Sunday Morning Podcast | The Moody Church

In some ways, The Lord’s Prayer is a bit of an aside to the main point Jesus is making. If you will recall, Jesus has been calling out the Scribes and Pharisees for their religious hypocrisy.   To drive the point home, Jesus gives three examples of spiritual practices: giving, praying, and fasting. These practices are supposed to be all about loving the Lord our God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and loving our neighbor as ourselves. But we can twist these practices into being about us. Then it’s not the love of God or neighbor that’s motivating us, but the love of ourselves.   Jesus is saying: “Beware. Be wary. Be warned. Don’t fall into the trap of religious hypocrisy.”   But notice He doesn’t say that those spiritual practices don’t matter. He says, “when you give, when you pray, when you fast.”  Just because these practices can be misused doesn’t mean they don’t have a proper use. He wants us to follow Him as He gives us a new heart towards these spiritual practices.   So, in thi