Tag Archives: Our Father in heaven

THE LORD’S PRAYER – HALLOWED BE YOUR NAME

Christian Life, ,

THE LORD’S PRAYER – HALLOWED BE YOUR NAME

“Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name…” Matthew 6:9

In a world in which people everywhere show great disrespect for the name of God, often calling Him “the man upstairs” or using His name as an expletive to express surprise or annoyance, Jesus taught His disciples that the way into experiencing the presence of God is to
acknowledge, hallow, and become aware of His Name.

In Hebrew thought, a name was a prophetic utterance of character. Everything that God is, is encapsulated in His name. Therefore, the God of whose presence I must become aware, is not some vague, characterless being, but a God whose nature, character, values, standards, desires, intentions, plans, and purposes are all summed up in His name.

In the Old Testament, God’s name was revealed progressively to His people through His dealings with them and their experience of Him personally and nationally.

To Abraham He was El Shaddai – God Almighty, the God who was more powerful than the sun and moon gods that Abram worshipped by day and by night as a Chaldean living in Ur. The problem with worshipping two gods was that Abram didn’t really know which one was in charge. God revealed to him that He, God Almighty, is the one in charge.

To Moses and the people of Israel, God was JHWH – I AM – the intimate covenant name of God. Individuals within God’s covenant people experienced Him in a variety of ways as He revealed Himself to them in their need, e.g., Jehovah Jireh (Yahweh provides), Jehovah Nissi (Yahweh is our victory), Jehovah Rapha (Yahweh heals), Jehovah Rohe, (Yahweh is my shepherd), Jehovah Shalom, (Yahweh is peace), Jehovah Tsidkenu, (Yahweh is our righteousness) and Jehovah Shammah, (Yahweh is there), etc.  

God revealed Himself most clearly in His Son. Jesus assured His disciples that to see Him was to see the Father, a perfect demonstration of His character and His ways. To watch and listen to Jesus through the gospels is to have a window into the character of God of whom Jesus was the perfect representative. “I have revealed your name….” John 17:6

In a way in which it is difficult for us to understand, God invested in and entrusted to Jesus everything of Himself in physical form and summed it up in His name. “Therefore, God exalted him to the highest place and gave Him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow…” Philippians 2:9, 10.

Therefore, to acknowledge and become aware of God’s name is to become aware of the character of Jesus as He went about doing good and healing all those who were oppressed by the devil (Acts 10:28), putting God’s name on display by His words and actions.

First of all, then, prayer is about becoming aware of the person and character of the God to whom we pray. When we do that, our needs and problems will shrink to their correct significance in His presence.

PRAYER – VALUING THE NAME

Christian Life, ,

PRAYER – VALUING THE NAME

9 “This, then, is how you should pray:
“‘Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name, Matthew 6:9

Prayer is a fascinating subject.

I regret that it’s taken me so long to learn from Jesus what prayer is about rather than from listening to others pray.

Take for example praying in Jesus’ name. In our prayers, saying “In Jesus’ name, amen” is rather like an “over and out” ending to a two-way radio conversation, or like saying, “You have to answer me, God, because I prayed in Jesus’ name.” Is that what it really means?

At Mt Sinai, God gave “Ten Commandments” to His people as a guideline for living the best kind of life. The third commandment said that they were not to take God’s name in vain. We have reduced that to getting mad when people at work or on TV say “God!” or “Jesus!” and not doing it ourselves. But is that really all it means?

Part of the covenant God set up with His people was the right to use His name. That means that He gave them power of attorney to “sign cheques” in His name for whatever they needed to get the work that He assigned to them done.

Jesus passed that assignment on to us. “As the Father has sent me, so I am sending you…” To do what? Basically, to live like He did to show the world what the Father is like.

There are three ways in which we can take God’s name in vain; we can justify what we are saying or doing wrong by claiming that God “understands”. We do this by rationalising. ”I know it’s wrong to have an affair but I love him and I don’t love my husband any more. God is love, so what’s so wrong with that?”

Secondly, we claim to speak in God’s name things that contradict who He is or give “a word” to people that He didn’t authorise. In our enthusiasm for God, we forget that it is a serious thing to speak for God what He has not spoken. False prophets were severely dealt with in the Old Testament.

The third way is by making demands of God in prayer and tagging Jesus’ name on the end like a magic formula. Jesus gave us a tough assignment – to be like Him in the world so that the world would know what the Father is really like. That means that He expects us to live exactly opposite to the way the world lives.

The world is greedy – we must be generous.

The world criticises and condemns – we must be merciful.

The world wants to be first – we must serve.

The world lives for self – we must die to self.

To pray on the name of Jesus is to be so one with Him in heart and mind that we think what He thinks and ask what He wants so that He can carry out His will through us here on earth. It means praying only what He authorises according to who He is. Praying in His name is to honour Him so much that we would not dream of saying, doing, or asking for any thing outside of who He is.