Student Study Guide
Lesson 20
The Six Principles of the Lord's Prayer
Introduction - The Problem with Prayer and the Pattern That Solves It
Introduction
More Christians struggle with prayer than with almost any other area of their spiritual life. The honest answer is that the struggle is largely the result of not knowing how to pray, not a deficiency of desire or spirituality. And Jesus addressed this problem directly. He did not leave prayer to personal improvisation. He taught a pattern.
1. James identifies two reasons why prayers go unanswered: not asking at all, and asking . The word "amiss" means , incorrectly aimed.
2. Jesus did not leave prayer undefined. He gave not a set of to repeat but a of principles to follow. "After this manner therefore pray" (Matt. 6:9).
Your Reflection
Principle One - Hallow His Name
Worship Before Asking
Principle 1 of 6
The first movement of prayer is not petition - it is worship. Most prayer lives collapse before they begin because people come to God with an immediate list of needs. God becomes a spiritual ATM, a divine dispenser approached with the right code. Jesus says: "When you come before My Father, you come honoring Him, worshiping Him, magnifying Him for who He is."
The Lord Your Provider
The Lord Your Peace
The Lord Your Healer
The Lord Your Righteousness
The Lord Who Sanctifies
3. Two things happen when a person spends real time in this first movement. First: the of God begins to come - God is enthroned in the praises of His people. Second: rises. The circumstances that drove the person to prayer suddenly look different when measured against the God who created the universe by speaking.
4. The alternative - coming to God with complaint, blame, and "why" - is a form of . It bypasses worship and arrives in the posture of . And grievance never opens the door to the secrets of God or the answers He longs to give.
Your Reflection
Principle Two - Pray His Kingdom and His Will
Kingdom Before Personal Agenda
Principle 2 of 6
This comes before personal needs. The language is forceful: "Your kingdom come! Your will be done!" These are not gentle requests. They are declarations, commands spoken into existence, the language of someone who has the legal right of authority to establish what they are saying.
5. To pray the will of God is to take the and turn them into declarations: "Father, Your Word says that by His stripes I am . I pray Your will of divine healing to break loose in my family."
6. This movement also accomplishes something in the one praying: it the will of the petitioner with the will of God. By the time a person has spent substantive time here, they are no longer coming with a personal to get God to endorse. They are coming with God's agenda as their own.
7. The promise attached to this alignment: "If you ask anything to His will, He hears you, and if He hears you, you have the petitions you have asked of Him" (1 John 5:14-15).
Your Reflection
Principle Three - Our Daily Bread
Personal Petition from a Position of Faith
Principle 3 of 6
Only now - after worshiping, after praying the kingdom and will of God, after faith has risen and personal will has been aligned with His - does Jesus introduce personal petition. The scope is comprehensive: natural, physical, financial, emotional, and spiritual provision for what is needed today.
8. The daily framing is deliberate. God structures provision this way not because He is but because He is . Daily dependence creates daily . He wants to be sought every day, encountered every day, thanked every day.
9. By this point in the prayer, the positioning is completely different. The person who has genuinely moved through worship and kingdom prayer arrives at petition already full of , already with God's will, already in His . What they ask, they ask from that position.
Your Reflection
Principle Four - Forgive and Receive Forgiveness
The Non-Negotiable Condition
Principle 4 of 6
10. Debts are things you have specifically done wrong - . Debtors are people who have done you wrong or sinned against you and in some way you something.
11. Note the condition: God requires that you others before He will you. Your forgiveness is on you forgiving.
The Parable of the Unforgiving Servant (Matthew 18:23-35): The king forgave his servant a debt estimated at billions. That same servant immediately demanded payment from a fellow servant who owed him a small amount. When the king heard, he called the servant wicked and delivered him to the torturers until the debt was paid.
12. The word "torturers" in Matthew 18:34 is the strongest word in the Greek language to describe oppression. If you do not forgive, not only will you not be forgiven, but you will be turned over to be .
13. Jesus not only wanted to be sure we were free to receive , but also to keep us from the "." Unforgiveness is not a minor spiritual inconvenience - it is an open door to demonic torment.
Your Reflection
Principle Five - Deliver Us from Evil
A Daily Defensive Perimeter
Principle 5 of 6
14. The best literal translation: " us to Yourself and away from the evil one." In this prayer we have given the Holy Spirit permission to , identify, and expose any area of vulnerability.
