Take It to the Lord in Prayer | How to Pray the Lord’s Prayer

Do you have a need or a situation that needs God’s intervention? Take it to the Lord in prayer! But how? The key is to understand the Lord’s Prayer. 

The Lord’s Prayer can become very rote, almost automatic, especially if you’ve grown up hearing and reciting it daily or weekly. However, when you understand the depth of this powerful prayer, you can see what is actually going on in the Courts of Heaven and petition God—the Just Judge—asking Him to manifest on earth what is written for you in the heavenly books. 

The Lord’s Prayer is relational communication with God. It’s a moment to have an intimate connection with God, giving Him your total attention so that He can consume your mind and you hear from Him. 

Join Rabbi Curt Landry as he dives deep into the power of prayer and provides practical insights into how to pray in this encouraging episode of the Ancient Principles, Kingdom Principles podcast. 

Listen now! 

Transcription from Podcast (Revised for Readability) 

Shalom, Rabbi Curt Landry here. I want to talk to you about a subject that is basic yet deep. Many have questions about. It’s about how to pray the Lord’s Prayer. When I think of praying the Lord’s prayer, I always think of this… Saving Private Ryan. 

For some reason it really hit me deeply. I think there was a place in the movie where one of the soldiers was wounded, and he’s sitting there, and he’s really wounded badly. And he’s sitting there saying, “Our Father who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy Name.” Obviously he was raised Catholic. That’s how I was raised. We would go in the confessional, then go to the priest. Then, when you would get done telling him your sins, he would say, “All right, say seven Hail Mary’s, and five Our Fathers, and three acts of contrition,” or something like that.

[But prayer is more than that…]

What is the Power in the Lord’s Prayer?

When you are in a situation or have a need, and you take it to the Lord in prayer, it can become very rote, almost automatic. However, when you pray the Lord’s Prayer, take it to the Lord in prayer (that is your need) you are really asking to have what is written in the heavenly books be manifested on earth

And it’s such a deep and profound prayer, with some really powerful instructions. 

Intercessory Prayer | Take It to the Lord in Prayer! 

And I want to talk to you about this. I’m going to be talking about intercession in prayer, probably for the next few weeks. And I think it’s so important because it is about your relationship with God. If you understand prayer, specifically the Lord’s Prayer, and the foundation of going into the Courts of Heaven to communicate with God, you will know how critical it is to pull away and seek your Father’s face in a time of need. 

Do You Get Busy and Try to Fix Everything without Praying?

Now, I can say this about prayer for me. When I don’t have a lot of time to pray, and I get busy, I get caught up with trying to fix my life and everything, and I don’t pray. I’m in the solution and fix-it state when my mind is captivated. This is when the confusion gets more and more intense. 

But if I’ll stop, and just say, “Okay, you know what, I’m going to go to my prayer closet.” Just like Jesus said, “Go to the prayer closet and pray.” You don’t have to be embarrassed. Jesus said, “Don’t be like those Pharisees that stand on the street corner and pray.” And He said, “They’ve already received their reward.”

• Take It to the Lord in Prayer and Give Him Your Total Attention

A lot of times, we can think of prayer like this: “Well, I’m really spiritual because I know how to pray.” But it’s really about a relationship. Again, Jesus said, “Go to your prayer closet and pray.” In other words, “I really want your total attention.” It’s not about, “You got to go hide out because you’re talking to me.” He’s just saying, “I know how you’re mentally wired.” And if you go to a place that is designated like a prayer closet, or a prayer room, then your mindset starts to shift and plug into the Spirit.

• Get Under Your Prayer Shawl

This is one of the reasons I use a prayer shawl. It’s a Jewish prayer shawl, it’s a tallit, which means “little tent.” This is one reason they were creaed, so you can get under it in prayer and focus on God. 

It’s not religious in a sense, but you’re saying, “Okay, I’m locking myself away with God, so I can be focused on the relationship of speaking to Him. But even more importantly, listening to Him.”

