{"id":858,"date":"2011-07-15T05:31:37","date_gmt":"2011-07-15T05:31:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/?p=858"},"modified":"2011-07-15T05:31:37","modified_gmt":"2011-07-15T05:31:37","slug":"the-brotherly-spirit-of-the-lord%e2%80%99s-prayer-extract","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/?p=858","title":{"rendered":"The BROTHERLY Spirit of the Lord\u2019s Prayer (extract)"},"content":{"rendered":"

The BROTHERLY Spirit of the Lord\u2019s Prayer (extract)
\n\u201cOur Father.\u201d\u00a0Matthew 6:6<\/a>
\nBut the Lord Jesus came to gather together His people of all nations and tongues around one mercy-seat, teaching them to say\u2013\u201dOUR Father;\u201d thus uniting in the one \u201chousehold of faith\u201d Jew and Gentile, male and female, bond and free\u2013all one in Christ, and all one with each other. Let us now proceed to illustrate the universal spirit of this beautiful formula.
\nThe foundation truth is\u2013the one Father of us ALL. I speak now only of the election of grace\u2013the family of God. We who through grace believe, have not many, but one Father. \u201cHave we not all one Father?\u201d By one and the same act of predestinating grace God has adopted all His children. \u201cHaving predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, wherein He has made us accepted in the beloved.\u201d Still more emphatically does the apostle state this truth in another place\u2013\u201dFor this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family in earth and in heaven is named.\u201d
\nWhat a family-uniting truth, then, is this\u2013OUR Father. The very breathing of the word seems to diminish the magnitude of those minor differences that separate the children of God; while its influence upon the heart draws forth the sweetest charity and the deepest love towards all who bow their knees with us in prayer, and say\u2013\u201dOUR Father!\u201d Again, I ask, should not the one Fatherhood of \u201cthe adoption of grace\u201d be more distinctly recognised, and constitute a more uniting truth among the true children of God? To know that whatever partition separates, or polity divides, or forms distinguish the saints; the moment persecution is awakened, or affliction befalls the Church, all arise and give themselves to prayer; and, travelling to one mercy-seat\u2013converging as lines to a common center\u2013find that, after all, they are children of one family, brethren one of another, and that into the ears of one Father all pour the breathings of their hearts.
\nSurely this divine, sanctifying, cementing truth, attended with the anointing of the Holy Spirit, must promote more visible union among the saints of the most high God. Let us study it more closely, get it in-wrought in our hearts, realise fully our personal adoption, learn to call God \u201cFather\u201d with a less faltering tongue, then will our hearts be drawn forth with a deeper fraternal affection towards all who worship in spirit and in truth the same Father, and whom that Father recognises as His.
\nRealising our personal interest in God\u2019s love, and remembering that He loves alike all the children of His family, with what holy guardedness should we respect the feelings, and shield the reputation, and promote the happiness of all the sons and daughters of God! Oh, how can I look coldly upon him on whom God smiles? How dare I disown one whom Christ accepts? Where is the evidence of my own sonship if I unite not in heart and voice with my brother in saying, \u201cOUR Father, who art in heaven?\u201d\u2013and while I breathe the filial words, feel not a brother\u2019s love glowing in my heart?
\nAnd have we not one and the same Elder Brother\u2013the Lord Jesus Christ? What a uniting truth is this! He is \u201cthe first-born among many brethren\u201d\u2013the Elder Brother of the Christian brotherhood. How often, and with what tenderness of tone and expressiveness of meaning, did these words fall from His lips\u2013\u201dMy brethren!\u201d And how ready He ever was to acknowledge the one Father of Himself and His brethren; thus taking His place at the head of the family as the First-Born of the many sons whom the Father is bringing to glory.
