Hallow?

What does it mean to "hallow" God in prayer?

It means to worship him because of who he is - holy, set apart from us, great and awesome, and even terrifying.

In Christ's model prayer, it comes immediately after the very intimate term he uses for God - "Father" (Matthew 6:9-13).

As Elmer Towns writes, Jesus introduces the concept of God as "Abba" or "Daddy" to his followers - very different from the Old Testament terms for God.  A picture of a loving father cuddling his child springs to mind.

So, what does that tell me?

It tells me that I am to rejoice in the fact that God is my Daddy.  And, at the same time, I must realize I am in the presence of the creator of the universe, the Almighty God who has me and the whole world in the palm of his hand.

Intimacy and awe together.

Sometimes we fall into the trap of ignoring one of these very important aspects of God as we pray.

We may be feeling depressed and imagine that God must be displeased with us.  That may lead us to view the Lord as a terrifying judge.

On the other hand, we may approach him as a kind of Easter bunny, handing out whatever chocolate eggs we ask him for.

In what is known as "The Lord's Prayer", Jesus says "hallowed be your name", a prayer that God's holiness be celebrated. 

I believe he is asking us to praise God for his unique qualities.  I think it also means we are requesting that God be worshiped throughout the world.

The Lord has said that, at some point, "every knee will bow before me; every tongue will acknowledge God" (Romans 14:11).

We haven't yet reached that stage, but we should be praying for that even now.  It will be an amazing day when people all over the world bow before God.

Elmer Towns tells the story of watching a dramatic lightning storm over darkened Mount Rushmore in South Dakota with round after round of lightning blazing above.

He says it drove him that evening to "hallow" God's names in scripture.  He was reminded of God as creator, his kindness, his role as master of men, and his almighty power.

In his book Praying the Lord's Prayer for Spiritual Breakthrough, Towns writes:

"When you pray 'Hallowed be thy name,' you climb to a new level of respect for God and reverence for his person.  You are ascending into the very heart of God to recognize who he is, and what he has done for us."

When you pray "hallowed be your name", you are "placing God on the throne of your heart", says Towns.  As you enter God's presence, you know he is concerned for your needs and loves you deeply.  At the same time, "you also enter reverently and fearfully into the throne room of a God-King who demands obedience and reverence".

May the Holy Spirit help me understand ever more deeply how great is God - and how loving, too.

Dynamic, united prayer

United, Spirit-led prayer is a dynamic force.

We see it in the Bible and Christian history as people turned to God to transform their world.

I sense that we are moving in that direction in North America.

Houses of prayer are popping up in North America and Europe as people pray for themselves but also for the society around them.  The International House of Prayer in Kansas City is one of the best known and Pete Greig's 24-7 Prayer International has had a particularly great impact on young people in many countries around the world.

In our city of Ottawa, Canada, the National House of Prayer was established some years ago to pray for our government.  And in recent years, Pray Ottawa has organized a week of prayer annually for our city.

When people come together to pray for what God wants, great things happen.

A good example is the young Christian church just after Jesus' resurrection and ascension to heaven.

In Acts 4, we read how the believers reacted after Peter and John were arrested and told by the religious authorities not to preach the gospel.  They heard from the apostles and then prayed together as one.

Defiantly, they prayed: "And now, O Lord, hear their threats, and give us, your servants, great boldness in preaching your word.  Stretch out your hand with healing power; may miraculous signs and wonders be done through the name of your holy servant Jesus."

God confirmed their prayers by shaking the house in which they were praying and giving them the boldness they requested.  Many people were healed and many became followers of Christ.

In Matthew 18:19-20, Jesus says that he will give whatever people request if they pray in unity and according to "my name" or will. 

Unfortunately, Christians are less likely to put aside their differences and seek God's will when times are peaceful and pleasant.  But as social tensions rise, the economy worsens, and persecution begins, Christians increasingly turn to God.

Some of those symptoms are already evident in our society.

The other elements in spiritual transformation are repentance and a vision of what the world can be.

Great revivals begin when Christians acknowledge that they have wandered from God.

And vision played a major role in the remarkable 100-year, round-the-clock prayer vigil of the Moravians which launched a great missionary movement around the world.

May we, as Christians, become conscious of the need to draw together and pray as one for God to change our world.

God's prayer request

What a request!

Through Jeremiah the prophet, God asked the captive Jews to pray for the welfare of the state of Babylon (Jeremiah 29:4-7).