Understanding the Power of the Lord’s Prayer and the Secret Place

I want to focus on the Lord’s Prayer. Most of us have read or recited the Lord’s Prayer. We hear it in Church or different places. But it can seem like we’re just reciting something like a poem or the Nationa Anthem. But today’s challenges in prayer are really different than what they were even four or five years ago. We’re in a place now, where we really need to understand the power of the Lord’s Prayer and that secret place.

The Lord Says, “Don’t Be Like the Hypocrites. Go to Your Prayer Room.”

Lord tells us, “Don’t be like the hypocrites, and go to your prayer room, and pray to Me.” He’s says this because He has some specific things He wants to reveal to you in prayer. 

1. He wants to reveal something personal to you in prayer! 

In a prayer life, He wants to reveal His glory to you. So if you’re out praying publicly, or even in a group, there can be that. But He wants you to have a personal experience, where He reveals His glory.

2. He wants to pour out His glory upon you as His child. 

And secondly, He wants to pour out His glory upon you. As the scripture says, “as sons and daughters.” So there’s something about family. There’s a Hebrew word, “mishpachah.” I like that word. It means, “Those who talk and listen with me and sit and slide their feet under my table. This is my family. These are my sons and daughters. These are the ones that say, ‘The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want.’”

3. He allows you to claim your bread. 

Thirdly, He allows you to claim your bread. “Give us this day our daily bread,” which is a provision. There’s something about praying daily. There’s something about asking for the provision and receiving it that keeps us humble and thankful but also focused on who the provider is. And so all these things are deep inside the Lord’s Prayer. And we’ll learn that in a minute.

4. He wants to give you an anointing and assignment for the day. 

Fourthly, He wants to give you an anointing and assignment for that day. “Give us this day our daily bread.” So there’s something daily about it. And something happens to us when we neglect prayer and we neglect seeking God. There’s something that disconnects our soul from the Creator. And it seems like the longer we do this, the more strife, stress, and anxiety we experience. Then we find ourselves in drugs and alcohol, fun fixes, sexual addictions, all the things that kind of pull your soul away.

All those things are triggered when your soul is not at rest. And one of the things that the Lord’s Prayer teaches us in praying, as a whole, is that the Lord wants to fight your battles for you. Prayer positions us in a place where the Lord will not only answer our prayers but He also will give us strategies, strength, and emotional strength, to overcome.

The Lord’s Prayer | Matthew 6:9-13

“In this manner, therefore, pray:

“‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.’”

Understanding the 5 Verses of the Lord’s Prayer

I want to break down the 5 verses of the Lord’s prayer for you because your Father knows the things you need before you ask Him. And then He says, “In this matter, you should pray to him.” So let’s start here. It says, “Our Father in Heaven.”

1. When you pray, you speak into the spiritual realm. 

First of all, we need to understand that you are actually speaking into another sphere, another realm. You’re speaking into the Courts of Heaven, and you actually have access to God. You’re saying, “Our Father who art in Heaven.”

Now I’m going to teach more about the protocol in the Courts of Heaven in another podcast. So you’re going to want to stay tuned, and you’re going to want to subscribe to our channels. And I’ve got a program that’s called Prophetic Pieces, where I actually bring current events, and with prophetic-type prayer.

But my assignment today with you is to go to the Lord’s Prayer, and kind of re-energize it as a foundational tool for every Believer. So we say, “Our Father in Heaven, hallowed be Thy Name, Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth….” And see, you’re the earthen vessel. “As it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.” And then, in the close, the decree and proclamation is, “For Yours, is the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever and ever. Amen.” And so this is out of Matthew 6:9-13.

2. When you pray, you ask for things to come out of heaven and be delivered to the earth. 

And so there’s a journey here that we’re taking. First of all, we have to understand that we are asking for things to come out of Heaven and to be deposited on earth into our life. I call these deliverables. 

And so when we meditate on the Holy Spirit, and we ask for the mind of the Lord to come, we ask the Lord to cleanse us. So one of the things I do, even before I would pray the Lord’s Prayer, is I would do what it says in James 5:16, “Confess your trespasses one to another. Pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent, and righteous man’s prayers avail it much.”

