We cannot live the Christian life if we do not know how to pray. That is why Jesus gave us His teaching about the spiritual discipline of prayer. The Lord's Prayer, should perhaps be more accurately described as the Disciples' Prayer. Jesus promises that God, Who is in secret, will honor and respond to our sincere, private prayers. Jesus indicated seven petitions: three that keep God first in every area of life, and then four for our personal needs.

In the passage that follows the beatitudes, Jesus challenged His disciples to look around and apply the beatitudes in their most important relationships - including their relationships with their enemies. In chapter 6 He tells His disciples to look up and consider the spiritual disciplines and values of an authentic disciple. Jesus challenged His disciples to live for the approval of God while they allow Him to make them into part of His solution for the needs of the world.

Jesus made two important statements: He has come to fulfill the Law of God, not destroy it, and the righteousness of those who follow Him should be greater even than the righteousness of the religious teachers of His time. Jesus says that to be part of His solution, His disciples have to know God's Word and apply His teaching in their relationships: brothers and adversaries. Jesus teaches that we can control our passions before they influence us to disobey God.

The beatitudes are the mindset of a person who comes to God and of one sent into the world by God. Jesus follows this with four profound metaphors: the salt of the earth, the light of the world, a city on a hill, and a candle on a candlestick. No followers of Jesus can have all of these attitudes and do the kind of works He commands, apart from the Spirit of God working in and through them.

One of Jesus' greatest discourses was His Sermon on the Mount, which is a concise summary of the ethical teaching of the entire Bible. Jesus taught the beautiful attitudes and character of a true disciple. The beatitudes show us the right attitudes for coming to God and for going from God into the world to be part of His solution. The essential question is: "Are you part of the problem, or are you part of the solution of Jesus?"

John the Baptist introduced the Messiah, "Look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!" The Gospels tell of important events in the life of Jesus Christ: His baptism, an inauguration marking the beginning of His public ministry; and His temptation, a confrontation with Satan. Jesus resisted temptation by knowing and quoting Scripture and by keeping God first in His life. He proved that He was the Son of God who overcomes sin.

One of the primary emphases of the Gospel of Matthew is the kingdom of heaven. Jesus came into this world as King of an eternal, spiritual kingdom, open to anyone who believes in Him and makes Him Lord of their lives. When we pray, we pray for His kingdom to come. Our whole lives are to be centered on this goal: to see God's spiritual reign established in our lives and our world by the power of the Holy Spirit.

The Gospels show us Jesus has a strategy for accomplishing His mission. His strategy for reaching the world with His message of salvation involved training and teaching His disciples to meet the needs of the world. Jesus frequently placed His followers strategically between Himself and those who needed to receive God's supernatural provision. The plan of the risen, living Christ is still to use His disciples to pass the truth of His Good News to those who need salvation.

In the Gospels we discover that Jesus was a Man with mission, a threefold ministry. Jesus expressed this threefold ministry in John 14:6: "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me." The Gospels tell of His teaching - the Truth; His mighty works, miracles, healings and deliverance - the Life; and of redemption, death and resurrection, and how His sacrifice saves us from our sin - the Way.

The primary emphases and purpose of the Gospels is to reveal God's message and to present His solution to our problem. We have divorced ourselves from God and that separation must be reconciled. Jesus, the greatest revelation of truth the world has ever been given, had a magnificent obsession, which was accomplishing the work His Father sent Him to do. The Gospels proclaim: Jesus came to provide forgiveness for our sin and to reconcile us to God!