To many exiled Jews, it must have sounded incredible.  "Pray for the evil people who enslaved us?"

But that's exactly what God wanted.

And Erwin Lutzer, author of The Church in Babylon, says that we should heed the same call in our own world where Christ and the church are either under attack or simply thrown aside.

Lutzer points out that Jeremiah's letter to the Jews in Babylon explicitly says that God "sent" them to Babylon for his own purposes.  They were certainly being punished for their rejection of God - but God had plans for their good in the long term.

In the meantime, they were to settle down in Babylon, build homes, have families, work for the welfare and peace of the city - and pray for the Babylonians.

Lutzer says God is "sending" us into our society to work for the peace and prosperity of our cities and nations - and to pray for them. 

I rejoice that many in North America are doing exactly that - praying for our cities and nations.  I sense that this prayer movement is growing.

In my own city, a group of Christians has founded a lay organization called "Love Ottawa" which has for several years worked to serve the needs of the city in various ways - including through regular annual prayer weeks.

Canada's National House of Prayer is based on our city.  It's purpose is to mobilize prayer for our government.

Lutzer, long-time senior pastor of Moody Bible Church in Chicago, cites similar prayer efforts in his own city of Chicago.

But he pleads for more prayer. 

"Despite our great needs here in America, few evangelical churches have a regularly scheduled prayer meeting," he writes.  "When I asked a megachurch pastor if they had a regular prayer meeting and he replied, no, I asked a follow-up question: 'How bad would it have to get before you scheduled a regular prayer meeting?' He did not give me a clear answer."

Prayer matters to God.  He works with us as we pray.

Several Bible passages make that clear, such as 2 Timothy l:1-2, 2 Chronicles 7:14, and Ezekiel 22:30.

So, how can we pray?

Some obvious topics spring to my mind: godly values in our schools; honesty and integrity among our civic and national leaders; sacredness of life rather than abortion; caring for the needy and oppressed; revival in our churches; and open hearts for the gospel of Jesus Christ throughout society.

A friend of ours recently sent us a note about advisors to British Prime Minister Winston Churchill spending one minute a day at a prescribed hour during World War II to pray for the safety of Britain and its people and for peace.  She suggested we all do the same.

My wife and I are heeding this call and making a regular practice of praying for our country.

Waiting

Waiting is important in prayer.

I say it's important because the psalmist says it is - frequently.

But how and why are we to wait?

I am naturally an impatient man.  I want to see results right away from whatever I do.

But I have learned that rushing things doesn't always yield dividends.

Like many others, I have often gone to God with specific demands without asking him what he wants.  Sometimes he gives me what I request - other times, not.

But, looking at scripture, I see that the great people of prayer spent a lot of time with God, getting to know him and what he wanted in their lives.

For example, take Moses.

I turn often to Exodus 33 and its description of Moses going out to the Tent of Meeting to commune with the Lord, accompanied by his young disciple Joshua.  The people knew that this was Moses' special time with God where he would hear from the Lord.

Moses would sometimes question God, but he knew he had been commissioned by the Lord to lead the people God's way - not his.

So, he learned to listen and wait when others would have plunged ahead with their own agendas.

That teaches me an important lesson: If I want to see God work in my life, I need to wait, listen and obey.

My record in this area is uneven.  I have a lot to learn.

Dick Eastman urges me in his book The Hour That Changes The World to simply spend time in silence daily, just focusing my mind on God and his love - enjoying him.  In other words, I am to seek God for himself - not for his gifts.

I believe that was Moses' approach.  And David's, too.

I love David's words in Psalm 27:4:

"One thing I ask from the Lord, this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the Lord, and to seek him in his temple."

Moses and David were leaders and men of action.  But they ardently sought God's presence - and waited upon him.

I can see difficulties in waiting.  It's hard not to decide what is right in certain circumstances and ask God to do my bidding.

And I believe we are to bring our needs before the Lord.  He wants to hear from us and help us.

But, ultimately, I know that there is blessing in putting everything aside and coming to God for himself alone.

All fears subside as I get to know the Lord better.

Winnie's story

Ready to give up on praying for your friend or family?

Maybe Winnie's story will change your mind.

A couple of years ago, Joseph M. Stowell, former president of Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, was speaking at the great Keswick Conference in England, a three-week annual gathering of people seeking a deeper relationship with Christ.

