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“Those who know Your name will put their trust in You, for You, O LORD, have not forsaken those who seek You” (Ps. 9:10). God’s name is esteemed in His faithfulness.
When the psalmist said, “Some boast in chariots and some in horses, but we will boast in the name of the LORD, our God” (20:7), he had much more in mind than God’s title; he was referring to the fullness of God’s person.
To apply the concept of hallowing God’s name to your prayers, here is a sample you could use: “Our Father, who loves us and cares for us, and who has in heaven supplies to meet our every need; may Your person, Your identity, Your character, Your nature, Your attributes, Your reputation, Your very being itself be hallowed.” To hallow God’s name is not some glib phrase inserted into a prayer ritual; it is your opportunity to glorify Him by acknowledging the greatness and wonder of His character.
Each of the many Old Testament names and titles of God shows a different facet of His character and its expression in His will. He is called, for example, Elohim, “the Creator God”; El Elyon, “possessor of heaven and earth”; JehovahJireh, “the Lord will provide”; JehovahNissi, “the Lord our banner”; JehovahRapha, “the Lord that healeth”; JehovahShalom, “the Lord our peace”;
JehovahRaah, “the Lord our Shepherd”; JehovahTsidkenu, “the Lord our righteousness”; JehovahSabaoth, “the Lord of hosts”; JehovahShama, “the Lord is present and near”; and JehovahMaqodeshkim, which means “the Lord sanctifieth thee.” All those names speak of God’s attributes. Thus they tell us not only who He is but also what He is like.
Jesus Himself provides the clearest teaching about what God’s name means: His very name, Jesus Christ, is God’s greatest name, and it encompasses His role as Lord, Savior, and King. As Jesus Christ, God drew to Himself many other names, including: the Bread of Life (John 6:35), the Living Water (John 4:10), the Way, the Truth, and the Life (John 14:6), the Resurrection (John 11:25), the Good Shepherd (John 10:11), the Branch (Isa. 4:2), the Bright Morning Star (Rev. 22:16), the Lamb of God (John 1:29), and many more. One Old Testament passage in particular lists several names for Him, each one
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“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.” (Num. 20:1–12)
I NEVER NOTICED this!! God is very particular about the hallowing of his name. Moses didn't get to the Promised Land not because he hit the rock, but because he dind't treat him holy in the sight of the people. God is so concerned about his holiness. This is such a weighty revelation.
Although changing our society by calling it back to a safer morality is a noble goal, this has never been Christ’s goal for His church. The church has but one mission in this world: to lead people destined to spend eternity in hell to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ and an eternity in heaven. If people die in a communist government or a democracy, under a tyrant or a benevolent dictator, believing homosexuality is right or wrong, or believing abortion is a woman’s fundamental right to choose or simply mass murder, that
has no bearing on where they will spend eternity. If they never knew Christ and never embraced Him as their Lord and Savior, they will spend eternity in hell.
“My kingdom is not of this world,” Jesus told Pilate. “If My kingdom were of this world, then My servants would be fighting so that I would not be handed over to the Jews” (John 18:36). No human kingdom or society can ever merge with God’s kingdom, even partially. Sinful man cannot be a part of the divine reign. That’s why we can never advance God’s kingdom by trying to improve the morals of our society.
In one of his dreams, Daniel saw a statue representing the kingdoms of the world smashed to pieces by a flying stone, which represents Christ (Dan. 2:34–35). Then the stone filled the whole earth. The symbolism is clear: Christ ultimately crushes the kingdoms of men and establishes His own.
When you sincerely believe and genuinely confess Christ as Lord, you are confirming that the direction of your life is aimed at His exaltation. Your own causes are valid only insofar as they agree with the eternal causes of God revealed in Christ. When I pray, “Your kingdom come,” I am saying to God’s Holy Spirit, “Spirit of Christ within me, take control and do what You will for Your glory.” A true child of God won’t be preoccupied with his own plans and desires but with the determinate program of God, revealed in the person of Jesus Christ.
The kingdom must be at the heart of our prayers. Before we go bursting into His presence with all our petitions, we need to stop long enough to consider His causes and His kingdom. We must affirm our yearning that He be glorified in His purposes.
