Praying As Jesus Taught Us To Pray:
Praying for God’s Name to be Hallowed
Greg L. Price
“After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name” Matthew 6:9.
No prayer is greater than the God to whom the prayer is addressed. Jesus taught us in this model prayer (which we call The Lord’s Prayer) to address our prayers to our holy Father (the first Person of the Holy Trinity) who dwells in almighty power in heaven above. There are two extremes we must avoid in prayer if we would pray as Christ taught us to pray: (1) God is a distant stranger who has no time for us; and (2) God is a celestial bellhop who exists to give us whatever we want. No, our approach to God must be to Him who is a reconciled Father and has made us to become his adopted children through faith alone in Christ as our only righteousness. As a reconciled Father, we have direct access into His very presence. Although exalted with omnipotent power and unfathomable glory in heaven, this is a Father who loves His children with an everlasting and unchangeable love. He is never too busy for us, and even delights to have us call upon Him at any time throughout th! e day. However, God the Father does not exist for us, we exist for Him. Our Father in heaven does not exist to serve us, we exist to serve Him. And because He is absolutely holy and good, He always gives what is good for His children in answer to their prayers; and if He withholds what is asked, it is also because He is absolutely holy and good (“If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good gifts to them that ask him?” Matthew 7:11). Thus, we can be absolutely assured that in whatever our Father gives to us and in whatever our Father refrains from giving to us in prayer, He can do us no wrong, and He never makes a mistake.
True prayer begins not with petitions for ourselves (as lawful as our petitions may be), but with the exaltation of our Almighty, Holy Father. In fact, the first and foremost petition in prayer (as taught by Christ) is, “Hallowed be thy name.” The Lord Jesus implies that hallowing of God’s name ought to be more important to us than life itself (because petitions pertaining to this life follow after this chief petition). The chief end of man is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever; and thus our chief petition in prayer is that God would cause His name to be hallowed now and for all eternity. After the consummation of all things when we worship before the Lord in the glory of the new heaven and the new earth, all of the other petitions in the Lord’s Prayer shall be unfit and unnecessary (in as much as they relate to this earthly life), but our praise to God that He would glorify His holy name will always be fit and necessary.
In this first petition of the Lord’s Prayer, the Lord Jesus teaches us to begin with the word, “hallowed.” In so doing, we pray, “Let thy name be treated as holy and reverenced.” This is simply pleading with God to glorify His own holy name throughout heaven and earth. In other words, whatever our Father may do in heaven and on earth (whether in our lives, in our families, in the Church, and in the nations of the world), we pray that above all else He would glorify Himself and cause His name to be treated as holy. Nothing is more important than that. Placing this petition as the chief petition teaches us that prayer is not man-centered, but is God-centered. The petition that God’s name be treated as holy and be reverenced qualifies even giving to us our daily bread (and all our earthly necessities). “Our heavenly Father, even if we must go without certain necessities or comforts of this life, Lord, above all else, let thy name be ! treated as holy throughout the whole world. Although we add no glory or holiness to God’s name by our prayers or by anything else we do (for He is absolutely, infinitely, eternally, and unchangeably glorious and holy), nevertheless, we can plead in prayer that He would glorify Himself by causing the whole world (and all of creation) to treat His name as holy. And this is what Jesus taught us to pray in the first petition of the Lord’s Prayer.
But the first petition also tells us what we are to pray that the Lord would hallow: namely, His name: “Hallowed be thy name.” The Lord is not simply telling us to pray that people would no longer use God’s name profanely to punctuate their sentences, or that people would no longer use God’s name sacrilegiously in jokes, or that people would no longer use God’s name in swearing oaths that they do not and will not keep. The sanctifying of the name of our Heavenly Father certainly includes these sinful abuses of God’s name, but even beyond that, the “name” of our Heavenly Father means everything by which He reveals Himself and makes Himself known. For in its essence, a name is that by which we outwardly reveal ourselves and make ourselves known to others in communication. But the words, “God” or “Father”, hardly identify all the ways by which God reveals Himself and makes Himself known. God our Father r! eveals Himself by creation (“For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse” Romans 1:20). God makes Himself known particularly in the creation of man (“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them” Genesis 1:27). God reveals Himself in Holy Scripture (“All scripture is given by inspiration of God” 2 Timothy 3:16), in the gospel (“But is now made manifest by the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel “ 2 Timothy 1:10), and in the sacraments (“For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord’s death till he come” 1 Corinthians 11:26). But the Father pre-eminently has made Himself! known in Jesus Christ, who is the Word made flesh (“And! the Wor d was made flesh” John 1:14), who if one sees, he sees the Father (“He that hath seen me hath seen the Father” John 14:9), for the Son has the same Divine nature as the Father (“Who being the brightness of his [God’s] glory, and the express image of his [God’s] person: Hebrews 1:3). When we pray, “Hallowed be thy name”, we pray that the Lord would bless the gospel of Jesus Christ, for it is by the faithful preaching of the gospel that we who are godless and profane sinners come to reverence our Heaven Father.
