Luke 11:4

And forgive us our sins; for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil.

The habit of Jesus of resorting to prayer as often as possible, but especially at times of great stress and menacing trouble, was well known to the disciples; but one of them at least had occasion also to be convinced of the power and fervency of His prayer. When Jesus, therefore, upon that occasion, had ceased praying, this disciple, one of the later ones, that had not heard the Sermon on the Mount, stated a request to the Master that He teach them to pray, just as John the Baptist had given his disciples such lessons. The questioner had probably been one of John's disciples, hut had now finally been persuaded to follow Jesus. The Lord gladly yields to the wish and repeats, in a somewhat briefer form, what He had taught before. See Matthew 6:9. As Father we address God: He is the Father of all created beings; they are His by virtue of His creation and His providence; but Father of the believers in a special sense, through the redemption and merits of Jesus Christ, Galatians 3:26; Galatians 4:6; 1 John 3:1. His name, His Word, everything that in any way designates and describes His essence, shall be hallowed, not by being made holy, but by being kept untarnished, unblemished, before the world. The believers pray earnestly for power so to live from day to day, so to comport themselves, that the name of God may be praised and honored throughout the world and not in any way dishonored or blasphemed, Romans 2:24. His kingdom should come to us, by the fact of His keeping us in His Word and faith at all times; to all other people on earth, through the preaching of the glorious news of salvation in all the world. His will should be done. With the same willingness and eagerness as the angels in heaven delight in doing God's will, so glad should we be found to carry out all His precepts. At the same time we pray for patient submission, if the will of the heavenly Father should find it necessary to lay a cross upon us. He will carry out His good and gracious will against all the attempts of the enemies to frustrate the designs of mercy toward us. The bread of and for the day we ask of the Lord, enough to last us till the next morning, that we may not be concerned and worry about the things of this body and life. For the forgiveness of our sins, the greatest spiritual gift, we pray, promising incidentally to forgive every one that offends us, since the small debts of our fellow-men cannot even come into consideration in comparison with the immense debt of our trespasses against God. We pray that He would not lead us into temptation, not permit our enemies to place traps for our unwary feet, to guard and keep us, that the devil, the world, and our own flesh may not deceive us, nor seduce us into misbelief, despair, and other great shame and vice, as Luther explains. Rather do we ask of Him and hope to receive this by faith, that God would deliver us from the devil and every evil which that evil spirit and most dangerous enemy may devise against us. The disciples of Christ of all times, who ought to be instant and expert in prayer, are still very sluggish, weak, and forgetful in spiritual things; they must always learn over again what they have once learned, they must be taught day by day what and how they should pray.