It’s great if you have a brother or sister or a spouse to whom you can confess your faults. But you can also confess your sin in prayer such as… 

• “Our Father who art in Heaven, I’m sanctifying, hallowing Your Name, and I ask You, Lord, I have been struggling with this prayer, with this sin. I have been struggling, and I confess my trespass to You, and I ask You, Lord, before I even ask for Your Kingdom come, and Your will be done, or I ask even for daily bread, I ask You to forgive me my debt. Any debt that I have that has been caused by sin, because the wages of sin is death. And Lord, I pray that prayers will availeth much. I pray that as I go into a room of atonement, I ask that You cleanse me and that the accuser, Satan, who accuses me in my mind, and in my emotions, that he no longer has a legal right to cancel my prayers.

“And I thank you, Lord, that if I’ve been offended with anybody this week, Lord, I confess it to You, and I ask that You would cleanse me, and release my forgiveness as I align myself with You. Don’t let Satan, the accuser of the brethren, be making accusations against me. I surrender, Lord, to Your will. I confess my sins to You. I ask that I have pure motives and a pure heart. And Lord, I’ve been struggling with fear, and doubt, and lust, or whatever it is. Just speak it out to Him, because He’s your Heavenly Father.”

And so then this way, when you go into Matthew 6:9, and you say, “Our Father in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name,” here’s where Jesus tells us that when we approach God, He is the Righteous Judge, and we are coming with our prayers and petition, into the throne of Heaven.

And we cannot be denied access because we have confessed our sins, and we’ve asked Jesus, by the blood of Jesus, to expunge sins known and unknown. And we thank the Lord for that. And we declare to Him and say,” Lord, now that we’ve been cleansed, we all have this issue. First of all, Lord, we want Your kingdom to come and Your will to be done on earth.” So we know that there are books that are in Heaven. And Paul wrote about this in Ephesians, reminding us that God has a handy work that was created in Christ, for good things, which were prepared in advance, in Ephesians 2:10.

3. When you pray, you ask God to open the books. 

So when we say, “Lord, let Your Kingdom come, and Your will be done on earth, or in these earthen vessels, as it is in Heaven.” What we’re doing here, I’m unpacking this, we’re saying… 

• “Father, whatever is written in my book this day, let that come. Lord, release your angels. Release your favor. Lord, order my steps. Your Word says that the steps of a good and righteous man and woman are ordered of God. And Lord, that which has been prepared in advance, that’s written in my book, Lord, let it be unlocked out of the Courts of Heaven today. O Lord, let it manifest in my life. Let my purpose be fulfilled, as it is written in Your book. And Lord, keep me from straying off the path, into any self-exaltation, or leading me astray, that may come from the enemy, or my own vain imaginations.

“Father God, we ask that we not focus on the enemy.” But we focus on our identities as sons and daughters, and as kings and priests, Lord, according to the order of Melchizedek. And Lord, we thank you that you have called us to be your kings and your priests.

4. When you pray, you ask Him for provision to accomplish what He has for you today.

“And Lord, we asked that in the name of Jesus, that You give us this day, our daily bread.”

Biblically speaking, bread represents all provisions needed to fulfill the assignment for that day. 

• “So Father, it’s not just the strength, but it’s the wisdom, the knowledge, the understanding, the compassion. Lord, give me the value system in my soul that would respond properly. And Lord, I ask that even as You say in Deuteronomy 8:3, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.’ And Father God, I’m here.”

This is a good time to sit still. This is a good time after you ask Him for daily bread and take it to Him in prayer, to sit still in your prayer closet and meditate. Even if it’s only five minutes. And ask, “Holy Spirit, speak to me. Tell me what I need to do. Give me that word of the Lord, that daily bread.”

And we know that we would have no physical bread on earth if it wasn’t spoken out by the God of Heaven because God created all things with His Word. And we want God’s will and purpose. We want to speak out what God’s Word says about our lives. And speaking His Word is the key to life and health. 

Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst.” In other words, go to Jesus in the Lord’s Prayer and say, “Give us this day our daily bread.” Declare that God the Father has the ability to give us not just physical provision and food, but spiritual provision and food, direction, correction, wisdom, knowledge, understanding, and the anointing to be able to supernaturally prosper that day.

