go to the nations, announce the Good News of Jesus Christ dead for our sins, resurrected for our justification, returned to the Father where he intercedes for us, His own and establish his Kingdom. Thus, the church sighs after the coming of this glorious reign, not only in prayer, but also in testifying in such a way as to hasten this advent.

To say : "Thy kingdom come ..." is to ask the King to come :

In my heart, that my life may be a reflection of His glory.

- In the life of those around me, that they may know him that is dead and risen for them.

In this world, to establish his reign over all nations, according to the prophetic promises, as the prophecy of Isaiah 11: 1-10.

My prayer on this day :

Lord, with all who await your return, I say on this day : "Come Lord Jesus." May the testimony of the church to the nations help to hasten this advent. Amen !

Paul Calzada

"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you shut up the kingdom of heaven to men, and you do not enter into it yourself, and you do not let in those who want to enter" (Matthew 23:13).

In this verse, Jesus emphasizes that these religious prevented the coming of the reign of God in the lives of those who rubbed shoulders with them. Insofar as God's reign over our lives is a reality, our desire, our prayer, is that those who have not yet entered can enter. If we want the lost to enter the kingdom, we must pray and act in ways that will facilitate their access to the kingdom.

Jesus remarked to the Pharisees that they prevent those who follow them from entering the kingdom. How do they deal with the coming of the reign of God in the lives of the people who are with them ? To answer this question we might cite several reasons mentioned in chapter twenty-three of the Gospel of Matthew. Let us remember all these reasons, the one that summarizes them : "They say and do not" (Matthew 23: 3). They do not set a good example.

If we want the reign of God to come around us, it is essential that our prayers be accompanied by a way of life that gives envy to those outside to want to enter this kingdom.

The prayer that calls for his reign to come must be accompanied by personal attitudes and behavior, which bear witness that it is worthwhile for God to reign. To pray for his reign to come is to love the lost to the point of giving our lives for them. Here are some prayers from those who truly wanted his kingdom to come:

D.L. Moody : "When I see these thousands of young people on the path of eternal death, I fall at Jesus' feet, praying with tears, I want to save them."

John Knox, while his wife urged him to rest a little, answered : "How can I sleep while my country perishes ?" And he persevered in prayer all night telling God : "Give me Scotland or I die !"

John Wesley said : "Give me a hundred preachers who fear nothing but sin and want nothing but God ; For it is they alone who can make the gates of hell tremble and build the kingdom of God on earth."

Whitefeld prayed : "Oh Lord, give me souls or take my life !"

My prayer on this day :

Lord, I want to pray with passion that your kingdom may come into the lives of those around me. May my life make them want to accept that you reign over their lives. Amen !

Paul Calzada

"Thy kingdom come" (Matthew 6:10).

If it is true that God must be the first in our prayers, we see that we must then direct our requests to the coming of his reign.

But is not God already king of the earth and the whole universe ? Certainly God reigns, and he could impose his will in every place, but he is too respectful of the liberty of his creatures, that he reigns only where he is wanted.

God wants to rule over humanity, but it does not impose itself. He waits for us to say to him: "Come reign in me". To pray for his reign is to pray first for his reign to be an evidence in our lives.

The apostle Paul writes : "For he must reign until he has put all the enemies under his feet" (1 Corinthians 15:25). In writing this, he emphasizes the fact that the reign of the Lord is an imperative : "It is necessary". When we pray for his reign to come, it implies that we place ourselves first on the list of those on whom we want him to reign.

That's where it starts. Why ? Because many personal, relational, affective, family, spiritual, social problems etc. Would find their solution if the reign of the Lord was effective in our lives. It was rightly said : "If Jesus is not the king of all, he is not the king at all."

For the reign of God to be established in your life, it is not necessary to obtain a special passport, it is necessary before all things that you long for it.

To pray that the reign of God will come is to approach God with the heart of a child, a simple heart, stripped of all personal merit. Jesus reminds us with these words : "Leave the little children, and do not prevent them from coming to me, for the kingdom of heaven is for their likeness to them" (Matthew 19:14). God reigns where he finds simplicity and humility.

