The Disciples’ Prayer is meant to be a pattern for our prayer. Jesus is teaching us how to pray not what we should pray. Now it’s not wrong to pray this prayer word-for-word, as we often do and as we will prior to taking Communion after the sermon. However, using the prayer as a model can help us avoid the kind of word-for-word repetition that can lead to the kind of heartless, repetitive prayer for which Jesus condemns the hypocrites and the Gentiles. In the end, this is not so much a command as it is an invitation to pray like Jesus.