Many of us ask the question ‘why am I here’? ‘what is my purpose’?
The next part of the Lord’s prayer points us to that purpose. The Hallowing of God is the heart of our purpose as humanity. In fact, it is the very purpose that God created the world.
The greatest temptation for mankind is thinking of ourselves greater than we actually are.
In our society we often try and big ourselves up, we often reassure ourselves with self-assurance ‘I am who I need to be’ ‘I am the source of my greatness’.
On the surface it seems the right thing to do however to ‘hallow’ God is why we are who we are. It is this purpose that our hearts cry out for. The places we endlessly seek pleasure and satisfaction from that never truly satisfy prove we were created for more than we see, more than we can grab hold of.
Hallowed means greatly revered and honoured. As our Father in heaven, it is easy to become too familiar with God, turning to him as some Santa Claus gifting us our wish list however as our Father we are also to revere Him and to live our lives in ways that bring him glory and honour in all we do. We are created in the image of Father, Son and Holy Spirit for this purpose and to multiply his glory throughout the earth. The world is created to be filled with his glory, and it is His glory that brings joy, enables us to experience love, sustains everything from the rotating of the planets to the very breath we breathe.
But there is more than understanding how to ‘hallow’ we also need to learn who we are to hallow – His name.
God’s personal name that he declared to Moses is YHWH – there is much written by much more educated people than me to help understand the true essence of why God shared his personal name with his people. Many describe YHWH as the action of breathing in and out, that every time we breathe we declare God’s name.
What we do know is that God’s name is to be revered, it is a name that creation obeys. This is a challenge for our society especially in these modern days as God’s name is constantly being taken in vain, it is a name that expresses disappointment, expresses anger, surprise, rejection not only in private conversations but across all media outlets sadly God’s name is now used as a swear word.
God cannot be contained by humanity’s view of him, there is so much depth to God and his character that he expresses this in multiple names so that we can gain a better understanding of who He says he is. Depending on what sources you trust these names range from 5 – 958 names/titles.
However, even though we as humanity cannot contain him, he himself was willing for his glory to be contained in the flesh and bones of a human being. The whole glory of God, the fulness of God was pleased to dwell in Christ himself (Col 1:15-20).
Every Christmas across the world the name of God to be hallowed is presented to us as a baby ‘For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace’.
Jesus came from heaven to earth as the Triune God, the Teacher and Helper, the Creator, the Eternal Father and the only one to bring Peace on earth.
We hallow God because he is everything, he is the source of life, he is the sustainer of life, his eternal plan is always for his glory and our benefit. We may not always understand but we can be confident we can always trust Him.
So next time we feel we need to big ourselves up or look down on others, let us instead turn our hearts to the God who created us and get to know Him, receiving the reassurance of His grace and peace only available through the death and resurrection of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Living His Word 