I remember this beautiful hymn which was, in fact, a prayer, and which said : "Reign in me, mighty king reign in me : Master my heart, come to reign Lord, and your will be mine forever. I, mighty king reign in me."

My prayer on this day :

Lord, reign over my heart, my thoughts, my life. I acknowledge your sovereignty, and accept it unreservedly. I put myself at your disposal to do what you want. I want you to reign over every corner of my being, that you may be seen in me by those around me. Amen !

Paul Calzada

"May your name be sanctified" (Matthew 6: 9).

When we pray and take the time to put God first, when we give him first place in our prayers, it only makes sense if he has the first place in our whole life. In short, is it really the Name of God that is sanctified in our lives and lives ? Is there not an idol who takes the first place in our personal piety ?

The Bible tells us about various divinities that can take the first place. Let us quote the love of money or the god Mammon : "You can not serve God and Mammon" (Matthew 6:24). There is also the "belly god" which characterizes the search for pleasure and material well-being : "They have for their gods their belly, they put their glory in what makes their shame, they think only of the things of the Earth "(Philippians 3:19). The Scripture also mentions the god of this age (2 Corinthians 4: 4), to which it is necessary not to conform: (Romans 12: 2).

When we pray and say : "Hallowed be thy name," it implies that our sanctified life causes the world to sanctify the name of God. It is his glory that his name is sanctified in us and through us. It depends on our life that its name be sanctified among the nations, and that is why we ask that this name of God be sanctified in us and by our life. If we live according to the Spirit, the divine name will be blessed; But if we live according to the flesh, he will be blasphemed. This is what Paul reminds of the Jews who transgress the moral principles of the law : "The name of God is blasphemed because of you among the nations" (Romans 2:24).

When we say, "Hallowed be thy name," we are personally engaged. In order that the name of God may be sanctified, it is proper to live ourselves the sanctification which is offered us in Jesus and by Jesus. Through Jesus, God "calls us to sanctification" (1 Thessalonians 4: 7). "It is through him that you are in Jesus Christ, who by God has been made for us wisdom, justice, sanctification and redemption" (1 Corinthians 1:30).

In the old covenant, so that the priests may sanctify anything, they had to sanctify themselves first. In the same way that we may sanctify the name of God, we ought to be sanctified, set apart by the grace which is in Christ.

My prayer on this day :

May my life, my deeds, my words, my attitudes, my thoughts sanctify your name, Lord, in this day and every day. Amen !

Paul Calzada

"To an unknown god, what you reveal without knowing it is what we announce to you" (Acts 17:23).

As he walked through the streets of Athens, Paul discovered an altar erected to an unknown god. For our part, we pray to God, and we sanctify His Name : "May your name be sanctified" (Luke 11: 2). God has a name. This is not an unknown. To say someone's name, to call him by name, is a manifestation of the bond that unites us to him.

The first person to think of when we pray is God. Our first request is for him : "Let thy name be hallowed." Jesus knows that our natural tendency when we pray is to put our lives, our needs, our problems first, but he tells us to put God at the top of the list.

We are so selfish that even in our prayers we are always tempted to bring everything back to ourselves. How often prayers begin with this petition : "Lord, bless us !" It is not that it should not be done but it is that it is necessary before to do, put God first. Personal queries come later.

Our first request concerns God ! God first served : "Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and the rest will be given to you more" (Matthew 6:33).

The name God revealed to Moses is written : YHWH. The Jews do not pronounce this name, which is besides unpronounceable in their language. When they see these four letters, they say Adonai, "Lord." The root of this tetragrammaton means : "I am". To ask that the name of God be sanctified is to remember that "I am" is always there.

This prayer : "May your name be sanctified" may seem incomprehensible. Indeed, God being infinitely holy, what can we add to His holiness? Sanctification means putting something apart. Now, God is already holy because he is apart, he is out of time and above all. However the fact that we put his name first, that prayer begins with him and honors his name, is an important key to be answered.

To worship God, to raise his name, to put him first in prayer is essential. What God seeks is not beggars who come to beg him a thousand little things, but worshipers who adore him in spirit and truth (John 4:23).

My prayer on this day :

Just as Daniel blessed the name of God, and put God first in his prayer (Daniel 2.18 / 23), help me Lord, to raise and honor your name before any other consideration, in my prayers. Amen !

