Why has Christ commanded us to address God thus: "Our Father"?
That immediately, in the very beginning of our prayer, he might excite in us a childlike reverence for, and confidence in God, which are the foundation of our prayer: namely, that God is become our Father in Christ, and will much less deny us what we ask of him in true faith, than our parents will refuse us earthly things.1
Why is it here added, "Which art in heaven"?
Lest we should form any earthly conceptions of God's heavenly majesty,2 and that we may expect from his almighty power all things necessary for soul and body.3
2 Jer. 23:23, 24; Acts 17:24, 25, 27.