\nThrough the one mediation, then, of this our Elder Brother, we all approach \u201cOUR Father in heaven.\u201d We plead alike His personal merits; we present alike His atoning blood; we breathe alike His endearing name; we appear before our Father clad in the garment of the Elder Brother, in whom, and for whose sake, the Father smiles pleased alike upon all. Here we stand side by side on an equality with each other. No national hate, no political creed, no ecclesiastical distinction, no social caste, nor learning, nor rank, nor wealth should be allowed for one moment to interpose a barrier to Christian recognition, fellowship, and service between those who, washed in the blood and robed in the righteousness of the Elder Brother, are members of Him, \u201cof whom the whole Church in heaven and earth is named.\u201d
\nChrist our Brother! how close and endearing the relationship! How sweet to travel to Him as to a brother, calling His Father our Father, His God our God! A Brother, though divine, made flesh like unto His brethren! A Brother, the heir of all things, and making us, His brethren, co-heirs with Himself! A brother born for His brethren\u2019s adversity! Contemplate Christ as such. Go to Him as such. Deal with Him as such. At all times and in all places are you welcome
\nAnd does not the same Spirit of Adoption dwell alike in all the children of God? Most assuredly, if they are indeed His children. It is by this same Holy Spirit that each one cries, \u201cAbba, Father,\u201d when he approaches the mercy-seat. \u201cFor through Him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father.\u201d He it is who seals the uniting word upon our lips\u2013\u201dOur Father,\u201d and so binds us all in one fraternal chain of holy brotherhood. Refusing, then, to recognise a professing disciple of Jesus as a brother because he belongs not to my sect, and kneels not at my altar, and sees not eye to eye with me in all things, I grieve the one indwelling Spirit, wound the Savior in the house of His friends, bring barrenness into my soul, and go far to ignore my own fraternal relation to the family of God.
\nYes, beloved, God is \u201cour Father.\u201d He enshrines us all in one parental heart, accepts us all in His beloved Son, seals us all with one Spirit of adoption\u2013cares for us all, provides for us all, protects us all, sympathises with us all alike. And who are you, and who am I, that we should denounce and despise one of these whom God our Father claims as His child?
\nAnd what a brotherly-uniting truth is this, that our Father is bringing us all to one parental and eternal home. A part of the family is already there\u2013\u201dthe family in heaven.\u201d Those who once shared our earthly home, sat with us at the family table, clustered with us around the domestic hearth, and who departed in the faith of Jesus, are not lost\u2013they are housed in the Home of the Father in heaven, and are gathered around the Lamb, basking in the sunshine of His ineffable glory. What a soothing thought is this! how sanctifying, how uniting!
\n\u201cMust I my brother keep, And share his pains and toil; And weep with those that weep, And smile with those that smile; And act to each a brother\u2019s part, And feel his sorrows in my heart?
\n\u201cMust I his burden bear As though it were my own, And do as I would care Should to myself be done; And faithful to his interests prove, And as my neighbor love?
\n\u201cMust I reprove his sin, Must I partake his grief, And kindly enter in And minister relief; The naked clothe, the hungry feed, And love him not in word, but deed?
\n\u201cThen, Jesus, at Your feet A student let me be, And learn as it is meet My duty, Lord, of Thee; For You did come on mercy\u2019s plan, And all Your life was love to man.
\n\u201cOh, make me as You art, Your Spirit, Lord, bestow; The kind and gentle heart That feels another\u2019s woe, That thus I may be like my Head, And in my Savior\u2019s footsteps tread.\u201d
\n\u201cOh then the glory and the bliss, When all that pained and seemed amiss Shall melt with earth and sin away; When saints beneath their Saviour\u2019s eye, Filled with each other\u2019s company,Filled with each other\u2019s company, Shall spend in love the eternal day.\u201d
\nOctavius Winslow<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The BROTHERLY Spirit of the Lord\u2019s Prayer (extract) \u201cOur Father.\u201d\u00a0Matthew 6:6 But the Lord Jesus came to gather together His people of all nations and tongues around one mercy-seat, teaching them to say\u2013\u201dOUR Father;\u201d thus uniting in the one \u201chousehold of faith\u201d Jew and Gentile, male and female, bond and free\u2013all one in Christ, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-858","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-author-octavius-winslow","category-the-called"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/858","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=858"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/858\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":860,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/858\/revisions\/860"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}