Trusting, Faith, Calling and Ascribing to Jehovah #11 Prayer #9 Making the Name Holy

Making the Name Holy

Intro to the Holiness of the Name

From the previous chapters you probably could understand that prayer should not be indulged in lightly. Thought and care should be taken in our approach to the Most High creator of heaven and earth, whom we may call Our Father.

All the principles that go to make prayer powerful are set forth and reiterated in Scripture. They are there for our seeking. When we open the Word of God, God speaks to us; when we engage in Prayer, we speak to Him. This speaking to our Father should be out of love to Him, pure, sincere, without false motives, or ostentation and with grace. Even in our failings we can be sincere, recognizing them for what they are, and seeking the divine forgiveness and help in time of need.

Prayer is communion with God. It is the most personal fact of worship in which we can engage. It is our expression of our faith in the existence of God, indicating our awareness of Him as a living Personality. Prayer is not acceptable in the absence of such a virile faith. Paul declared: “He that cometh to God must believe that He is” (Hebrews 11:6). This is a first-principal of acceptable worship.

A privilege to speak to the Most High

To that Most Highest Mastershepherd who gave the world his son to be offered as a Lamb to Him for the discharge of sins of humanity, we must declare our thanks. To be allowed to speak to Him we should consider as a privilege. This is made possible by His son who restored the broken relation between God and humanity. That particular place which both the son of God and God the father would have in our heart should ensure that we give these characters a separate place of honour in the world of the many idols or gods.

Gratefulness

We can be surprised and look up at Jesus for what he has done for the world, but still more we must be grateful to God that He was willing to accept the offering of His son. That also makes that we must be grateful for this and carry Him high in our heart.

Jesus honoured his father and was also very close to Him. Not his own will Jesus wished to do, but he wanted that the Will of His Father would be fulfilled. God’s Will lay close in Christ Jesus his heart, where God got separate place, above all others.

Father, Dad, Papa, Paps, Pa

As a child does not speak with sir or lord to its father, but with his title ‘papa’ or ‘father’ (paps, dad, daddy) Jesus spoke this way to his Father (Abba/Father). Even more, having a special relation with his Father Jesus could address his Father with His first name. If we love someone we also shall not address that person with his or her title but with the name of that person. Jesus levelled the path that we also can address the Father with His name, which even must be sanctified.

“In this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name.” (Matthew 6:9 KJ21)

The beginning of the Lord’s Prayer in Míkmaq hieroglyphs. The text reads Nujjinen wásóq – “Our father / in heaven” (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Preceding article: Trusting, Faith, Calling and Ascribing to Jehovah #10 Prayer #8 Condition

Dutch version / Nederlandse versie: Vertrouwen, Geloof, Roepen en Toeschrijving aan Jehovah #11 Gebed #9 Heiliging van Dé Naam

To be continued: Trusting, Faith, Calling and Ascribing to Jehovah #12 Prayer #10 Talk to A Friend

Find also to read:

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George Muller on Faith, Prayer, and God’s Promises (biblebelievernet.com)
Of course God does not need to be convinced: no arguments can make any plainer to Him the claims of trusting souls to His intervention, claims based upon His own word, confirmed by His oath. And yet He will be inquired of and argued with. That is His way of blessing. He loves to have us set before Him our cause and His own promises:He delights in the well-ordered plea, where argument is piled upon argument.
Hallowed Be Your Name, Evans Olang (magnifyhisword.wordpress.com)
Prayer always begins with God and ends with Him. When was the last time you worshipped Him for who He is, magnified His name, His attributes, His nature in your prayers? While it’s easy to come to prayers with our “give me list”, Jesus taught His disciples to first hallow God’s name.
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The more hallow God’s name, the more your faith in prayer increases. It builds your faith to see God far beyond what I you are dealing with at any given time. Read Jeremiah’s hallow God’s greatness, “‘Ah, Lord God! Behold, You have made the heavens and the earth by Your great power and outstretched arm. There is nothing too hard for You”, Jeremiah 32:17.
The Fifth of November and the Liturgy of Thanks (calvinistinternational.com)
As mentioned in our post on the history of Halloween, the great holiday around this time in post-Reformation England was neither All Saints Day nor Reformation Day, but rather Guy Fawkes Day. The Fifth of November became a national holiday, a day of thanksgiving, in 1606, and it continued to be a vastly popular holiday for centuries. It did not become an official liturgical holiday until 1662, when a special service of thanksgiving was added to the Book of Common Prayer. This initial service was actually not extraordinarily anti-catholic, and certainly not at all extreme by the standards of the time, though it certainly used the occasion of the liturgy to promote religious unity around the state church and the monarchy, as well as to suppress dissent.
Creator and Blogger God 7 A Blog of a Book 1 Believing the Blogger (bijbelvorser.wordpress.com)
In one of his last recorded prayers before his death, Jesus declared: “this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent” (John 17:3). It is a remarkable fact that our salvation – life eternal – should link so closely with our knowledge of God.Jesus always worked on the relationship with his Father and took care that others got to know his Father, without Jesus is nothing and who is mightier than Jesus.
The Sacred and the Shameful: Our Attendance and Conduct at Church (regenerationandrepentance.wordpress.com)
God has made you a Christian that you may be the means of making others partakers of your glorious hopes. You are a part of “the salt of the earth,” that you may season it with religious influences. You are a ray of “the light of the world’” that you may enlighten its darkness. God has led you to embrace the Gospel, that from you it may ” sound out” to your neighbours and friends. The millennium will be brought about, not so much by the labours of splendid and gifted preachers, as by the universal and persistent labours of the great body of disciples, “every man eaying to his neighbour, Know the Lord, until all shall know Him, from the least to the greatest.” See Jer. xxxi. 34. Thus shall the earth be filled with the knowledge of the Lord. Now in this blessed labour you are called upon to take a part You have been made alive unto God by Christ Jesus, that you may work for Jesus with all your heaven-born energies.
Calling and Ascribing to Jehovah #8 Prayer #6 Communication and manifestation (christadelphians.wordpress.com)
Trusting, Faith, Calling and Ascribing to Jehovah #9 Prayer #7 Reason to pray (christadelphians.wordpress.com)