Many people know very well the Lord’s prayer even non-Christians can recite parts of it. Sadly, in some churches it is recited with many Christians just reading it or saying it from memory without really knowing the deep meaning behind the words that Jesus says. One of the reasons Jesus taught the apostles the Lord’s prayer was because he wanted to teach against the mindless repetition of repeating words in prayer without knowing the meaning or having any of your own thoughts behind your prayer. It’s not wrong to recite the Lord’s prayer word for word as long as you know what you’re saying and understand the deep teachings of Jesus about prayer. The first part of the prayer Jesus says is:
Pray then like this: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. – Matthew 6:9
Jesus calls God His Father which was considered blasphemous by the Pharisees. What an amazing truth that is that all followers of Jesus can address God as “Our Father.” No matter what we go through in life or if we need guidance, we can always seek it by going to our Father who, unlike our earthly fathers, is perfect and always available and longs for us to come to Him. Paul even showed us we can call Him Abba Father which expresses and intimate and personal relationship with God. So, what does “hallowed be Thy name” mean? The word Hallowed simply means to be holy. To be set apart, to be considered sacred. Why would we pray for God’s name to be holy? Isn’t He already holy? Yes, of course but we are praying that He is to be considered Holy among us, for us to always be thinking of God as great and perfect as He is. For us to always have a desire to give Him praise and to not ever forget to remember how magnificent God is.
Just think how most of the world goes around living their lives day after day without a thought of the one true God in their minds, without seeking the one who created them, everything they see, and the very air in their lungs is provided by Him. God’s name is not regarded as Holy among much of the world. How tragic that is, there are signs of God in everything we see and experience, His greatness is shown to all by everything that is made (Rom.1), yet people do not look or seek after Him with their whole heart for if they did they would find Him as it says in Jeremiah:
You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.- Jeremiah 29:13
As Christians though do we show with our lives that we believe God’s name should be considered Holy? Are we living for the glory of God or for our own glory? When we pray “Hallowed by your name” do we really mean it? Do we want to give him praise and thanks everyday for what He’s done for us? We should always be living with God on our minds and thinking about His greatness throughout our day.
Then Moses said to Aaron, “It is what the LORD spoke, saying, ‘By those who come near Me I will be treated as holy, And before all the people I will be honored.’” – Leviticus 10:3
Each day we have is a day that we are to be looking for ways to show the greatness of the one true God and to lead others to the only one who can offer hope and salvation. We should never want to take for granted how blessed we are to be on the only road to Heaven because of God’s mercy. We need to have our minds less on ourselves and more on Jesus. A day is coming when everyone will have knowledge of the greatness of God.
For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.”- Habakkuk 2:14
- – Ryan Kaplysh