The Lord’s Prayer (4)

…Hallowed be your name….

I’ve thought a lot about prayer the last few weeks. In this little series on the Lord’s prayer I hope to learn more about it as I blog. That’s the purpose in much of my blogging by the way; writing is the best way to get clarity for my thoughts.

In the Lord’s prayer, we see a perfect model of what prayer is supposed to look like.

In this particular part of it, we see a strange word: Hallowed. When is the last time you heard someone say that in normal conversation? What does it mean?

As you’ve probably noticed in these posts, I’ve been drawing from R.C. Sproul’s little book entitled,  Does Prayer Change Things?and here’s another jewel from it:

The top priority for the Christian is to see that God’s name is kept holy, for it is holy. If that were the only prayer request the Christian community ever made, and if believers made it earnestly and regularly, I suspect the revival we pray for and the reformation we so earnestly desire would be accomplished in no time.

Christians who are zealous for God’s honor are going to be the most fruitful. As a worship leader this should be paramount. I need to grow in my passion to see  God’s reputation held up high. Why? Because it’s truth. It is a travesty that God, the universe’s architect and builder, gets snubbed every day.

So to pray that His name would be valued, prized, held high as it should be, is to ask that God would be seen by the world around us. This is probably the most important thing a Christian could ever ask God for. Another way to rephrase the request is: “God, glorify your name”

I’m pretty sure that’s a prayer you can’t ever go wrong with.