5. When you pray, seek forgiveness at every level. 

But Jesus said, in short, for God to release provision–daily bread–to you, there’s a condition… “I need you,” He says, to, “forgive us our debts,” and “as we forgive our debtors.” Forgiveness is a spiritual force, and it’s an advocate in the Courts of Heaven. Why? The accuser of the brethren, Satan himself, makes accusation against our unconfessed sin. So when we ask for things, he can delay and even cancel things that we’ve prayed for, when we don’t follow the pattern and protocol of the Lord’s Prayer.

Here’s the thing, forgiveness is not a feeling; it’s a choice. You can just say today, “I choose to forgive that my debt of being angry with this person, and I forgive their debt for betraying me, or cheating me, or lying to me, or whatever it may be.” 

• “But Lord, I activate the power of the spiritual force of forgiveness, which releases the advocate, Jesus, who is my attorney, so to say, in the Courts of Heaven, that He may remove the accusation, and stop the enemy from delaying or denying any manifestation of the blessing in Heaven from coming to earth.”

I hope this is helping you. Here’s the thing… Sometimes we can get comfortable holding on to unforgiveness. But unforgiveness in the heart, the enemy uses this as a legal right, and he has a legal right when we don’t confess it, to prevent the release of God’s Word from manifesting in our lives. 

So you need to understand, and keep this in mind, that a good seed or a bad seed in your mind, a thought, will always multiply according to its kind. And the bad thing about keeping unforgiveness, is it’s a bad seed, and it doesn’t just stay at one level of unforgiveness. It actually grows, and multiplies, into many levels. Then that’s where a spirit of murder and anger comes from.

But you don’t want these to multiply in your life. And that’s what’s good about praying daily, and even praying the Lord’s Prayer daily, is forgiveness is not a feeling, it’s a choice. 

It’s part of the process. You may have come to the Lord before and several times, and you’ve prayed the Lord’s Prayer, but you’ve asked for His strength, and you’ve asked for His wisdom. But have you asked for forgiveness first and understood what it means to be legally expunged? That’s a legal term. That’s what the blood of Jesus does. It removes your sin as far as the east is from the west.

6. When you pray, cast your cares upon Him and ask Him to protect you from temptation. 

This is real practical things that all Believers can do in every one of the mountains of influence. And one of the things I love about praying the Lord’s Prayer, and receiving forgiveness on a daily basis, is it really releases the blessing of 1 Peter 5:7. It says, “Cast all your cares upon Him, because He cares for you.” I can’t stress this enough. Jesus already knows, and the Lord, and God, and the Holy Spirit, they know all of our sins. They already know it, and they still love us. They still care for us. They’re still there.

When we were yet sinners, Jesus died for us. And that’s why we need to say after we’re forgiven, we know that we’re going to try to fall back into those same habits and patterns, because that’s what humans do. That’s human nature. 

But we want a new nature, and a new value system that comes from the power of God. And so we pray in Matthew 6:13, Jesus said, “And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For Yours is the Kingdom, and the Power, and the Glory forever.” In Jesus’ name.

In Conclusion…

What a powerful thing, to be able to pray the Lord’s Prayer. I really hope that this podcast has given you some insight today, in regards to the importance of revisiting the Lord’s Prayer inside that paradigm. 

The Lord’s Prayer…

• Follows a pattern of going into the Courts of Heaven
• Builds your relationship with God
• Releases sonship and daughtership
• Releases your identity as a king and a priest

I want you to understand the power, and the dominion, and authority that the Lord has for you. But most of all, as sons and daughters of the King, feeling like co-heirs, and being at peace with your Creator.

God bless you, and I’ll join you next time. We love you, and we bless you, and shalom, shalom.

Bio

Curt Landry, founder of Curt Landry Ministries, and his wife, Christie, travel extensively, preaching and teaching about the Jewish roots of the Christian faith. Together, their passion is to empower families to live and leave Kingdom legacies and understand their own personal heritage.