The Greek word translated “kingdom” (basileia) does not primarily refer to a geographical territory but to sovereignty and dominion.
In a present and limited, but real and miraculous, way, God’s kingdom is coming to earth each time a new soul is brought into the kingdom. Thus “Your kingdom come” is an evangelistic prayer.
The Bible is unequivocal about God’s absolute sovereignty, yet within His sovereignty, He commands us to exercise our responsible wills in certain areas, including beseeching Him in prayer. If God did not act in response to prayer, Jesus’ teaching about prayer would be futile and meaningless and all commands to pray pointless. Our task is not to solve the dilemma of how God’s sovereignty works with human responsibility but to believe and act on what God commands us about prayer.
A man may say, “Thy will be done,” in a tone of defeated resignation. He may say it, not because he wishes to say it, but because he has accepted the fact that he cannot possibly say anything else; he may say it because he has accepted the fact that God is too strong for him, and that it is useless to batter his head against the walls of the universe.2
Believers who pray that way accept God’s will with a defeatist attitude.
This hit so close to home
Asking “Your will be done on earth” indicates that God’s will is not always done on earth. That is also true of some other elements of this prayer. We pray “Hallowed be Your name,” yet God’s name is infrequently hallowed here. We ask for His kingdom to come, yet there are many who reject His reign. Thus His will is not inevitable. In fact, lack of faithful prayer inhibits God’s will because in His
This is noteworthy!
wise and gracious plan, prayer is essential to the proper working of His will on earth.
God did not authorize sin; neither does He condone or approve of it. He could never be the cause or agent of sin. He only permits evil agents to do their deeds, then overrules the evil for His own wise and holy ends.
A part of the right understanding of and attitude toward God’s will is what might be called a sense of righteous rebellion. To be dedicated to God’s will necessitates being opposed to Satan’s. To pray “Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” is to rebel against the notion that sin is normal and inevitable and therefore should be tolerated. When you are wholly committed to seeing God’s will done on earth, you will rebel against the world system of ungodliness. You will renounce all things that dishonor and reject Christ. And you will also confront the disobedience of believers.
When you accept what is, you abandon a Christian view of God and His plan for redemptive history.
To pray for God’s will to be done on earth is to rebel against the idea, promulgated even among some evangelicals, that virtually every wicked, corrupt thing we do or is done to us is somehow God’s holy will and should be accepted from His hand with thanksgiving. But nothing wicked or sinful ever comes from the hand of God, only from the hand of Satan. When we pray for righteousness, we pray against wickedness.
To pray for God’s will to be done is to pray for Satan’s will to be undone. It is to cry with David, “Let God arise, let His enemies be scattered, and let those who hate Him flee before Him”
The greatest hindrance to prayer is not lack of technique, lack of biblical knowledge, or even lack of enthusiasm for the Lord’s work, but lack of faith. We simply do not pray with the expectation that our prayers will make a difference in our lives, in the church, or in the world.
When you pray “Your will be done,” you are praying for three things: the consummation of the world and the use of sin’s consequences for God’s eternal plan, the salvation of people who don’t know God, and the obedience of every believer to God’s commands.
“The end of prayer is not so much tangible answers as a deepening life of dependency.…
wow
With tremendous impact the first verses from Psalm 40 came to my heart. In a new and suddenly illuminating way I saw what the psalmist meant when he wrote long ago, “I waited patiently for the LORD, and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry. He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay.”
His will actually was being done in earth.
Why is my Father’s will—His intention to turn out truly beautiful people—brought to nought again and again? Why, despite His best efforts and endless patience with human beings, do they end up a disaster? Simply because they resist His will. The sobering, searching, searing question I had to ask myself in the humble surroundings of that simple potter’s shed was this: Am I going to be a piece of fine china or just a finger bowl? Is my life going to be a gorgeous goblet fit to hold the fine wine of God’s very life from which others can drink and be refreshed? Or am I going to be just a crude
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When you invest in God’s kingdom, He will provide not only spiritual fruit but also bread for food.
Jesus said, “Truly I say to you, there is no one who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, who will not receive many times as much at this time and in the age to come, eternal life” (Luke 18:29–30). God irrevocably commits Himself to meet the essential needs of His own.
