You Tube Theology

The first thing Jesus would have prayers know is the name Father. That is Jesus' first and most basic lesson in prayer: that the relationship he has always had with his Father, he now shares with us. And that transforms prayer.

Because our instinct, when you wake up in the morning, is to think of the Almighty in holy transcendence, aloof—to think of God without Christ. And when you do that, God feels completely unapproachable.

But God the Father sent Christ, and Christ brings us in himself so that this Almighty one is our open-armed Father in Jesus. And so this Jesus invites us—in fact, commands us—to pray, "Our Father."