NEUOFFENBARUNG← Gifts of Heaven · Volume 2 · Contents
The Lord's prayer in multiple interpretations
13th February 1843, morning
[1] This is a good thought, because it is from above! So then I also want to add a true light. But, if A.H.-W. trusted Me more, he would also have received the true light together with the thought.
[2] So you may write and give from Me what is to be taken from Me, but A.H.-W. does not yet possess the proper trusting courage. And so write then:
I. The Lord’s prayer related to ‘Love’
[3] "Our Father." Since the Father in Himself is the sole, eternally infinite love, which is the basic life in Himself and thus also the life of all creatures and especially of human beings, "our Father" will also mean: our love, or: our life!
[4] "Thou art in heaven!" But since "heaven" in and of itself is nothing other than the life of the Father in Himself, which is the laboring love or the living Word of God in man, "You who are in heaven", means: You, Eternal Love, dwell in Your love from which all things have come forth!
[5] "Hallowed be thy name!" What this says, is almost too easy to explain! What name then does eternal love have? The only, eternal one, who is called "Father". But if love and the Father are one, and "sanctify" says nothing else than: "love the Father with your own active love," then "sanctified be Thy name" will mean nothing else than: "Be loved, Father, as the Eternal Love of us humans, Your children, laboringly, i.e., living, always and eternally without ceasing!
[6] "Thy kingdom come!" What is the Kingdom of God? It is what is called "heaven"! But since "heaven" says the essential nature of love, because the laborer, and thus also the actual living being of love, which expresses itself in activity, "Thy kingdom come" will say: Father, or: You Eternal Love, come to us, or: become the sole active force or all our life!
[7] "Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven." As for this fifth request, it is actually only a confirmation of the fourth. For what is the will of love? It is actually the laboring love itself. "In heaven" then means: essential in oneself, or: in one's own sphere of laboring activity, which is the same as oneself. Accordingly, this request will also spiritually be: Father! or: Love! Let your working love be just as essentially working in our life (which is understood by "earth") or in our love as You are essentially working in Yourself! For "in Yourself" means: in heaven," or in your laboring love, or in your life, or in you as Father – all of which can already be seen from the above.
[8] "Give us this day our daily bread!" This request is again nothing more than a greater affirmation of the previous one. For "bread" means to make laboring love one's own. "Daily" indicates complete commitment. Accordingly, this request can also be called: Give us, who are out of Your love, Your working love completely our own, or: make our love completely Yours, become completely our Father and make us completely Your children, or: let us be completely one with You, i.e., saturate us with Your Self and let us be Your saturation!
[9] "And forgive us our debts!" This request expresses nothing else but again a more lively desire for the above. For it says that the Father is to put away altogether man's own love, which for the time being is the life especially given to every man as his own – and is to let all His love become laboring in man. Therefore the spirit could also say, Father, take the world from me and create heaven in me!
[10] "As we also forgive our debtors." This sentence shows the active measure in which the above request is to be fulfilled in man – and could therefore be said spiritually: Father! Let Your laboring love become our own only to the extent that we remove the world or death out of ourselves through
Your love in us! or: Father! Rebuild us according to Your love, how this Your love in us becomes more powerful and with it we create more room in ourselves for the complete reception of Your Kingdom, Heaven or Your working love or Your life!
[11] "And lead us not into temptation!" Also this request is in and of itself again nothing but an even stronger assurance of the former. For "Lead us not into temptation" says: Do not leave us in our own and worldly love, or: let us not be active without Your laboring love in us, or: without heaven in us! Therefore – do not keep our love, but Yours alone!
[12] "But deliver us from all evil! Amen." And the last petition, nothing but the wish, the will or the living desire alone is pronounced completely affirmatively about everything that was involved in the earlier petition as in all preceding ones, and says: Father! Certainly make us completely free from ourselves and let You become completely all in all in us, or: You alone, eternal, working Love, destroy all our love and let You alone become our love, or: let us be completely one with You!
[13] This then is the true heavenly meaning of the Lord's prayer! Let such things be well observed! For it is a most precious gift of love from the highest heaven! Understood?! Amen.
[14] Now, following this light-filled explanation of the Our Father in relation to "love":
II The Lord’s prayer related to ‘Light’
14th February 1843, morning
[15] Tell Ans H.-W., this thought is no longer as good and as pure as the first one. For the ordinal number is already out of print, since under 2. stands not the "light" but the "life". But if someone has this prayer from the highest heaven, namely, from exclusive love, he has it anyway already in the most perfect measure. How then can he still want to have it in a more imperfect way!