And so when we pray, “Hallowed be thy name”, we plead with our Heavenly Father to glorify Himself by causing His name and every way in which He reveals Himself to be treated with reverence rather than to be treated with hatred, with disrespect, with indifference, or with negligence—beginning with me in my own life, and beginning with you in your own life.
The Customary Practice of Headcoverings Authored by Rev Greg L. Price
Have you ever wondered whether or not women ought to cover their heads in the worship of God? Paul talks about it in 1 Corinthians. Should women wear headcoverings? If we are to find the answer to this question, we must first turn to the Scriptures. Then we must retrace the steps of the faithful throughout the ages.
Greg L. Price does both of these, and does them thoroughly. Carefully dissecting the most relevant text in 1 Corinthians, defining concepts like "the light of nature" and "circumstances in worship", giving heed to moral principles of male headship and female submission, and submitting quotes from faithful reformed writers, Rev. Price covers a lot of ground. As a result, this is perhaps the definitive work on this subject. A must read for all families, leaders and women who desire to approach God rightly in worship, without submitting to man made rules.
This title is a Print on Demand, available from: Create Space
Also available from: Amazon
eBooks from Gospel Covenant Publications
The Anglosphere's Broken Covenant, by Michael Wagner
Big surprises sometimes come in little packages. That is the case with what is found in the pages of this book. Dr. Wagner presents a brief but powerful summary of the case for National Covenanting, and particularly, the case for the obligation that yet rests upon the Anglosphere Nations (i.e. the entirety of English-speaking civilization) to own their broken covenant with God, The Solemn League and Covenant of the Three Kingdoms (1643). For those who may be unfamiliar with the covenanted obligation that lies upon the Anglosphere Nations, this concise primer will provide the reader with an excellent overview of why God will not forget the sacred National Covenant that England, Ireland, and Scotland (along with all the Dominions of Great Britain) made with Him, who is Governor among the Nations (Psalm 22:28) and who keeps truth forever (Psalm 146:6).
What makes this a matter of the utmost importance is that lawful covenants made with God (whet!
her personal, ecclesiastical, or national) cannot be dissolved, repealed, or antiquated by the mere passage of time, by wars of independence, or by crossing an ocean to plant a daughter-kingdom. For the sacred duty of all those bound by lawful covenants is squarely founded upon the moral obligation of the Third Commandment, “Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain: for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain” (Exodus 20:7).
A Refutation of Religious Pluralism, by John Brown of Haddington; edited by Greg L. Price
As the Christian evaluates both the downward spiral of nations into moral cesspools, and the tyranny exercised by corrupt rulers at every level of government, the mind of the Christian must look beyond political parties, political theory and public opinion polls for answers. He must go to the God who instituted civil government to be “the minister of God” for good to the people (Romans 13:4).
John Brown of Haddington (1722-1787) summarizes in this very helpful and timely work the problem and solution to the corrupt laws and the tyranny in high places that Christians so much decry in the nations of this world. Even Christians have been misled to believe that civil government is outside the sphere of God’s Law and authority. We hear much about civil rights, but do we ever hear that a moral wrong cannot be a civil right? We hear much about the rights of man in a democracy to rule himself by his own laws, but do we ever he!
ar civil rulers say anything about the sovereign rights of God and His Moral Law over the nations?
For the Christian who is tired of the typical, political solutions promoted by the status quo in political parties and candidates of all stripes and colors, Mr. Brown offers God’s revealed solutions from His Word to the perversion and tyranny so rampant in the nations of this world. The Christian who desires to know the mind of God will find the cogent and sound reasoning of Mr. Brown to be unassailable in providing scriptural answers to the problems we face in our nations.
Have a blessed day!