Articles

What Kingdom People Ask For

Article 4 of 5  |  The King Teaches Us to Pray  |  Matthew 6:11–13

by Dr Timothy Mann

Last time we looked at the God-ward half of the Lord’s Prayer: God’s name, God’s kingdom, God’s will. Prayer begins there. It has to. If we don’t start with who God is and what He’s doing in the world, we have no framework for what to ask for next.

But Jesus doesn’t stop there. After worship and surrender come the honest asks. And they are simpler, more concrete, and more searching than most of us expect.

Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread

“Give us this day our daily bread.” (Matthew 6:11, NKJV)

After addressing God’s name, kingdom, and will, Jesus moves to provision. And what He calls for is remarkably unspectacular. Not abundance. Not security for the next decade. Just bread. Just today.

That’s not an accident. Jesus is deliberately shaping the heart away from hoarding and toward daily dependence. The prayer is modeled on Israel in the wilderness, where God provided manna one day at a time. You could not collect two days’ worth. You had to trust again tomorrow.

Many of us live so far in the future that we can’t function in the present. We worry about what might happen, what could go wrong, what we can’t control. Jesus says:  Bring today to the Father. Ask for bread for today.

This also brings something down from the abstract to the very practical. Your Father cares about food, rent, health, work, energy, and decisions. He is not only interested in the spiritual layer of your life. He made the physical layer too. Kingdom prayer brings all of it to the Father.

And notice the prayer is plural. “Give us.” Not just me. A church that prays this way begins to think beyond its own needs. It thinks about the family in the congregation living paycheck to paycheck. It thinks about the member who just lost their job. A praying church becomes a caring church, because you can’t pray “give us” honestly without starting to look around at the “us.”

Forgive Us Our Debts as We Forgive Our Debtors

“And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.” (Matthew 6:12, NKJV)

Here the prayer goes straight to the heart of the gospel. Sin is a debt. We owe God obedience, worship, and honor. We have not paid. We cannot pay. We owe far more than we can ever produce. And Jesus teaches us to acknowledge that honestly before the Father.

This is not a prayer for initial salvation. We are not forgiven each time we pray this line. We are forgiven because Christ went to the cross and purchased our forgiveness with His own blood. This prayer is how already-forgiven people keep their hearts tender, clean, and close to God. It is the ongoing practice of bringing a repentant heart before the Father rather than letting sin accumulate and harden.

Then comes the clause that cuts: “as we forgive our debtors.” Let’s be precise about what this means. Our forgiveness of others does not purchase God’s forgiveness of us. Salvation is by grace alone through faith alone. But forgiven people forgive. People who have truly understood what it cost Christ to cover their debt do not walk away and refuse to extend mercy to those who owe them something far smaller.

If you find yourself unable to forgive, it’s worth stopping and asking honestly: have I truly grasped what I’ve been forgiven? A heart that has stood at the cross and understood its debt does not easily become a clenched fist toward someone else.

Deliver Us from the Evil One

“And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.” (Matthew 6:13, NKJV)

Jesus closes the prayer with a petition that assumes spiritual warfare is real. Temptation is real. The evil one is real. And we are not as strong as we imagine.

This petition is often misread. Jesus is not saying God tempts people to sin, because James makes clear He does not (James 1:13). He’s teaching us to pray with awareness that we are in a battle, that we are not sufficient for it on our own, and that we need God’s protection and deliverance every single day.

There is something humbling about this prayer. It’s an acknowledgment that we need help before we fall, not only after. Many believers pray about temptation after it’s already arrived and the damage is done. Jesus is teaching us to pray at the beginning of the day, “Father, I know what I’m capable of without You. I know the enemy is not finished. Please keep me.” That’s not weakness. That’s wisdom.

There is gospel comfort here, too. The One teaching us this prayer is the One who faced every temptation the evil one could devise and did not yield. He will go to the cross, defeat sin and death, and rise again victorious. When we pray “deliver us from the evil one,” we are praying in the name of a King who has already secured the victory. We are not fighting for an uncertain outcome. We are standing in a finished one.

Application & Reflection

Application

This week, pray these three petitions specifically. Ask for daily bread, naming something concrete you actually need today. Confess sin honestly and receive forgiveness with a repentant heart. Then ask for God’s protection and deliverance, naming a specific temptation you know you’re vulnerable to. Don’t rush past any of them. Let the prayer do its work.

Reflection Questions:

1. When you ask God for provision, are you trusting Him one day at a time, or does your prayer life mostly reflect anxiety about the future? What would it look like to genuinely bring today to the Father?

2. Is there someone you are withholding forgiveness from right now? How does praying “forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors” honestly force that into the open before God?

Read Article 1: The Prayer That No One Sees

Read Article 2: Your Father Already Knows

Read Article 3: When You Pray, Begin Here

Next: Article 5, “The Heart That Prays and the Heart That Forgives,” closes the series with Jesus’ sobering return to forgiveness in Matthew 6:14–15.