Hallowed be Your Name

I do not do [ this ] for your sake, O house of Israel, but for My holy name’s sake, which you have profaned among the nations wherever you went.

Ezekiel 36:22

We honor our Heavenly Father in several different ways! When we live according to His Law ( of Love ), we honor His Name; when we worship Him as our Creator, we honor His Name, and when we prove His Love, we bring honor to His Holy Name! In fact, that is just what it means to 'hallow' something; to sanctify, to set apart, to consecrate for a special use ( especially religious use )!

Why, if He, as our Heavenly Father, is the Creator, and therefore, the epitome of all that is right, good and holy, should we pray that His Name be hallowed? Why should we set apart His Name and consecrate it to special ( religious ) use?

You shall therefore be holy, for I [ am ] holy.

Leviticus 11:45b

We are, ourselves, instructed to be holy! We, as the People of God, children of our Heavenly Father, have been cleansed, sanctified, and made holy, yet we are told to BE holy, as He is holy. This is to say, that we are to show, or prove, in actuality, that we HAVE been made holy, that we have been sanctified and set apart! So with our Heavenly Father; He IS holy, but it is through our holy living, our honoring His Name, that His name is in actuality hallowed!

When we pray, therefore, that His name would be hallowed, we do two things; we first of all, keep the lines of communication open between us and our Heavenly Father, and we make supplication for the strength & will to honor Him with our lives!

'The Lord's Prayer', as given by our Jesus to His first-century disciples was, as we have noted, nothing new. It has recently been shown that this prayer was modeled, with a few notable distinctions, on the Jewish Kaddish. This prayer was based largely on the hope & promise of the Davidic dynasty, on the fact that David and his Son would for reign upon His throne!

Eschatologically, the prayer that Jesus taught His disciples petitioned that His Name, instead of being profaned, as their spiritual fathers had, would now be hallowed sanctified, and made holy! This, in the context of Ezekiel's prophecy in chapter 36, was only made possible through the cleansing and renewal of the hearts of the People of God! David too, spoke of this time when he prayed, 'Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
and cleanse me from my sin', and 'Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and renew a steadfast spirit within me'. ( Psalm 51:2 & 10 )

Being eschatological in nature then, as it most definitely is, and thus fulfilled; should we any longer pray this prayer, and voice these concerns? If Jesus spoke these words to His first-century disciples, instructing them to pray that His name would be hallowed 'in the Land' ( Israel ) as it is in 'heaven', is it still for us to pray them?

It most definitely is! We should still, besides keeping up good communications with our Heavenly Father, seek His Strength & Will in our lives, that we may live according to His Law, in love, sanctifying His Hallowed Name!

We should pray, yes, that His Name would always be hallowed & honored in our lives, but more importantly, we should strive to honor Him in our lives, in everything that we do as well as say!

Amen,
Charles Haddon Shank