Over the centuries, the Lord's Prayer has drifted into a repetitive prayer that does little to change one's heart for God. Jesus demonstrated an example of how to pray to the Father in heaven, but it wasn't intended to be "copied and pasted" into worship services. God doesn't desire lifeless repetition of words, His desire is for our heart to mirror His. God allows us to pray to Him through a saving relationship in His Son. Repetitive chants, prayers, and actions are in many ways lifeless religious activity. (Mt. 6:9-13) What Jesus taught was a deeper example on how to approach the Father in the way that brings Him glory, not a series of words to be said over and over. 

So why did Jesus give this example? It was used to demonstrate that God-honoring prayer is based upon fear of the Lord and the desire to bring glory to the Father. To understand its individual elements it is easy to remember the rule of the four "R's. The first "R" stands for reverence, "Our Father who art in Heaven hallowed be your name." Jesus demonstrated to honor God is to approach Him with awe and reverence. Remembering that God is holy, and we are sinful creatures needing a Savior to honor God we do it on His terms. We must align our heart and mind in acknowledging the awesome God we serve.

The second "R" stands for response. Jesus taught that we ought to seek the face of God and wait upon His response to us with His words, "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done." What you do in heaven we want here on Earth. We want to align ourselves to your will in the world and our own life. We pray for His will to be done in us as grateful recipients of His mercy and grace. There is no greater thing that can be done in our life that to know and do the will of God. We are created to be in relationship with Him which must be based upon what He wants from us in return. 

The third "R" stands for requests when Jesus said, "Give us this day our daily bread, forgive us of our debts." Jesus demonstrated we wait upon the Father's provision in life, not our desires but our true needs. We understand that He is our provider and cares for and that we should also ask daily for the forgiveness of our sin in life. God gave us His only Son to die for us and pay our sin debt forever and we do not want to take it for granted ever. Jesus' words also show that we should feel honored to ask God for anything that is aligned to His will in our lives. 

The final "R" stands for readiness when Jesus taught to ask God, "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil." God out of His love for us answers prayer and petitions while keeping us safe in His Son. Jesus freed us from slavery to sin and the penalty of death. The indwelling Holy Spirit, gives us power to overcome temptation and find victory in Christ. (1 Cor. 10:13)

Therefore we seek the face of God and then we ask for the hand of God in our lives through the example Jesus gave us. It was not intended to repeat exactly as Jesus did like any other verse but to trust in the goodness of God and following in His Son by obeying His commands.