A Longer Prayer
This will be the last exhortation to confession based on the Lord’s Prayer, and my goal is to wrap up this series with an extra-biblical bow.
I grew up in a King James Version only church. Because of that, the prayer of Jesus I memorized as a kid is a little longer than what’s found in the ESV and, for that matter, in the accepted Greek New Testament. There are some later, meaning less old so less likely to be original, manuscripts that include a final phrase after “deliver us from evil” in Matthew 6:13. That final phrase is: “For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.”
These words aren’t original to Jesus, but they are biblical, just not in the Gospel of Matthew. Consider this prayer offered by King David in the presence of the assembly:
Yours, O LORD, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, for all that is in the heavens and in the earth is yours. Yours is the kingdom, O LORD, and you are exalted as head above all. Both riches and honor come from you, and you rule over all. In your hand are power and might, and in your hand it is to make great and to give strength to all. And now we thank you, our God, and praise your glorious name. (1 Chronicles 29:11–13, ESV)
Every prayer made by faith, and each petition that Jesus taught His disciples to make, is a desire for God’s praise. When we ask for and hope in His future reign, when we ask for and trust in Him for today’s provision, when we ask for and extend His forgiveness, when we ask for and live in His sovereign protection, we are acknowledging His majesty and we are back at the beginning: hallowed be Your name with glory forever.