The Lord's Prayer (It's Yours) -- Jesus, Matt Maher, Bryan Fowler, Jacob Sooter

Another way of saying what they thought about in this song was the oft-used acronym KISS – Keep It Simple Stupid (but make sure you say this especially to yourself if you use that ‘Stupid’ word, and not to others). Don’t make something too complicated, and particularly when you look at “The Lord’s Prayer”, as Matt Maher, Bryan Fowler, and Jacob Sooter did when they repeated and updated it with a few reminders for themselves (See here the late 19^th Century artwork The Lord’s Prayer, by James Tissot.)  The words Jesus used to teach His hearers in His great sermon (Matthew 6/Luke 11) were also those by which He lived and taught every day, so when Matt, Bryan, and Jacob put in a few extra words, they must have been looking at Him and His life’s consistency, and how they thought they should respond to Him daily, too. With any familiar words used repeatedly, day after day, there is a risk that the words become a rote exercise, but one of these three 21^st Century composers says his regular use of the prayer has had the opposite effect. Should we expect that the prayer basics that Jesus taught would remain any less stimulating for us as the day He first spoke them?

 

Jesus readily responded to the people who asked Him how to pray, something that really indicated how the people already trusted Him. And yet, He didn’t offer them promises about Roman comeuppance, about redemption of the Jewish nation to its former autonomous status, or about prosperity for themselves. It was instead all about each individual’s one-to-one connection with God and with each other. In short, each of us needs to find ourselves in His corner and trust that He provides, prompting us to treat each other as He has treated us. Matt said in 2022 (perhaps a year after the 21^st Century version of the prayer-song was written) that he thought it was all about reminding himself about spiritual basics, when he and his family would echo Jesus’ words each day. Making things too complicated had been one of the spiritual traps into which he’d often fallen, Matt admits, so making this prayer a daily habit was intentional from a foundation-building perspective. Moreover, he found that he would discover something anew each time he mimicked Jesus in this way. Do you suppose Jesus intended this phenomenon when he taught the people? Certainly, Jesus wanted you and me to personalize the prayer, and because each day is new, how I live out that prayer just might change ever so slightly, or perhaps more radically on occasion, as my life unfolds from day to day. One might gather that that is what Matt and his two friends were also thinking when they added some words to the prayer, particularly the phrase ‘right here in my heart’, which is sung seven times to emphasize how today’s disciple responds to what Jesus said. Matt, Bryan, and Jacob added some other words to underscore that the world He created, and the kingdom Jesus came to initiate, are His…’it’s yours, all yours’. That is so very crucial to accept, not just as a believer, but as a human being created by Him. If I don’t acknowledge His ownership, I can spend my life as an empty exercise in accumulating stuff for myself, none of which I can take with me to the other side of mortality’s conclusion. On the other hand…   

 

…when I discover and accept that He’s the LORD, as in landlord and people-Lord too, then I can aim at the only target that makes sense: His kingdom. That’s the one that is enduring, because He brought it with Him when He was here on earth, and its expansion to millions and even billions of people since then just cannot be rolled back. Read Revelation, and remind yourself who wins in the end. Why would you not want to be connected to what He – the Resurrected One – has begun and which will overpower death, because He has already done so as the First-Born? I have no better option and no other plan that offers what He’s begun in His kingdom. Do you? See if Jesus’ simple, but still-potent words work for you.  

 

Read the story from the principal author-composer of this 21^st Century version of the prayer here: Matt Maher Goes Personal with "The Lord's Prayer (It's Yours)" : News : JubileeCast

 

See information on the image here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Brooklyn_Museum_-_The_Lord%27s_Prayer_(Le_Pater_Noster)_-_James_Tissot.jpg (found at this link -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord%27s_Prayer ) …The author died in 1902, so this work is in the public domain in its country of origin and other countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 100 years or fewer. This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published (or registered with the U.S. Copyright Office) before January 1, 1930.