JULY 2021 NEWSLETTER
JULY 2021 NEWSLETTER
Robert
Lindenberger
3325 3rd Avenue
Mims, FL 32754
321-368-7184
Our Father in heaven, holy be your name, your kingdom come, your
will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
And forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver
us from evil. Matthew 6:9 – 13
Every day, Christians all over the world join
other believers in saying the prayer Jesus taught His disciples. We might feel both wonder and gratitude for
his extraordinary invitation to commune directly with his heavenly Father.
Since Jesus said he could do nothing but
his Father, what about us?
Jesus provides a model for approaching
the Father that is succinct yet complete.
The disciples knew Jesus’prayer life was
central to all he said and did, and they were aware of his intense love for his
Father, so it was natural. They would
ask him to teach them to pray. The model
He shared with them was succinct, yet theologians have always marveled at its
completeness.
Jesus starts by focusing on the first
essential. Instead of rushing into our
requested pleading for what we want God to do, we first recognize we have a
Father in heaven.
Those of us blessed with a loving
relationship with an earthly father know how empowering and marvelous that
is. The fact we can have a loving
relationship with our heavenly Father is a revelation for a promise and
hope. Jesus tells us we have a
Father. We can count on a Father who
listens to his children. The prayer
Jesus acknowledges our heavenly Father is holy and that God has a purpose for
us on earth that resonates with his purpose in heaven.
The psalmist often urges us to sing and
even shout our praise to the Lord. But, to genuinely praise him, we need to
know of “his wonderful works,” and there is none more wonderful than his loving
the world that he sent his only son to redeem us. God is holy, not in the caricatured way TV
and movies depict “holier-than-thou” characters, but holiness as wholeness,
health, purity, and joy.
We pray, “Your will be done, on earth as
it is in heaven.” Because our heavenly
Father will transform and redeems his creation, we pray for breakthroughs of
his heavenly will, breakthroughs of redemption, and grace on earth.
In this model of prayer, only after we
affirm our Father and his heavenly work do we bring him our request. In fact, that’s the briefest part of prayer,
one line only. Then we get down to
dealing with our weakness and sins, asking for our Father’s forgiveness, as we
forgive those who sin against us.
Elsewhere, Jesus firmly said, we must forgive others if we expect to be
forgiven ourselves.
And then we pray about our temptations
and about the Evil One. There is no
hiding from the fact that we are tempted and that evil is rampant in the
world. We bring that to our Father with
a call for his engagement, for his power to be shown, and for our empowerment
of his holiness – “deliver us from the evil one” (NIV).
So Jesus, in describing how to pray,
shows us that first we call to the fatherly, holy God revealed in the
Scriptures. Next, we affirm his justice and his purposes on earth. Then we make requests and ask for his
cleansing and grace and protection against the evil powers so evidently after
everywhere. 1.
In my June newsletter, I told about
having cancer and having it operated on. So many people ask what kind of cancer
is it. I now have an answer: MERKEL
CELL CARCINOMA (NEUROENDOCRINE CARCINOMA), SHAVE BIOPSY. I said it was bad cancer, and so it is. I am
now two weeks into radiation therapy with only four more weeks to go. All this makes me ask, “why me? The Holy Spirit, who lives in my heart, said
lovingly, “why not you!” His answer was
like a time bomb exploding in my head. I
remembered back to the time He met with me and brought me back into the loving
arms of our Father. That night he asked
me a question. “What do you want from
me, Bob?” I said, “I want to be a writer
and write about you – a helper to those in need.” After that encounter with my God, I call it
my HiddenVillege Homecoming; because our Father gave a new robe and welcomed me
home, I joined an online writers club. This club was a great learning
experience for me, and they had a Writer’s convention. I won a scholarship to
attend. One of the classes offered was
writing devotionals. The wonderful good
writer who was teaching said, “You won’t be any good writing to people in need
unless you’ve been there. You need to
feel their pain.”
Now I know “why me?” and honestly can from
the bottom of my heart cry out PRAISE GOD for loving me through it all and:
I’m only human, I’m just
a man
Help me to believe in what I can be and all that I am
Show me the stairway that I have to climb
Lord, for my sake, teach me to take one day at a time
One day at a time, sweet Jesus, that’s all I’m asking of you
Give me the strength to do every day what I have to do
Yesterday’s gone, sweet Jesus, and tomorrow may never be mine
So for my sake, teach me to take one day at a time
Do you remember when you walked among men?
Well, Jesus, you know, if you’re looking below, it’s worse now than then
Pushing and shoving, crowding my mind
So for my sake, teach me to take one day at a time
One day at a time, sweet Jesus, that’s all I’m asking of you
Give me the strength to do every day what I have to do
Yesterday’s gone, sweet Jesus, and tomorrow may never be mine
So for my sake, teach me to take one day at a time
1. Harold Myra, let
not your heart be troubled, Pp 55-58
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