Paul Calzada

"Let us therefore approach with confidence the throne of grace, in order to obtain mercy and find grace, to be helped in our needs" (Hebrews 4:16) ; (Hebrews 7: 18-19) ; (Hebrews 10:22).

When we pray to God, let us remember that he is not confined to an inaccessible heaven. Just as the God of heaven has come to us, it is also possible for us to cross the heavens to reach the throne of God. Even the obstacle of the second heaven, where Satan and his angels reside, can not prevent us from reaching God.

As we have seen in the verse of this day, three times the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews speaks to us of this access. He points out that what enables us to reach God is our assurance based on grace and not on our works. The accusations of the devil do not have the power to prevent us from reaching God when our hearts are washed by the blood of the Lamb.

On the other hand, if we give our hearts some access to the devil, then he accuses us and makes us a barrier. The apostle Peter mentions one of those situations in which our prayers can not overcome the devil's opposition : "Maris, show your wisdom in your relations with your wives ... honor them ... Let him So that nothing may come to hinder your prayers" (1 Peter 3: 7).

When violence, contempt, conflict, are within a couple, their prayers can not reach the throne of God. It is necessary beforehand, that the grace lived in the pardon, take up all its place in their relations. When we leave the field of grace, the adversary seizes this to hinder our prayers.

To pray to our Father in heaven is to detach our gaze from the terrestrial contingencies, to take pitch in relation to difficult material situations is to move away from the visible to enter the invisible and the eternal , Is to remember that he is the God who transcends all situations and that he remains the foundation of our hope !

My prayer on this day :

Thank you Father for this infinite grace that allows me to approach you freely. You fill the space and the time, you dwell in an inaccessible light, yet clothed with the righteousness of Christ offered to me by pure grace, I can come before you without fear, you the great God of heaven and earth Earth. Amen !

Paul Calzada

"Our Father who art in heaven ..." (Matthew 6: 9).

Just as we must realize, when we pray, that God is our Father, we must also become aware of his position : "in heaven."

This position is often recalled in the Bible : "And he said, O LORD God of our fathers, art thou not God in heaven, and art thou over all the kingdoms of the nations ? (2 Chronicles 20: 6). We can find this in many passages like : Nehemiah 1.5 ; Nehemiah 2.4 ; Nehemiah 2:20 ; Psalms 11: 4 ; Psalms 103.19 ; Psalms 2.4 etc. It should be emphasized that the word "heavens" is plural. The apostle Paul alludes to this plurality when he speaks of a particular experience made by someone : "I know a man in Christ who was fourteen years ago delighted to the third heaven Was in his body I do not know, if it was out of his body I do not know, God knows it "(2 Cor.12: 2).

He mentions a third heaven. If the Bible speaks of a third heaven it is that there is a second and a first. The first heaven is the one accessible to men. It is the visible sky, the one that one can reach with planes, rockets, space probes or that one can observe with telescopes. It is the visible universe, and immense, with its galaxies and billions of stars.

The third heaven is that in which God resides ; Out of time and space. But where is the second heaven, the one halfway between the first and the third ? We find a verse that speaks to us of this heaven : "I saw another angel flying in the midst of heaven, having an eternal gospel, to proclaim it to the inhabitants of the earth, to every nation, to every tribe, Language, and to all people "(Revelation 14: 6).

In Ephesians 6:12, it is said that this second heaven is the place of abode of wicked spirits. Satan is in this heaven, and he seeks to stop the action of God in our favor. We have an example of this in Daniel's book : "He said to me, Daniel, do not be afraid, for from the very first day in which you took heart to understand, and to humble yourself before your God, your words were The chief of the kingdom of Persia has withstood me for twenty-one days, but behold, Michael, one of the chief chiefs, has come to my aid ; I dwelt there with the kings of Persia" (Daniel 10.11 / 13). In the Book of Revelation we are told that the devil will one day be dislodged from this second heaven (Rev. 12: 9-10).

When you pray, do not forget that even in this second heaven, God reigns ; All legions of demons will not be able to hinder your prayers when you are in the communion of the Father. Certainly the struggle may require perseverance, as for Daniel, but the final victory belongs to God.