15. The enemy's work is and . He does not typically destroy lives through dramatic single moments of catastrophic failure. He advances through small, unnoticed steps of compromise, through the gradual of sensitivity to the Holy Spirit.
16. The Holy Spirit will . He declares the things yet to come - not only the good things ahead, but the enemy's and the specific approaches being prepared. He is, in the most exact sense, an operative working on behalf of the believer.
The Collapse Is Not Overnight: The moral failure of ministers, the drift of congregations from holiness - these do not happen overnight. They are the accumulation of days and weeks in which this fifth prayer was not genuinely prayed, in which sensitivity to the warning voice of the Spirit had been slowly diminished through prayerlessness and exposure. Daily prayer for deliverance is not a ritual formality. It is a defensive perimeter, renewed every single day.
Your Reflection
Principle Six - Close with Prophetic Declaration
Anchoring Everything That Came Before
Principle 6 of 6
Jesus does not end the pattern of prayer with a soft whisper. He closes with a declaration - a thunderous, faith-filled statement of reality that anchors every petition that came before it. The word "for" carries the weight of "because."
17. "Yours is the " - His royal rule and sovereign reign over all creation. Not a kingdom under threat. A kingdom He already .
18. "Yours is the " - the raw, supernatural, active, dynamic strength and authority that created the universe and Christ from the dead. That same power is behind every prayer you pray.
19. "Yours is the " - Everything comes from Him, flows through Him, and returns to Him. The blessing comes us, but the glory goes Him. That distinction matters. A lot.
► Three Declarations for Three Situations
When it looks like evil is winning and ungodly powers are running unchecked - declare it: Yours is the KINGDOM.
When you feel weak against temptation or overwhelmed by the strategies of the enemy - declare it: Yours is the POWER.
When you are tempted to seek recognition or build your own platform - declare it: Yours is the GLORY.
20. This is not positive thinking. This is aligning your spirit with eternal . It shifts you from self-focus and begging into and believing.
Final Reflection
Lesson 20 - Practice Test
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Part A: Multiple Choice (5 questions · 2 pts each)
1. According to the lesson, why do most believers struggle with prayer?
2. What does the lesson say happens during the first movement of prayer (hallowing God's name)?
3. What does the lesson say happens in the one praying during the second movement (praying the kingdom and will)?
4. According to the lesson, what does the word "torturers" (Matthew 18:34) describe, and what triggers it?
5. What is the purpose of the closing declaration ("Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory")?
Part B: True or False (6 statements · 1 pt each)
1. Jesus gave the Lord's Prayer as a set of exact words to be repeated verbatim in every prayer session.
2. Praying the kingdom and will of God (Principle 2) is meant to come after personal petition, as a way of dedicating already-received answers back to God.
3. God structures provision on a daily basis not because He is stingy but because He is relational - daily dependence creates daily relationship.
4. The collapse of believers into moral failure and the drift of congregations from holiness typically happen through a single dramatic event, not through gradual erosion.
5. According to the lesson, the first two movements of prayer (worship and kingdom prayer) can sustain an hour to an hour and a half of genuinely engaged prayer without ever arriving at personal petition.
6. God requires that we forgive others before He will forgive us - our forgiveness is conditional on our extending forgiveness to those who have wronged us.
Part C: Fill in the Blank (5 items · 1 pt each)
1. Jesus said "After this therefore pray" - teaching a pattern of approach, not words to repeat verbatim.
2. The first principle is to enter the gates with before making any petition.
3. Praying the word of God means taking the Scriptures and turning them into of God's will.
4. When it looks like evil is winning, declare: "Yours is the ."
5. Unforgiveness opens the door not just to unanswered prayer but to demonic .
Part D: Short Answer (completion credit)
1. Describe all six principles in order, with one sentence each stating what each principle accomplishes.
2. Why does the lesson say prayer should begin with worship rather than petition? What specifically happens during this first movement?
3. Explain what the parable of the unforgiving servant teaches about forgiveness in prayer. What is the consequence of failing to forgive?
Part E - This Week's Prayer Commitment
Commit to following all six principles in sequence for at least 20 minutes each day this week. Which principle will be hardest for you? Why?
Is there any person you need to forgive before your next prayer session? Name them (to yourself or in writing) and make a decision.
Write out the closing declaration now as if you are ending a prayer session - filling in what YOUR kingdom, power, and glory mean for a specific situation you face: