Amen!

Ever wanted to get the last word in? In the Lord’s prayer, Amen gets it.  

Does it have a role to play in the prayer? Or is it simply a signal to open our eyes? How sad to use any words in any prayer as a punctuation mark! My take, anyway!

Or as a nervous preacher cajoling his congregation to respond to some point he is making! Amen?. Amen?. Amen?. Kinda tiring, don’t you think?

Amen is more robust than word punctuation or manipulation. It carries a punch. With it we ratify what we just heard. Affirm it. Commit to be loyal to it.

Jesus packed a truck of truth into this prayer. Our affirmation is not approval (Jesus is not asking for our approval!). He is asking for a commitment to participate with God in what we pray for.

All of our praying must touch on something in the Lord’s Prayer. After all, this is the model Jesus gave us to pray. I propose these four declarations of allegiance to ratify this prayer with Amen.

Our praying must touch on something in the Lord’s Prayer.

We honor (hallow) God in everything. Colossians 3:17 says, “Whatsoever you do,

whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”

We speak words that magnify God to our opponents. To our friends. To our detractors. In politics. In religion. In every arena of life. Words and deeds that do not honor will dishonor us and God.

We want our passports of this journey of honoring God to be stamped: Ratified.

We pray for and live in the kingdom of God in the here and now. Jesus inaugurated his

way of ruling the world. It’s the rule of love which is for the present. One day the rule of love will take over the world. Our Amen commits us to participate lovingly in God’s kingdom work.

One day the rule of love will take over the world.

We serve the kingdom’s purposes. We work with God who makes his will happen. We invite neighbor and stranger to change their minds and enter into this loving reality of God. We pray that the kingdom and its agent, the church, expand into every nook and cranny of our state, country and world.

We confess that he is the bread of life.

We declare allegiance by receiving our bread with gratitude and feeding the hungry with

Bread and kindness. We confess that King Jesus is the bread of life. We say amen to his providing all we need to feed body with bread and soul with forgiveness.

Lastly, we declare our allegiance to eradicate evil with the presence of God in the Holy

Spirit and through the church. We can whip temptation and its evil outcome in the bud

with our hearts always turning toward Jesus, “...looking full in his wonderful face. Then the things of earth will grown strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace.” 

Live out your Amen, don’t just say it!