Living the Lord's Prayer [Hardcover]

David Timms (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1, 2008

As they examine each familiar phrase of the Lord's Prayer, readers will uncover a profound framework for spiritual growth. In a reader-friendly, memorable style, David Timms points to Jesus's teaching on community, love for the broken and isolated, holiness in an age of profanity, dealing with the evil within, resisting temptations, and much more. This critically acclaimed book will appeal to all who desire to go deeper into spiritual formation, helping them taste the life-giving water that only Jesus can provide. The new discussion guide makes it a great book for small groups as well as individuals.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Jesus Christ used just 72 words to outline the key elements of communicating with God in what we know as the Lord's Prayer. Timms, a native Australian who teaches at Hope International University in California, uses many more words than that in this lucid and probing excavation of the prayer, which he calls the greatest Christian teaching of the centuries on spiritual formation. In word-by-word and phrase-by-phrase exposition, he digs deep into meanings and layers that easily escape a quick read. The opening our calls us to community, Timms says, while Father speaks to fear. Timms also discusses God's closeness, our call to holiness, our willfulness, the challenge of simplicity and the need for forgiveness. Readers will find remarkable lessons throughout this work, which reveals shining gemstones of truth usually left buried in the prayer. Even Amen is mined, with Timms calling it the greatest word of faith that the early church could muster. This is a well-polished study of the oft-quoted but seldom-realized formative prayer of the Christian faith. (July)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

"This is a well-polished study of the oft-quoted but seldom-realized formative prayer of the Christian faith." -- Publishers Weekly, May 2008

"This book lays the foundation for leading a meaningful Christian life." -- ChristianWomenOnline.net

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 160 pages
• Publisher: Bethany House (July 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0764205064
• ISBN-13: 978-0764205064
• Product Dimensions: 7.1 x 5.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #882,998 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Future Classic, July 7, 2008

By 

Mr. Kite "jesus loved john lennon" (a zizzle) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Living the Lord's Prayer (Hardcover)

Along the lines of authors such as Dallas Willard, Henri Nouwen and Jerry Bridges, David Timms has written an inspirational, soon-to-be classic, on the most important Prayer in Scripture. Breaking down the phrases that Jesus used in to explain prayer, Timms suggests the truest and deepest sense of the prayer and the spiritual formation that comes with its correct use.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Living The Lord's Prayer review., October 15, 2008

By 

Ian T. Blacker (Lamar, Colorado United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Living the Lord's Prayer (Hardcover)

I have taken four weeks to read this book, and can honestly say that this is the best book that I have ever read on the subject of The Lord's Prayer-I read copiously! Dave Timms makes the prayer practical and livable, and brings super application to bear on the life of a Christian as we consider how God really wants us to live for Him. Five stars!

Ian T Blacker.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Exploring the Depth of Wisdom, August 20, 2009

By 

Adriel C. Gray (McGaheysville, VA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Living the Lord's Prayer (Hardcover)

Exploring the Depth of Wisdom.
Living the Lord's Prayer by David Timms.
Bethany House Publishers, Grand Rapids, Michigan
Copyright ã 2008

Jesus Christ used just 72 words to outline the key elements of communicating with God in what we know as the Lord's Prayer. Timms, a native Australian who teaches at Hope International University in California, uses many more words than that in this lucid and probing excavation of the prayer, which he calls 'the greatest Christian teaching of the centuries on spiritual formation.' In word-by-word and phrase-by-phrase exposition, he digs deep into meanings and layers that easily escape a quick read. The opening "our" calls us to community, Timms says, while "Father" speaks to fear. Timms also discusses God's closeness, our call to holiness, our willfulness, the challenge of simplicity and the need for forgiveness. Readers will find remarkable lessons throughout this work, which reveals shining gemstones of truth usually left buried in the prayer. Even "Amen" is mined, with Timms calling it "the greatest word of faith that the early church could muster." This is a well-polished study of the oft-quoted but seldom-realized formative prayer of the Christian faith. (July) Copyright 2008 Reed Business Information. Source: Publisher's Weekly

Reviewed by A. C. Gray
Some years ago while pondering the Lord's Prayer, I purposed to take each sentence of the Lord's Prayer, examine its significance for my own life, and compile my thoughts into a book. David Timms had a better idea. His approach was to take each word of the prayer and mine its depths. Calling upon and quoting authorities from all walks of life, he has shown the reader how digesting the Prayer and making it one's own mantra can become a vehicle for being with Christ, becoming like Christ, and living for Christ. For this reason, the book will become a classic along with many of the books he cites. Having his splendid essay, there could be little more that I could write that might add to the narrative.
Timms shows how every inspired word of the Prayer is charged with meaning; of course it could be none else coming directly from the Savior of the world. For example, the pronouns "our" and "us" teach us to view the world with a lateral glance; the prayer should always be petitioned with a mindset that our Lord wants us to be mindful of the needs of all people everywhere when we come before Him.
Timms emphasizes the importance of the word daily in the Prayer's
injunction to "give us daily bread". The purpose, he explains, is to teach us dependence. "None of the Lord's prayer makes sense when we live self-sufficient and comfortable lives", he writes. The emphasis is on making the petition daily with the whole needy world in our thoughts. This petition should also teach us to have compassionate hearts. He tellingly quotes St. Basil the Great, the fourth century Bishop of Caesarea, who concluded that what we have is not ours alone:
"The bread that is spoiling in your house belongs to the hungry. The shoes that are mildewing under your bed belong to those who have none. The clothes stored away in your trunk belong to those who are naked. The money that depreciates in your treasury belongs to the poor."
Timms shares his scholarly understanding of the word Amen. He states that the New Testament writers who concluded their discourse with Amen were declaring a powerful and confident Yes to the Father. He explains that this inconspicuous Hebrew word carries enormous history, depth, and force and captures the assurance of the soul.
The important thesis of this book is to challenge the reader to live in the Yes. Writing that this theme might seem like the domain of the positive thinkers - the salesmen, visionaries, motivators, and enthusiasts, but that Amen in the Hebrew meaning runs much deeper. "It belongs to all of us. It calls each of us to live by faith...faith in the One who controls our lives and eternity. Timms reminds us that the apostle John, writing in exile on Patmos, gave Jesus the title Amen. Suddenly, he writes, "The Amen is a Person. This word becomes a title for Christ throughout eternity...it drives home once again that Christianity is not a moral code to live by but a Person to live with and for; not a philosophical system or a collection of positive ideas but a Lord who embodies it all. We are left to ponder the definitive benediction of this book on the final page:

"All the promises of God find their Yes in Christ. Everything good and true and beautiful that the Father has wanted to extend to us and to the world is caught up in Jesus. Christ fulfills every Yes that the Father has planned for us from eternity. Little wonder that the angel of the God would announce to the Laodicean church that Jesus is the Amen. The congregation that had drifted from Yes to Maybe, the believers who had abandoned God's Yes to embrace their own self-sufficiency, are invited to say Yes to Him again."