By Ron v. Leerdam
Brothers and sisters in our Lord Jesus Christ,
We live in a beautiful world of which our creator God, the one with all power, wisdom and knowledge said, “It is very good.”
But today we switch on the news and what do we see?
Things are not so good!
We consider our lives, and while things have not been as bad as they might have been, there have been sorrows, suffering, disappointments and what we might have hoped for, so often has not been realized. How are we to live in this broken world when we see our own brokenness, the brokenness of other people and the whole of creation being subjected to frustration – cyclones – bringing destructive winds and flooding rains, earthquakes with their tremendous shaking of the earth, evil people
causing others to suffer, the terrible impact of wars where old men in positions of rule and power send the young people under their authority to fight and destroy the lives and livelihoods of those with whom they are at war. And we see the wicked refusing to honor their creator.
The disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray. Jesus said, address your prayer to Father in heaven with childlike trust, believing that He knows how to give good gifts to His children.
Indeed the best gift that our heavenly Father promises His children is the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Apart from the Holy Spirits’ gracious work in our lives, we remain brute beasts, ignorant, with hearts inclined toward all evil, worshiping created things instead of the one true God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit opens our eyes so we can see the truth, our ears so that we can hear the truth, our hearts so that we can accept and believe the divine truths of the living God.
What is to be our first request of our heavenly Father?
Luke 11:2 “Hallowed be your Name.”
What does this mean?
The first request is for honor of the most holy God.This brings us to Exodus when Moses asked God, “What is your name?”
The answer – “I am. I am who I am.”
In other words, God is and was and always will be.
He is eternal.
In the beginning God made the heavens and the earth and all that they contain for his own good pleasure. And nothing was created without the eternal one true God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit being part of the enormous process of making the universe as we know it.
As finite humans who are limited in knowledge, who are frail and weak, often throwing up our hands in despair when we think about life and living in this world, let us humble ourselves.
“Be still and know that I am God.”
To know God and to acknowledge Him is in essence the meaning of the first request in the Lord’s prayer.
The Lord Jesus taught His disciples to say when they
pray.
Our Father in heaven,
Hallowed be thy Name.
What does this mean?
Help us to really know you!
There is a big difference between knowing about someone and knowing them personally.
We read about all sorts of people in books, but that is not the same as having a personal relationship with them. So some of you may ask,
“How can you have a personal relationship with
a person you cannot see, a person you can only
read about in a book that was written thousands
of years ago?”
Only as the Holy Spirit meets with us in our innermost being does knowledge about God becomes real. The Scriptures come so alive so that we say, did not
our hearts burn within us as our soul inwardly discerned, believed and rejoiced in these truths.
Truly knowing God begins when there is a personal relationship God. We look at the works of God’s hands and say,
‘Lord our Lord, how majestic is your name in all
the earth!’
The eternal God has become our heavenly Father through Jesus Christ. We know the Father comes through knowing Jesus.
To illustrate this point; consider what Jesus said to Thomas who asked ‘show us the Father’. Jesus’s response is: “If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well.
Believe that I am in the Father & the Father is in me.
God is perceived or known spiritually.
Only as we are born again of the Spirit of God, can
we know Jesus and in knowing Him, know the
Father.
Jesus said, “If you love me, you will keep my
commandments.”
But there is no way that we can do this in our own
strength.
Rather we humble ourselves before Almighty God
and ask Him to help us. We know God not because of what the world tells us, not because of rational reason, but within our soul, heart, spirit, we know that He is, and that He is our maker, redeemer and friend. When the spiritual aspect is missing God becomes an intellectual abstraction – dead in the dry pages of a dusty book.
We have been taught to pray,
Hallowed be Your Name:
Help us to know You!
Knowing God is not just a mystical experience. If our knowledge of God is only emotional, made up of pure sensation, simple impressions and ever
changing opinions, believers lose themselves in sickly mysticism. Knowing God is more than an infatuation.
Remember your relationship with your first boyfriend or girlfriend. What do we commonly call that sort of love?
Puppy – love!
We are in love with love or infatuation. We cannot really say that we are in love with that person – we hardly know what they are really like!
Sickly mysticism can be compared to this puppy – love. We need to really get to know a person before we can commit ourselves to caring for, helping, nurturing and being devoted to that person. So we pray, Help us to know You Lord! We only truly know God when the working of the mind and the soul and the spirit are in balance, working in harmony. The tendency is NOT balance or harmony.
Either we get stuck in the intellectual – we can know all the right words, have all the theological systems and schemes down pat, but they don’t touch the heart or the emotions. The intellect can kill the feeling. God becomes a mental abstraction. Or, the feeling dooms the intellect to silence. Knowing God becomes a sensational emotional high and a time of walking on cloud 9.
It is not so hard to whip up the emotions, but this isn’t necessarily knowing God.
The will, the intellect and the feelings, emotions must be in harmony.
Lord help us to really know you: to bless, worship, and praise you for all your
works and all that shines forth from them: Your almighty power, wisdom, kindness, justice, mercy, and truth.
How is it that people can get to know God? Only as they hear the Gospel – that God has come in the person of Jesus to usher in His kingdom of life.
So when we are praying, “Hallowed be Your Name” we are also asking that God would be honored by all people. When we pray, we also commit ourselves to making God known. Jesus said in Luke 10:2-3, “The harvest is plentiful, ask the Lord to send out laborers to harvest.”
What are the next words?
“Go I am sending you out like lambs among wolves.”
As we go we can put all our confidence in Jesus who when giving the great commission said, ‘and I am with you always – even to the end of the age.’
We commit ourselves to honoring God by making Him known. Having a string of university degrees behind your name is not necessarily the best qualification. The most important thing is to know God. Praying for people, becoming their friend is the way to be part a of the answer to our prayer,
“Father, Hallowed be Your Name.”
We read how Jesus sent 72 disciples out to tell the
people that the Messiah has come.
They were given power to heal the sick. These 72 disciples with amazement said to Jesus in Luke 10:17-20, ‘Even the demons submit to us in your Name.’ Jesus said, “Do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.’
Jesus went on to say in Luke 10:22, “No one knows who the Son is except the Father, and no one knows who the Father is except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.”
Jesus calls us to love the Lord our God with all our
heart, soul, mind and strength and to love our neighbor as ourselves.
To pray hallowed be your Name means:
help us to direct all our living – what we think, say, and do so that Your name will never be blasphemed because of us but always honored and praised.
In other words, that we may love the Lord with all our being, and our neighbor as ourselves. May our lives produce the fruit of righteousness and holiness.
To pray Hallowed be your Name means that we ask God to make us more like Jesus.
Our weakness is one of the realities of this life that we must face. Yet God knows our weakness. He understands and promises, “My grace is sufficient for all your needs.” Prayer is our life-line to our Father in heaven. Prayer is the Church’s life breath. In prayer we lift up our hearts to God. By grace we enter into God’s throne room.
Isn’t it true that too often a crisis must arise before we become fervent in prayer. As I conclude this message, we and all people must think carefully about two things.
The first is this:
God makes a wonderful promise to
the whole world, “You will seek me and find me
when you seek me with all your heart.” Jeremiah
29:13
The second is that this gracious promise has a closing date:
“Seek the Lord while he may be
found, call on him while he is near.” Isaiah 55:6
In his perfect holiness God hates sin, yet he is not
wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to
repentance.” 2 Peter 3:9
In his great mercy, God pours out his love on all who call on him for mercy – Ask, seek and knock for then the door to everlasting life will be opened.
“The gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus
our Lord!” Romans 6:23.
AMEN.
For further reading see:
Mama by the water 
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