Luke 11

If we want to be followers of God, there should rise up within us a desire to know how we could listen to His voice, and how it might be that we could speak to Him. One of the great challenges that we face in this current age is the troubling separation between heaven and earth. A consequence of that separation is that we cannot see into their world, and we cannot rightly talk to them, or be with them. The only connection for us between heaven and earth is through Jesus Christ. Through Christ, we hear the Word of God, and through Him we offer up our prayers to God. This is a wonderful blessing. In Luke 11, Jesus gladly teaches His disciples how to pray.

Jesus tells us that we too can address God as our Father. This is a tremendous privilege that comes to us because of our connection with Him as the only-begotten Son of the Father. We are to seek first things related to God and His kingdom, that His Name would be treated with the highest dignity, and that His kingdom, the kingdom of heaven, would come upon the earth. When we seek these things, we know that we are asking for that which is certainly in God’s will.

It is also in God’s will that, as a secondary matter, our needs would be provided for. He will give us the coming bread, tomorrow’s bread today, if we ask Him. This is more than a provision of our daily needs; it is a gift of heaven’s resources on earth now, perhaps reminding us of how Christ supplied heaven’s wine at a wedding in Galilee when those who were hosting the party had used up all that they had. We also stand in great need of forgiveness, since the Lord’s Law is so big, and it is very dangerous for us when we violate it. With this we need to have the gospel sense to know that we need to forgive others who are in our debt because of their sins against us. Finally we need help from on high to stay away from the pathway of temptation, for we are not as strong spiritually as we often pretend to be.

What we are asking for is a slice of heaven’s bread in a world that is currently under God’s wrath and curse. Jesus urges us to ask with insistence and persistence, for these are things that God will surely help us with. He is the one who suggested these topics. This is one way for us to think about what heaven is like, for surely the prayers that God has suggested to us are answered in full there. In heaven, the name of God is honored, His kingdom if obvious and wonderful, our needs are supplied, our hearts receive and give the fullest forgiveness, and temptation to sin is very far away, for we have been completely delivered from evil in that place. This is the kind of life that Jesus will bring to a renewed earth when He comes again. We know these things even now, because God is such a good Father to us, and He grants us a deposit of the age to come already in His gift to us of the Holy Spirit. We are told to ask for these things, and so we should.

As we seek His generous provision of heavenly life even today here on earth, we make our request knowing that there is a spiritual battle raging all around us. Jesus was far more aware of this struggle than we are, and He was always on the right side of the fight. To Him it was obvious that Satan was not dismantling his own powers by sending demons fleeing, but that such things could only be done by a strong Adversary of the devil. We need to be aware of the trouble that we face, and to trust the Lord to fight the battles for us that He is well equipped to win. It is ours to repent from sin, to trust in God, and thus to resist the devil with the confidence that, according to the word of God, Satan will surely flee from us. It is ours to hear the Word of God and to keep it by the power of grace that God alone supplies.

Those who should have been listening to these words of Jesus, seeking Him, following His commandments, had a different idea. They wanted a sign. He promises only the resurrection sign of Jonah. Here was the Man who was wiser than Solomon, but they simply would not listen to Him. Their spiritual eyes were dark with greed and foolishness. They loved the traditions that assured them that their hands were clean, but they seemed insensible to their need for new hearts. They were in no condition to be a light to the Gentiles, because they did not have the light of God within them. They were attentive to external forms, but equally dedicated to secret immorality proceeding from their depraved desires. They were scrupulous in the outward obedience that could be seen among men, but Jesus knew their hearts, and saw the needs that they seemed to ignore.

The way of the Pharisee and the scribe was not the way of Jesus Christ. He plainly showed to them their failing in theology and in behavior, but they were unwilling to receive correction from Him as the divine provision, the Messiah, the Son of Man. They proved who they were most supremely as they sought to kill Him. They wanted His destruction. In doing this they not only made His point, they also played the part that God had ordained for them as a means that would lead to the cross. Through the death that they longed for, some of them who would later repent and believe in Him, would actually have their sins atoned for. Even many of these Pharisees, and a great many of the priests would eventually say the prayer that He taught to His disciples. They would call God their Father, and they would hear the Word of the gospel as a true Word for them from heaven. This is the love of Jesus. When we were yet His enemies, He died for us.