“Hallowed be
your name”
As we move to the next line of the Lord’s Prayer, we come across the phrase: “Hallowed”, which means “holy” or “sacred”. It connotes that God is other – He is set apart, unlike anything else in all of the created order. When John receives his revelation of the glorified Jesus – he cannot help but fall on his face and together with the elders and the four living creatures, they cry out “holy, holy, holy” (Revelation 4:8)! God’s holiness is the very aspect of his character with which we are confronted when we one day see him face to face. So when we pray, “Hallowed be your name”, we are not only reaffirming that we acknowledge that He indeed is a Holy God – we are adopting a heart posture of reverential awe and wonder at the God who dwells in unapproachable light and is an all-consuming fire. So what does it mean for us to pray in light of God’s holiness?
Reverential Awe
“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.”
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. So what is God’s desire for us?
Marvel at His Love
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.”
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. So how should we pray in the light of his holiness?
Points to pray:
- Celebrate and worship God for whom He is. Allow your mind to be swept up in reverential awe before the creator who is above all.
- Thank God for His faithful love demonstrated through Jesus becoming a ransom for us. Because of his finished work, we have holiness imputed unto us, so that we may approach God boldly.
- Confess your need for Jesus and his grace. If there are any sins that come to mind, confess them openly before Him and ask him to cleanse you and conform you more to his likeness.
- Ask God to lead you into deeper intimacy and to see him more clearly. Ask him to lead you into holiness, which is his desire for you.