In Matthew’s Gospel, the Lord’s Prayer is embedded in the Sermon on the Mount. It is interconnected with our whole experience of discipleship, and cannot be taken out of that context, and pursued in isolation from the rest of what the Spirit is seeking to achieve in us.

The idea that we can approach God as Father is such an incredible privelege. By teaching us to remember that He is our Father in heaven, Jesus ensures that the posture of our spirit is in perfect balance. He also reminds us that our relationship with God is dependent on and shaped by His relationship with God.

Throughout the courts of heaven, the cry is ‘Holy! Holy! Holy is the Lord God Almighty!’ (Rev.4:8). Jesus teaches us to align with the culture of worship that pervades heaven, and to realise that our most important need in prayer is to be captivated by this vision of His glory.

We’ve seen that in heaven God is always seated on a throne. Jesus is not content for that image to remain an abstract or theoretical concept. He teaches us to pray for its reality in our experience, as well as in the lives an experiences of others.

Prayer is a kind of death to self. What do we really want as we come before the throne of God. This is a harder question to answer than we might realise. Do I want God and His purposes, or am I at risk of actually wanting something else, and seeing God as a means to that end? It is His will, not mine that must be my deepest desire.

Reaching back to some of the most ancient stories of the Bible, Jesus teaches us how to pray for our most basic physical needs. This session explores how the Father answers this prayer, and what He expects of us when He does.

What is Jesus teaching us to pray when He draws on the all-too-familiar experience of debt? And what does it mean to ‘forgive’ anyway? Do we really know what we are praying when we say this line of the Lord’s Prayer?

Prayer cannot be divorced from life. We can’t pray ‘Lead us not into temptation’, but then live in a way that says ‘Lead me into temptation’. How do we pursue holiness? How do we resist the devil, or even recognise his approach? How can we be delivered from the evil one?

It’s one thing to know the Lord’s Prayer, it’s another thing to pray it. DTP is about praxis. We are not disciples until we ‘do’. So this last session gives us the opportunity to put what we are learning into practise.