Persevering Prayer: Hallowed Be Your Name
“And he said to them, “When you pray, say: “Father, hallowed be your name.”
Luke 11:2 ESV
“Pray then like this: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.”
Matthew 6:9 ESV
Past Posts:
Different Kinds of Prayers
I’m not the biggest fan of acronyms (they don’t always work for me) but one that has stuck with me throughout the years, in reference to prayer, is ACTS. This is a way to remember four different aspects of prayer. These include Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, and Supplication (ACTS). This prayer is the quintessential verse(s) for the Adoration part of the acronym. When we pray, we are not only asking for things (supplication), we are speaking to our Father, Creator, Friend, and King. What human relationship do you have in life, where asking for things is the only form of communication? That’s unhealthy in any human relationship, let alone Creator/creation. That’s not the type of relationship God has designed for His sons and daughters to have with Him.
These verses from Matthew and Luke are describing the same instance in which Jesus was teaching how to pray. The entire prayer that Jesus describes is commonly referred to as “The Lord’s Prayer.” As a whole, it contains for the four parts of the acronym. Here, I want to focus on just the beginning. This is a prayer that is absolutely crucial to having a prayer life that is effective (James 5:16) and truthful. This is the basis of all prayer.
A part of me shutters when I think of how many unbiblical statements I’ve heard about effective prayer. This goes for prayer as a whole, but if our prayers are truly grounded in this, we can avoid different pitfalls. These include the prosperity gospel (God exists for you above all else). We’ll call the second one, the “puzzle gospel” (God’s just waiting for you to solve the equation and unlock what he has for you). Thirdly, we are warned against prayer that’s ultimately for ourselves without God as our aim (James 4:2-4) These unsatisfying approaches to prayer ultimately leave us empty and more hungry for what we are missing, which is God as being the Gospel himself. I highly recommend “God is The Gospel” by John Piper. He does a great job of showing why God is, well, the Gospel as the title says. God’s glory and the good of His children are tied together in the beautiful resolution of Scripture in Revelation 22. When we pray “hallowed be Your Name” we are praising God, in prayer, for His glorious plan for every detail of our lives, but for the total resolution to come. We are trusting that He sovereignly will provide “every need [of ours] according to His riches of glory in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:19).
Prayer is Worship
When we talk about worship, in our day, we’re often talking about music. We tie the word worship down to singing. I believe this is a horrific boxing up of the full meaning of the Biblical use of the word. At the risk of getting too tangential (probably deserves another post), I will say that worship is an all encompassing activity in each of our lives. As Christians, we do all things to the glory of God (1 Cor 10:31, Romans 12:1). Our prayer is part of our lives of worship. We pray, not only for the things or circumstances we pray for. We echo Jesus praying “Not my will, but yours, be done” (Luke 22:42) We say “God I will give up my wants and desires in order to praise you with my life.” We pray knowing that whatever happens, God is being glorified through our obedience and faith, our worship. But God’s righteous command for worship and praise is not only for Him. Because He is perfect mercy, grace, and love, his command for worship is ultimately for our highest satisfaction. He does not give us commands of worship to become masochists of our own satisfaction, but actually provides a better satisfaction when we worship through our faith and obedience to those commands. The psalmist describes this perfectly in Psalm 63:3, “Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you.” Because God is supremely satisfying in and of Himself, we are finding our ultimate joy in praising Him with all of our lives.
My Dad Can Beat Up Your Dad
This analogy may fall apart real fast, but we’ll run with it. When we look at this prayer from the viewpoint of us being children of God, we see this play out in how children want to view their parents. I can remember experiences when I was kid of boys literally saying this somewhat cliche line, stereotypical of young boys, “my dad can beat up your dad.”
“Hallowed by Your Name” is saying “Father, you are Holy.” The word “Holy” throughout Scripture is a unique attribute to God alone. Being holy does not only mean that God is without sin. It also means that He is unmatched in every attribute He displays. He is entirely merciful, entirely just, and entirely beautiful beyond any stretch of his creation’s ability to imagine. No one can rival God in anything. So when we pray this prayer, we are reminded of Who we are praying to. We are praying to our Holy Father, capable of all things, who “works all things according to the counsel of his will” (Eph 1:11) and “causes all things to work together for good to those who love God” (Rom 8:28). Our Father is above all creation. He is without equal.
I suppose the analogy would fall apart when he’s beating up other dads, but He has defeating the father of lies in Satan. There, I saved the analogy. We’ll go the extra mile and say that “your dad” in this scenario can be anything that tries to oppose God. This would include our own sin, the suffering of this life that tempts us to abandon our faith, others who “revile us and persecute us and utter all kinds of evil against us” (Matt 5:11). God has defeated them all. We are praying to the ultimate Victor in all things. All things are “to Him” (Romans 11:36).
The Name of God
The final part of this prayer that I want to discuss is the “Name” part of “Hallowed Be Your Name.” This is a topic that is one of the deepest and riches to me in all of Scripture. It involves many different doctrines of our faith, including one of the clearest connections to our doctrine of the Trinity (1 Being, 3 Persons). I could write a lot about this and probably will in the future, but for now, I will try and keep it short. The Name of God is how we identify the Character and Work of God. His Name describes who He is and what He does. He’s given many different Names throughout the Old Testament. One of the reasons the Jewish leaders ended up crucifying Jesus was because he referenced Himself as “I AM” as He did to Moses. When we pray “Hallowed by Your Name” we are saying many things, but the way I view it in the context of this prayer is “Hallowed Be You to the fullest extent of all that You are.” This prayer is glorious and for our good.