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c) The Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6:9-13)
The disciples admitted that they did not know precisely how to pray to God. The Holy Spirit had not yet been poured into their hearts, so they approached Jesus seeking a basic form of an accepted prayer. He had mercy on them and shared with them His own great prayer.
MATTHEW 6:9
9 Pray like this: ‘Our Father in heaven, may your name be kept holy. (Ezekiel 36:23; Luke 11:2-4)
Christ did not teach us to address ourselves to God as God, or call Him the Mighty Lord, the Master of the Universe, or the Most Merciful. All these titles are found in other religions. He taught us the unique name of God, which summarizes the richness of the New Testament in one word: “Our Father.” We do not deserve to call God “our Father” and we are unable to approach Him automatically. But Christ has descended from heaven born of the Holy Spirit. He made us partners in His special privilege, entered us into His personal rights and took away our sins that we might become worthy of being legal children of God by adoption, and spiritually, by the second birth.
He who considers carefully the words of the Lord Jesus mentioned in the Gospel, will observe with astonishment, that in His prayers and talks with His disciples, He mostly used in His speech about God, the word, “Abba,” “Father,” “My Father” or “Our Father” or “Your Father” about 200 times. But when addressing His enemies or casting out devils from demon-possessed people, He mentioned the name of God only. Yet when His Father’s face was hidden from Him while on the cross, He cried, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” At that moment, He was bearing in His body the sins of the world, and the compassion of His Father turned into a flaming rage for He appeared to Him as an eternal Judge. He condemned our sins in His Son instead of us.
Though the Father hid His face from Him, Jesus struggled faithfully. He clung to the fatherhood of God and prayed in the end saying, “Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit.” Since then, He has been pouring the Holy Spirit upon us, that cries joyously in us, “Our Father in heaven.” This Spirit declares the mystery of the fatherhood of God to believers. This is why we praise Him and thank Him joyfully, because the Heavenly Father forgave us, granted us His own eternal life, brought us into His family, called us His beloved and accepted us as servants in the kingdom of His love. Therefore, we do not have to be afraid of an avenging God as the heathens are, for we received the right to approach the Holy through the blood of Christ with the power of the Holy Spirit every time and any minute.
The first and most important demand of Christ is to hallow the name of the Father. No doubt that the Heavenly Father is Holy in Himself and does not need to perfect His holiness through us, but He allowed us participate in this privilege, and we therefore praise Him, glorify Him and serve Him thankfully and gladly.
It ought to be our chief and ultimate aim in all our petitions, that our Father may be glorified. All our other requests should be in subordination to this and in pursuance of it. “Father, glorify yourself and give us our daily bread and pardon our sins.” Since all is of Him and through Him, all must be to Him and for Him too. In prayer, our thoughts and affections should be focused on the holiness of our Father in heaven. The Pharisees made themselves the chief end of their prayers, but we do the opposite. We are directed to make the name of God our Father our chief end. Let all our petitions center in this goal and be regulated by it.
Every father in this world desires that his children live with respect, render faithful services to society and raise the value and standing of the family. Thus, Christ hopes that we honor our Heavenly Father with our holy behavior and bear the fruits of His Spirit. Then even unbelievers will glorify our Father in heaven because of His respected sons and daughters. What a joy it would be for our Father if the world would say, “Look at them, they believe like their Father!”
Since not every man is a father unless he has children, we pray that a multitude of spiritual children will be born to our Heavenly Father like the dew in the sunshine and that they live in holiness, righteousness and love.
PRAYER: O Father, Your name on our lips is sweeter than refined honey. We were sinners and now we are Your children. Thank You for your love, for the grace of Your Son and for the mercy of Your Holy Spirit. We thank You, because, through Your assured redemption, we became Your sons and daughters in truth and essence. Please reveal Your Fatherly name to our towns and cities that today many children be born to You and let Your Holy Fatherly name be glorified in our lives.
QUESTION:
- How can we hallow the name of the Father?