Without a proper view of God, there cannot exist a proper view of man.
It is “this day” that we ask God to supply our needs. We are to rely on the Lord one day at a time. To accept the Lord’s provision for the present day, without concern for our needs or welfare tomorrow, is a testimony of our contentment in His goodness and faithfulness.
Prayer focuses on God as the One who supplies. It acknowledges that He is the source of all our physical needs, and it teaches us to live one day at a time in the confidence that He will meet those needs.
Just enough. Ever wondered how he was able to give them manna for two days when the sabbath was coming up, and yet on any other day he gave them manna for just that day? God draws us into dependence on him. Give us THIS DAY our daily bread.
The most essential, blessed, and yet most costly thing God ever did was to provide man the forgiveness of sin. It is most essential because it keeps us from hell and gives us joy in this life. It is most blessed because it introduces us into an eternal fellowship with God. And it is most costly because the Son of God gave up His life so that we might live.
Essential. Blessed. Costly.
Sin Is the Problem Forgiveness of sin is the greatest need of the human heart because sin has a twofold effect: It promises to damn people forever while at the same time robbing them of the fullness of life by burdening the conscience with unrelenting guilt. Ultimately sin separates man from God, thus it is unquestionably the principal enemy and greatest problem of man.
Anyone who desires to come to God must do so recognizing the severity of his sin and the magnitude of his debt.
The extent of this forgiveness is mindboggling. God said, “Their sin I will remember no more” (Jer. 31:34). David wrote, “As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us” (Ps. 103:12). And Isaiah gave the reason: “The LORD has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him [Christ]” (Isa. 53:6; cf. 1 Peter 2:24). God could not pass by our sin unless He placed the punishment for it on someone else, and that is why Christ died. God has forgiven us (in essence eliminated) our sins based on that onetime sacrifice of Christ on the cross.
So sin, while it is forgiven judicially, is still a reality in a Christian’s life. A decreasing frequency of sin, along with an increasing sensitivity to it, should characterize every Christian’s walk.
Sin does not, and cannot, make us entirely dirty, because we have been permanently cleansed. The judicial purging that occurs at regeneration needs no repetition, but the practical purification is
necessary every day because daily we fall short of God’s perfect holiness.
If you don’t confess your sins, you will become hardened. I’ve seen Christians—judicially forgiven and eternally secure—who are hardened, impenitent, and insensitive to sin. Consequently, they are also without joy because they don’t have a loving, intimate fellowship with God. They have blocked out joy and fellowship with the barricade of their unconfessed sin.
Forgiveness is the mark of a truly regenerate heart. When a Christian fails to forgive someone else, he sets himself up as a higher judge than God and even calls into question the reality of his faith.
I cannot say “our” if I live only for myself in a spiritual, watertight compartment. I cannot say “Father” if I do not endeavor each day to act like His child. I cannot say “who art in heaven” if I am laying up no treasure there. I cannot say “hallowed be Thy name” if I am not striving for holiness. I cannot say “Thy kingdom come” if I am not doing all in my power to hasten that wonderful day.
I cannot say “Thy will be done” if I am disobedient to His Word. I cannot say “on earth as it is in heaven” if I will not serve Him here and now. I cannot say “give us … our daily bread” if I am dishonest or an “under-the-counter” shopper. I cannot say “forgive us our debts” if I harbor a grudge against anyone. I cannot say “lead us not into temptation” if I deliberately place myself in its path. I cannot say “deliver us from evil” if I do not put on the whole armor of God. I cannot say “Thine is the kingdom” if I do not give to the King the loyalty due Him as a faithful subject. I cannot
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When you pray, what do you typically pray for?
Few things stand as a measure of a Christian than what a Christian asks for in prayer. When you call on the administration of Heaven, what do you petition the government of Heaven for?
Worthiness refers to spiritual character. It should be our desire that the Lord would make us the kind of people we ought to be. Fulfillment speaks of God bringing about in our lives every holy longing. And power is necessary for our service to be truly effective.
If we claim to belong to Christ, we need to live in such a way that honors Him.
