All of us are called to be praying that Father God is honoured

By R.v.Leerdam

If you look at the NIV it says, “In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight.” Proverbs 3:6 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. There is a world of difference between reading about someone and 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 in-most being does the knowledge about God become real. He is the One who enables us to say, “O Lord my God, I see you!” Then the Scriptures come so alive so that we say, did not our hearts burn within us as our soul inwardly discerned and experienced these truths of Scripture.
It begins when there is a personal contact between you and God, when God has come to make your being his dwelling place and has become your heavenly Father through Jesus Christ.

Knowledge of the Father comes by knowing Jesus. To illustrate this point; consider what Jesus said to Thomas who asked,
“Show us the Father.”
Jesus 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.” John 14:7 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. There is evidence assuring us that we know Jesus. “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” We can not do this in our own strength. Rather we humble ourselves before Almighty God and ask Him to help us to know Him and knowing Him, ask Him to help us to know Him better still. We know Him not because of what others tell us, not because of rational reason, but within our soul, heart and spirit, we know that He is, and He is our maker, redeemer and friend.
“Those who know your name trust in you, for you, Lord, have never forsaken those who seek you.” Psalm 9:10 Without the Holy Spirit, 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 only 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 boy-friend or girl-friend.
What do we commonly call that sort of love? Puppy – love!
We are in love with love. 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 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.

We pray, Help us to know You Lord! We only truly know Him when the working of the mind, the soul & the spirit are in balance. 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 kills the feeling. God becomes a mental abstraction. Or, The feelings doom 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 or 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. When we are praying, “Hallowed be Your Name” we are also asking that God would be honoured by all people.

We commit ourselves to making God known. Studies have shown that we now have a third generation of adults who have gambling, alcohol, violence and vandalism problems. These people are often in low socioeconomic situations and are part of single parent families. What needs to be done to try and break the cycle of previous generations. We need people that reflect,
“Love in the Name of Christ.”
Who are the best people to help these people?
Those who are part of their community.

Having a string of university degrees behind your name is not the best qualification. The best qualification is to know God. Knowing God is the biggest help. To be praying for these people, to become their friend is the way to also be part of the answer to our prayer, “Father, Hallowed be Your Name.”

I am asking that you consider, “What is God calling us to? To have compassion on the lost, the lonely, the broken, those in despair, yes the morally and spiritually bankrupt people we come into contact with is a Christ-like response. Together as the body of Christ we encourage each other to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. We are all mentors to our young people in church.
They watch you.
They learn life values from you.
What about making ourselves available to others.
This is part of our calling as Christians.
To love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength and to love our neighbour 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 honoured and praised. In other words, that we may love the Lord with all our being, and our neighbour 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.

The Almighty maker of heaven and earth comes to us and invites us to bring our needs for food, the forgiveness of sin, deliverance from the evil One, indeed all things TO HIS THRONE OF GRACE.
Prayer is the Christians life breath.
Prayer is the Churches life breath.
In prayer we lift up our hearts to God.
We enter into His throne room.
We enter into the Father’s house joining with the angels and the saints of God in communion with our Father in heaven. Isn’t it true that too often a crisis must arise before we become fervent in prayer. Prayer is the means that God has given so we may truly bear one another’s burdens and so fulfil the law of Christ.
AMEN.