THE FAMILY ALTAR

May 20.

"Our Father, who art in heaven." Matt. 6, 9.

With what reverent and fervent joy we ought to pray the

Lord's Prayer, the prayer taught us by the loving and holy lips

of our Lord Jesus Christ ! How rich and blessed that prayer will

always make us if we really pray it and not merely say it. What

danger, what loss, what calamity need we fear, if the almighty

and everlasting God, the Maker of heaven and earth, the Giver

of every good gift, is our Father in our Lord Jesus Christ? He

is in heaven, high above all earthly fathers, not subject to their

infirmities, not limited in His power and love as they are, but

able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think.

Just stop to think what it means to have God's eyes watching

over you, God's hands protecting and guiding you, God's heart

loving and cherishing you with everlasting love ! Then you are

not alone and forsaken in this poor world, though you have no

other friend beside. He is an omnipresent God and Father, and

wherever you are, whatever your trouble or woe, you can go to

Him and pour out your aching heart on His loving bosom and

be comforted with divine and abiding comfort. "Behold, what

manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should

be called the sons of God !" But let us never forget that we owe

this royal privilege alone to our Lord Jesus Christ. He, our elder

Brother, won back for us the heart of God when we had lost it

through our sinful disobedience. He alone has secured for us the

right confidently to approach the just and holy God with the

prayer: "Our Father/' "Xo man cometh to the Father but by

Me," He says. So no non-Christian can pray the Lord's Prayer.

He may say it, but he cannot pray it. God says to him: Take

away from Me the noise of thy empty words. I will not hear thy

vain babble ! "For he that hath not the Son hath not the Father

that sent Him." Let that solemn truth ever warn us from joining

in prayer with men who deny the truth as it is in Jesus.

Dear heavenly Father, we poor sinners confess unto Thee that we

are not worthy to be called Thy sons and daughters. We approach Thee,not trusting in our own righteousness, but relying on the merit and righteousness of Thy beloved Son, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. In His name we ask Thee to grant us Thy holy Spirit that He may cry in us, "Abba, Father," and we may ever ask Thee for

all things we need in body and soul with all boldness and confidence, as dear children ask their dear father. Amen.