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The Lord's Prayer Part 1: Our Father Who Is In Heaven, Hallowed (Or Holy) Is Your Name


As we begin praying we are instructed to follow this format.  The first is really revolutionary because as a disciple, that means we have surrendered and repented of our sin to Christ. We have received His forgiveness, His Spirit and are now “born again”.  We are now given the privilege of calling God our Father.  Romans 8:15 says we have been given a Spirit of adoption, that is adopted into His family and we cry out “Abba! Father!”  Abba means father/daddy…Wow that is wonderful!
Notice that we pray to Our Father, the One who is in Heaven and Whose name is Holy!  He is our Father in Heaven, which distinguishes Him from all other so called gods, since all other “gods” and objects are created and are part of a created world or a created realm.  Only our Father is the transcendent Creator. 
We are not to pray to statues, idols, objects including beads or crucifixes, people, deceased or living saints, angels, or even Jesus’ earthly mother Mary.  No! Jesus Himself instructs us to pray directly to our Father in Christ’s name.  We are instructed to ask in Jesus’ name since He is the only mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus. (1Timothy 2:5).
What can we learn from “hallowed be Your name”?  Again this is a distinction between the one and true God and all other so called gods.  Our Father is holy!  None of the pantheon of gods worshiped by the ancients or moderns are holy.  No, the Bible is clear that the worship of nature and all false gods is the worship of demons. (Deuteronomy 32:16-17, 1 Corinthians 10:20).
Our Father is holy and we are to honor and revere Him as holy and He does not take it lightly if we don’t. A lesson can be learned from Moses who was told by God to speak to the rock so that water would flow out and quench the Israelites thirst.  Instead he became angry and hit the rock. God still honored Moses with the flow of water, but Moses was chastened for it.  “But the LORD said to Moses and Aaron, ‘Because you have not believed Me, to treat Me as holy in the sight of the sons of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land which I have given them." (Numbers 20:12)  By disobeying God, and showing a bad example in front of the people, Moses dishonored God and His holiness. He broke the 2nd Commandment….”You shall not take the Lord thy God’s name in vain, for the Lord will not leave him unpunished…” (Exodus 20:7).  
We can do the same by not living up to our claims or being frivolous or making jokes while praying.  By doing so we belittle the awesome holiness of God by bringing His image down to a carnal and humanly level.  There are other ways to dishonor or take God’s name in vain; such as claiming to be a Christian but living an immoral, unethical and worldly life which quite obvious to most. But another way is more subtle.  That is in the euphemisms of “holy cow” or “holy cr_ _” etc.  Please stop saying these things as they are not holy.  Only God is holy!
So pray this most magnificent prayer in faith and in confidence since we are greatly loved by our Father who art in heaven!
Pastor Gary A. Smith

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