[16] But since it is already said: Whatever you will ask the Father in My name, that he will give you" – so I must nevertheless also give you what you ask for.
[17] And so then write this prayer in the light out of the Light, but write it without further "illumination"; for the light needs no "illumination":
[18] "Our light of all light! You who dwell in Your light, as the only Light of all light, let Your eternal radiance be recognized by our night and by our day, by our firmament between the waters, as the only true one!
[19] Oh You sole light of all light, illuminate our inherently dark earthliness!
[20] So let the power of Your radiance work on earth, in our firmament and in all our waters, therefore mighty and unweakened, as You work in Yourself eternally in the endless, fullest strength of light!
[21] Saturate, oh eternal Light of all light, our earth, our firmament, and all our waters with Your almighty outpouring of rays, that the same may be enlivened with seed-rich grass, with herbs and trees, and the waters with all kinds of fish and other noble creatures, and the air with all kinds of birds!
[22] Oh Light of all light! Destroy all darkness, and cause the sun, moon, and stars to rise on our firmament and on the dry land, that we may observe the signs of the day and of the night and of the times and of the years!
[23] Destroy therefore the night and great darkness of our earth, as we recognize these on our firmament and above our waters with the help of the light, which you have already set at the beginning on our firmaments, since you said: "Let there be light!"
[24] Oh guide us rightly in the night of our earth! Let not Your radiance be weakened over the firmament of heaven in the midst of our sun, and let not our earth be made fruitless, and not without
seed the grass and the herb and the trees! And let not our waters be clouded, lest all the fish and all the living creatures perish, and the air not corrupt, and all the fowl killed, and smother all the creatures of the earth,
[25] but, Light of all light, make us like unto You, that we may shine as Your light, and be with You a shining brightness, and not again become night and darkness without You! Amen."
[26] Behold, then, the prayer is in the "light"! But he who has it in love, has it at it's foundation, which in itself remains eternally the same, unchanging, while the light goes on forever and endlessly long ways, which no-one will ever be able to completely overcome.
[27] So just stick to love, then you have everything combined! Understand this well! Amen.
III The Lord’s prayer related to “Life”
15th February 1843
[28] "Our Life of all life, Who lives eternally in Your life! Be lived by us human beings in the observance of Your Word and in all humility and love for You!
[29] Your life come to us and in us!
[30] May Your life be our life, as in You, therefore also in us, that we may be perfect, as You, the Life of all life, are perfect in Your life!
[31] Give us Your life and saturate us with the fullness of Your life for and for!
[32] But first take away from us our trial life, that is, as we desire to be made free of it, since it is full of all selfishness and therefore full of death.
[33] Leave us not for ever in this our trial life, lest it bring us death,
[34] But take, oh Life of all life, this trial life from us, and fill us with Your life. Amen."
[35] All this can be seen from the texts: "Be perfect, as the Father in heaven is perfect. (Matt 5:48) and: Whoever loves his life will lose it, but whoever flees it, will receive it. (John 12:25)
[36] Therefore, this prayer is a true prayer of life, and should be well considered in life! Amen.
V The Lord’s prayer related to “Power”
[37] The expression "power" is not sufficiently meaningful. For a force is present in everything according to it's kind. But that which comes forth out of love and life is not only a living force, but it is a productive or working force, which is the purpose of love and life from it. And so prayer cannot be prayed in singular power, but in the laboring "energy", and so it may be said:
[38] “Oh You eternal energy of love and all life, which is also all our life and all our energy, which You are truly and eternally active in and from Your infinite sphere of activity! Be also completely and eternally our active power according to our love for You and our life from You and in You!
[39] Oh enliven us according to Your fullness! Let us be energetic out of You in us, as You are in Yourself always and eternally!
[40] Fulfill us and strengthen our weakness! Then destroy our weakness, as we ourselves humbly see our own nothingness and complete powerlessness in ourselves!
[41] Oh do not leave us in our weakness, in which we act like the dead, but fill us all with Your only truly living energy, so that we may be active through it, pleasing to You, always and eternally! Amen"
[42] Such can be taken from the texts: Without Me you can do nothing" (Joh.15,5). I am the vine, you are the branches" (John 15:5). "There is no power anywhere but God alone," – and – "you
would have no power over Me unless it were permitted to you from above" (John 19:11) and similar passages.