My prayer on this day :

Everything is under your control, I trust in you. Amen !

Paul Calzada

"I tell you again that if two of you agree on earth to ask for anything, it will be granted to them by my Father who is in heaven, for where two or three are assembled in my name, I am in the midst of them" (Mat.18.19 / 20).

In the model prayer, which Jesus leaves us, he uses the plural "our". In doing so, he shows us the ties that bind us to other believers in Christ. We are not unique children, but we have brothers and sisters. By taking up the images of Scripture which describe the Church, it is said that we form a body, that we are an army, that we are a temple made of many stones, that we are a flock. All these images emphasize that we are not alone. True, prayer has a personal dimension, but it also lives in communion with the body of Christ.

The word "our" emphasizes the importance of this horizontality in which we communicate with each other, so that we can communicate together vertically with "the Father of the Enlightenment" (James 1:17). This term, "our", imposes an examination of ourselves, to see if we can truly say that we love the brothers, even before we think of addressing ourselves to God.

Sometimes we say, "Our Father," and we present ourselves before Him as children who quarrel. Every wise father, when his children quarrel, will take his children near him, and will invite them to ask forgiveness. So it is with God; Before he can listen and hear us, he invites us to work on the quality of what is essential to our brotherly relationship: "But I tell you that anyone who becomes angry with his brother deserves to be punished By the judges, and he who will say to his brother, Raca, deserves to be punished by the Sanhedrim, and he who will say to him: Foolish, deserves to be punished by the fire of Gehenna. At the altar, and remember that your brother has something against you, leave your offering there before the altar, and go and be reconciled with your brother, and come and present your offering" (Matthew 5:22). / 24).

What power in prayer when hearts are gathered, in true communion, around the Lord ! Re-read these passages : Acts 2.1 ; Acts 2.46; Acts 4.24 / 31; Acts 5.12. The word "together" goes well beyond a gathering in one place. He speaks of a communion of heart and spirit with one another. The disciples prayed in being one heart and one soul, so it was followed by marvelous graces.

It is preferable to be only two or three to pray "together", as has just been said, that fifty or more who do not have the same thoughts. Work to improve fraternal communion with the other disciples of Christ.

My prayer on this day :

Help me to see in the other, the son, the daughter, of my Heavenly Father, so that my fellowship with him may be deepened.

Paul Calzada

"You have not received a spirit of bondage to fall into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption which makes us cry out: Abba, Father" (Romans 8:15).

Not only is God our Father because He created us, but God also has the right to the name of Father, because He has adopted us. Having adopted us, he gives us his inheritance : "We are his children, and we are his heirs" (Romans 8:17).

When we pray, it is vital to approach him, having this perception that he is our Father full of love and compassion. He receives us, as James says, without reproaching us : "If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all simply and without reproach" (James 1: 5).

Calling God our Father implies attitudes toward him that are those of respectful children towards their respectable father. Now God is a respectable father. Some children have a distorted image of God because their natural father is (or has been) violent, angry, or rude. It is important that this distorted image of God be replaced by that given to us by the Bible, that of the father of the prodigal son, for example. (Luke 15.11 / 32).

God being our Father, we owe him the honor : "If I am a Father, where is the honor due to me" (Malachi 1.6). Honor our Father, not only with our lips, but with our hearts (Isaiah 29:13). Let us honor God by our life, that it be the reflection of his person. Let us honor God by our works, so that they may become subjects of praise to those around us (1 Peter 2:12).

We owe him, too, obedience. "Our fathers according to the flesh have corrected us and respected them, and how much more must we submit to the Father of spirits" (Hebrews 12: 9). It also reminds us that we owe him respect.

Praying with this respectful vision of God is a fundamental element of the effectiveness of prayer. God is not our friend, and even if he is close to us, he is our respectable and worthy Father.

Advice for this day :

Pray to God by being truly aware that you are in the presence of the most holy, most respectable, most worthy of honor. Accept his sovereignty over your lives, and approach him with confidence, he loves you more than you can imagine. Direct your requests directly to him as the first disciples did : "The Church never ceased to address ... prayers to God" (Acts 12: 5).

Paul Calzada