"This, then, is how you should pray: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven."
— Matthew 6:9-10
Quick Answer
The Lord’s Prayer is the model prayer Jesus gave His disciples in Matthew 6:9-13 and Luke 11:2-4. It moves from worship of the Father’s name and kingdom to trust for daily needs, confession of sin, forgiveness of others, and deliverance from temptation, giving every believer a template for balanced, God-centered prayer.
A Prayer Meant to Be Copied, Not Just Recited
The Lord’s Prayer appears twice in the Gospels, once as part of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 6:9-13) and once when a disciple asked Jesus directly, “Lord, teach us to pray” (Luke 11:1). Jesus responded not with a lecture on prayer theory but with an actual prayer, short enough to memorize and rich enough to unpack for a lifetime.
Many churches recite it together, which is a good and ancient practice, but Jesus’ introduction — “This, then, is how you should pray” (Matthew 6:9) — suggests He meant it as a pattern for our own praying, not merely words to repeat by rote. It teaches us what to prioritize and in what order.
Our Father in Heaven, Hallowed Be Your Name
The prayer begins with relationship and reverence held together. “Father” signals intimacy — this is family language, available to us because of adoption through Christ (Galatians 4:6). “In heaven” and “hallowed be your name” signal that this Father is not a casual buddy but the holy sovereign of the universe. Prayer that starts here will not shrink God down to a genie or puff itself up with false familiarity.
Notice, too, the plural: “our Father,” not “my Father.” Even private prayer, in Jesus’ pattern, remembers that we belong to a family of believers, not just an individual transaction with God.
Your Kingdom Come, Your Will Be Done
Before we ask for anything for ourselves, Jesus has us pray for God’s agenda: His kingdom advancing and His will being done “on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10). This reorders our instincts. Our default is to bring God a list of what we want done on earth; Jesus teaches us to first align ourselves with what He wants done.
This is not passive resignation. Praying for God’s kingdom to come is an active, hopeful request that His justice, mercy, and reign would break into broken places — our families, our cities, our own hearts — the way it already exists perfectly in heaven.
Daily Bread, Forgiveness, and Temptation
Only after worship and surrender does the prayer turn to our needs, and even then with restraint: “Give us today our daily bread” (Matthew 6:11), not a lifetime’s supply banked in advance. It is a prayer of daily dependence, echoing how God fed Israel with manna one day at a time in the wilderness (Exodus 16:4).
Then comes one of the most searching lines in Scripture: “Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors” (Matthew 6:12). Jesus immediately reinforces this afterward, warning that if we do not forgive others, our Father will not forgive our trespasses either (Matthew 6:14-15). This is not salvation by works — it is a description of what forgiven people naturally do, and a warning against hypocrisy in those who claim grace while withholding it.
The prayer closes by asking God to “lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one” (Matthew 6:13). It is a humble admission that we are not strong enough to navigate spiritual danger on our own strength and need God’s protection every day.
The Familiar Closing: For Thine Is the Kingdom
Many believers grew up praying a closing line after “deliver us from the evil one”: “For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.” This doxology appears in some ancient manuscripts and in the version of the prayer used liturgically across many centuries of church history, even though the oldest and most reliable manuscript evidence suggests it may have been added later as a fitting liturgical response rather than part of Jesus’ original words.
Whether or not it belongs to the earliest text, the sentiment is thoroughly biblical and a fitting way to close the prayer. It circles back to where the prayer began — God’s kingdom and glory — reminding the one praying that every request just made rests entirely on God’s power and belongs entirely to His purposes, not our own.
Praying It Well Today
You can pray these exact words, and there is nothing wrong with that. But you can also let each line become a doorway: pause after “hallowed be your name” to actually worship; pause after “forgive us” to name what needs confessing; pause after “daily bread” to bring your real, specific needs. Used that way, the Lord’s Prayer stops being a script and becomes a spacious room you can live in.
Ultimately this prayer teaches us that healthy prayer keeps God’s glory first, our needs honest but modest, and our relationships with others tied directly to our relationship with Him.