[43] From this, however, it can be seen what My prayers are especially about. Therefore understand thils also very well, and that also completely energetically! Otherwise the holy prayer will bring you little fruit and thus little of the "daily bread"! Therefore, pay attention to these things most vividly at all times! Amen.
VI The Lord’s prayer related to “Order”
18th February 1843, morning
[44] Tell A.H.-W.: This "order" stands here very disorderly. For order is the final result of love, of life and it's consequences! But I want to give him the prayer nevertheless also in this. But he may order it in himself! And so write then:
[45] Oh You, Eternal Order, which is in You forever, forever! Let our life be ordered in us, which You gave us out of You, so that we may be able to live completely faithfully ordered by ourselves in imitation of You, oh Eternal Order!
[46] Flow therefore as a mighty light into us! Be for us here the only way of life, as you are in Yourself eternally!
[47] Become, oh You Eternal Order, as our life completely active in us! Become the only bread to saturate our spirit!
[48] So smother our great disorder in us, as we recognize this disorder in us according to Your mercy!
[49] Let's not get into the thicket and look for the right way out in the night! Let not the sun be darkened, let not the moon be darkened, let not the stars fall from the sky, so that we'll never be able find the right way out of the thicket,
[50] But you, Eternal Order, as the brightest sun at noon and in the morning, lead us out of the thicket of our own disorder, which is the great "evil", into your holy order. Amen."
[51] This can be taken from the Scriptures: The one who hears My word and does according to it, it is he who loves Me, to him I will come and reveal Myself to him. And then rivers of living water will flow from his loins" (John 14:21; John 7:38).
[52] Say this prayer therefore in the order in which is the completion of man or the complete rebirth of the spirit. And so let this again be especially well observed! Amen.
VII The Lord’s prayer related to “Freedom”
20th February, morning
[53] As far as "freedom" in itself is concerned, it is a good concept. Only this term is synonymous with the summary of the true life of love in full possession of the pure and deep wisdom, which makes all life truly free, just as the Son, or the Word, or the Truth, makes truly free the man who has taken it alive, that is actively, into himself. According to this, freedom, wisdom, light, truth, the "Son" or the eternal divine "Word", is completely one and the same.
[54] Therefore, the one who prays in the Word, also prays in true living freedom. And therefore a further writing of this prayer is completely unnecessary, in that it is written, as in the book, also in the living word.
[55] But that A.H.-W. may have it to his insight, so I will give it to him also in the terms! And so write it then:
[56] "Our Freedom, which you dwell in your eternal freedom! Be recognized by us people as that in all our humility!
[57] Come to us and in us eternally and vividly shining! Make us completely free, as You are eternally in Yourself!
[58] Be to us the living daily bread as a true saturation of the spirit for the eternal perfect life in You!
[59] Free us from our bondage, which is our sin, that is, as we ourselves are livingly striving after Your word, and as we, brothers, make one another free by Your grace.
[60] Let us never fall into the captivity of lies, night, and all deceit, but free us all from all evil through Your living, holy Word! Amen."
[61] This can be taken from the whole fullness of the Word of God, especially from the text: The truth will make you truly free" (John 8:32). For this prayer says this in true "freedom".
VIII The Lord’s prayer related to “Truth”
21st February 1843
[62] Since the "truth" in itself is the most proper freedom and therefore also makes everything completely free, this prayer in the "truth" is also completely perfect what it is in the "freedom. For the one who prays in full truth, also prays in full freedom. And the one who prays in true freedom of the spirit, also prays in the fullest truth and can therefore say:
[63] Our eternal Truth, which You live freely in Yourself forever! Be recognized as such by us people of the earth in all love and humility!
[64] Come to us and in us eternally shining! Make us truly free, that is, as You are in Yourself!
[65] Be to all of us as the living daily bread to a true saturation of the spirit for eternal, completely free life in Yourself!
[66] Free us from our bondage, which is the night and death of our sin, as we strive alive for Your words and as we as brothers make each other free through Your grace in us!
[67] Oh let us never enter into the brutal captivity of night, lies and all deceit, but make us all truly free through Your living, holy Word, for ever and ever! Amen."
[68] Whoever prays this prayer, therefore, prays it in spirit and in truth – i.e., if he prays it at the same time out of and in living love – otherwise, however, it is only empty lip-smacking, which has not the least value before Me. All this should also be well understood! Amen.