The Lord’s Prayer functions to teach us how and what to pray for. The Lord’s Prayer shows us the basic principles of prayer to God and inspires us in prayer. However, we can be more flexible in our prayers than simply reciting the Lord’s Prayer. If we merely followed the form of the Lord’s Prayer, it could very well become ritualistic prayer, which would merely decorate our worship. Ritualistic prayer runs counter to the Lord’s teaching. Since we often do not know how to pray, the Lord taught us basic principles and elements in the Lord’s Prayer. We learn a lot from the Lord’s Prayer. At the same time, we often can pray in the Spirit to get deeper into prayer (remember prayer in spiritual tongues is synonymous with prayer in the Spirit). The Holy Spirit can intercede for us according to God’s purpose when we feel weak (Rom 8:26–27).
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