The phrase “cleanliness is next to godliness” is often mistakenly assumed to originate from the Bible. While it does not emanate from the Bible, there is some truth to it. During the threat of the coronavirus, good hygiene has been vehemently and correctly advocated as the best means of preventative care against infection. The CDC recommends that one wash their hands for a minimum of 20 seconds[1]. In a little experiment, we saw this correlates roughly to the same time it takes to recite the Lord’s Prayer. It would be remiss of us to not take this opportunity to invest in both our physical and our spiritual hygiene. As we explore what it means to be spiritually healthy, we turn our focus to Jesus as he teaches His disciples to pray.

And this is How You Ought to Pray

Jesus begins to model how we ought to pray with the following phrase:

“Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name”
Matthew 6:9

It is easy for this verse to merely seem like a formality – some lip-service which ought to be paid before one can truly make their requests known to God. Jesus is, however, highlighting a crucial point regarding the very nature of prayer – one which not only affects how we pray but how we live. He is in fact highlighting that prayer is sacred. Taking the preceding verses into account, our prayer life should be:

i) Regular – “[…] when you pray” (v.6a), note that it is not if you pray.
ii) Focused on God – “close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you” (v.6b)
iii) Sincere consideration – “do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words” (v.7).

So as we pray, “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name”, Jesus reminds us that this is in fact something sacred. In other words, we ought to approach God in prayer with reverence, our full attention and our most sincere consideration. Let us therefore consider what this looks like practically.

The God of Unapproachable Light

Nowadays, it seems that little credence is paid to the old adage: “fools rush in where angels fear to tread”. We live in a world which is always rushing – rushing from one meeting to another; rushing to get done for work; rushing to fit as many things as possible in our already busy schedules. We employ abbreviations when we write because we are rushing to say as many things as possible in the shortest amount of time. Our world of technology is designed to satiate our desire for instant gratification, which only endears our already rushed state of existence. This culture of hurry however has no place in prayer. In order to consider one’s words carefully, adjust their thoughts and heart towards God and to do so with regularity, one needs to adopt a slower, more intentional pace. To not do so is to go against admonitions to the contrary:

1 Guard your steps when you go to the house of God. Go near to listen rather than to offer the sacrifice of fools, who do not know that they do wrong.
2 Do not be quick with your mouth,
    do not be hasty in your heart
    to utter anything before God.
God is in heaven
    and you are on earth,
    so let your words be few.
3 A dream comes when there are many cares,
    and many words mark the speech of a fool.
Ecclesiastes 5:1-3

If angels are forced to cover their eyes and feet when in the Lord’s presence due to His immense brilliance and holiness (Isaiah 6:2-3), we cannot fool ourselves into rushing a meeting with God. He is worthy of far more than that. If we truly desire to make the most of our prayer time, then we need to adopt a posture of reverence – marvel, awe and appreciation for who God is and what He holds dear. In other words, we need to treat our time with God as sacred and we need to hold His desires as sacred.

It is God’s desire for His children to know His love for them and to be led by Him to love others as they have been loved. When Jesus teaches us how to pray, he teaches us to begin by focusing on ‘Our Father’ – the King ‘who [is] in heaven’ (v.9). When we pray, we are approaching our Father – the King of Heaven who dwells in unapproachable light. Think about it for just a moment: we get to call the God who dwells in unapproachable light our Father (1 Timothy 6:16). The God who is so brilliant that the angels need to cover themselves before Him, invites us to approach Him as His children:

12 Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— 13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.
John 1:12-13.

Our prayer times then, are an immense privilege – one that no other beings in creation can boast of. It is a time when we can truly know the love, care and affirmation of our heavenly Father, who will not turn us away. The Lord instructs us to treat prayer with a sacred reverence because it is a privilege and moreover, the daily portion of grace we all so desperately need.

Considering the Sacred

As mentioned above, the Lord’s desire for us in prayer is to know Him better and to be empowered by Him to love others. Our prayers may be private, yet the work done in silence is made visible in the way we treat one another. If we believe that God is in fact sacred, then we are called to treat one another with honour and love as we are members of His body:

12 For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. 13 For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.
1 Corinthians 12:12-13
29 After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church— 30 for we are members of his body. […] 32 This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church.
Ephesians 5:29-30, 32

We are part of something much greater than ourselves – the body of Christ, the church, consisting of people from every tribe and tongue. When we speak ill of one another, or mistreat one another, then we are in fact denigrating the very temple of God; we are doing harm to the body of Christ. It is of no surprise then that we are called to carefully consider our words and deeds, because when we are dealing with one another, we are dealing with something that is sacred to God. As we approach God in awe-filled reverence, He lavishes His love on us as His children so that we are able to lavish this love on others.

This is not always easy since we remain susceptible to sin on this side of eternity. God is perfect, but people are not. People can frustrate, annoy and offend. Our natural inclination is to love reciprocally, that is to love others in as much or in the manner that they love us. Christian love is reciprocal, yet we are called to reciprocate the love which we receive from God:

10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
1 John 4:10-12

To love others in one’s own strength will never do justice to the love we are called to give, which is the love of the Father. Unless we know and remain rooted in God’s love, our love will be conditional and fickle. To remain rooted in His love, we are called to commune with Him in prayer that is awe-filled, intentional and relational. We need to meet with Him regularly, because we need Him desperately. It is only His perfect love which can drive out our fears, our pains and our inadequacies. His love frees us to love freely.

Points for reflection

Consider and reflect on the verses above. What sticks out for you? Below are some more points to consider.

Perhaps this has been an incredibly busy and stressful season for you and as a result, you may have not been able to devote as much time in meeting with God as you normally would, or what you would have liked. Consider and reflect on the verses above. There are non-negotiables in meeting with God, chief of which is meeting with Him. It is not because wishes to burden us but to unburden us and give us the portion of grace which we so desperately need each day. If we wish to have more time with God, we need to learn to say ‘no’ to certain things – whether good or bad. Maybe this means waking up half an hour earlier for you, or fasting over a lunch break to pray. Whatever the solution may be for you, know that no time devoted to God is ever wasted.
We may also need to adjust our lens when we meet with Him. If we adopt a lens of reverence towards the sacredness of meeting with God, we can grow in appreciation and understanding of who He is and therewith, we can learn to appreciate one another as members of God’s living body. Spend time today reflecting on what it means to be joined with the God who dwells in unapproachable light.
While people may be imperfect, God has sovereignly ordained His church – the body of Christ which consists of many members – to be the vehicle which propagates His kingdom. Consider the ramifications to the way we treat one another in church. As Jesus goes on to model in his prayer, he teaches to pray ‘forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us’ (Matthew 6:12). You may have been hurt at church or by others close to you, but know that the salve to heal our wounds is found in the perfect love and forgiveness of the Father. He demonstrates this love through the cross of Jesus. God so desired for us to be with Him and united with one another in Him, that He sent His perfect son to become a sacrifice for our sin and the sins of those who have wronged us. If we forgive, it is because God has forgiven us first and if we love, it is because God loved us first. He has given us everything we need to maintain the unity of the body. If we are united in Him, the unseen God who dwells in unapproachable light is made tangible to those around us.

[1] https://www.cdc.gov/handwashing/when-how-handwashing.html