One Sunday, he was about to speak in a church at the outskirts of Keswick when the church pastor asked a woman to come up front and lead in prayer and give her testimony.

The woman said she was a shopkeeper in a deli and gift shop in Keswick several years before when she met a visitor at Keswick named Winnie.  Winnie visited the shop every day for coffee and the shop assistant struck up a friendship with her.

Stowell says the shopkeeper "admitted that there was something different about this woman, and that at the end of the week she felt sorry that her new friend, Winnie, was leaving to go back to her home".

"Every year she waited to see Winnie again during the conference weeks, but as the years passed she never came back," writes Stowell in his book Simply Jesus and You.

"Several years after she had met Winnie, however, she began to have a drawing in her spirit to Jesus that was so strong that it was almost physical in its power.  After trying to dismiss it, she found that it persisted in increasing strength, until one day she wandered into a church.

"After meeting with the pastor, she accepted the Lord Jesus as her Saviour."

A couple of years after she became a believer, a woman walked into the Keswick deli and gift shop and asked her if she remembered Winnie from many years before.

She lit up at the memory of Winnie and mentioned to the visitor that years after meeting Winnie, she had become a follower of Jesus.

"The lady on the other side of the counter gasped in joy, and said she couldn't wait to tell Winnie, since Winnie had prayed for her salvation every day without fail since she left Keswick years before."

Stowell says he could hardly hold back the tears as he heard this testimony.

Winnie had prayed every day for years "until the enemy finally said, 'I give up, I can't hold on to her against the power of these persistent prayers.'"  The way had been cleared for Jesus to draw her to him.

Then, the woman finished her story by saying: "And I am so glad that Winnie is here this morning."

Winnie stood up to enthusiastic applause from the normally reserved English congregation.

After the service, Stowell went up to Winnie and her friend and said that Satan must have had a tight grip on the shopkeeper's life in order to take such a long time to become a believer.

"I cannot tell you how strong his grip was on my life!" she said.

Stowell writes that Winnie is a model of what it means to pray for people to become followers of Christ.

"She persevered in long-distance prayer without a clue of what was going on in the spiritual underworld.  The Spirit energized her undaunted commitment to the welfare of others and the battle was won."

God rewards persistence in the cause of Christ.

Hope out of hopelessness

The apostle Peter was devastated by the death of Jesus on the cross - he had lost all hope.

But three days later the impossible happened - he saw Jesus again.

This makes me think about hope and hopelessness.  And God.

It encourages me to wait in prayer for God to move.  Even if it means waiting until after I die.

I believe our view of God is very important in prayer.

I cling to the truth of Romans 8:28: "We know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them."

In this passage, the apostle Paul doesn't specify what kind of good we can expect.  But we can be sure it will be good for us - even if we find out what it was after our death.

Take Paul himself as an example.

He suffered greatly in life as he spoke for Christ in many places around the Mediterranean Sea.  But God delivered him repeatedly from the edge of death.  Until he didn't.

Paul knew before his final journey to Rome to stand before the Roman emperor for judgement that he would die.  But he went obediently.

Paul died - history says he was crucified for his faith.  But he left a legacy of faith that rings throughout the ages.

My guess is that none of us will have that kind of impact.  But living with faith and trust in God will have an eternal impact, no matter what.

That faith and love may touch someone's life that you may be unaware of.

It may be that the person you pray for seems hopeless when you last see him or her.  But amazingly, God works in that person's life and you will find out in eternity.

One of the great prayer warriors, George Muller, prayed seemingly unsuccessfully for a friend to become a follower of God for more than 60 years.  That person became a believer at Muller's graveside.

I have pointed to extreme examples.  But we can be sure that waiting before God in hope will be rewarded often in our everyday lives if we trust him to bring good out of seemingly hopeless circumstances.

I write this to encourage myself.

I believe this to be true because God says it.

And he has proved it throughout history.

God's gifts

A church functions best when all members use the spiritual gifts God has given them.

Equally, a community is most blessed when all the gifts are distributed effectively among the local churches.

For these reasons, we should pray that the Lord will stir up church leaders and community leaders to understand the importance of all the spiritual gifts for their congregations and their communities and to use them.

That’s the conviction of Eddie Smith and Michael L. Hennen, authors of Strategic Prayer: Applying the Power of Strategic Prayer. 

“God endows individuals, communities, and nations with gifts designed to help lead the nations to Christ,” say Smith and Hennen.

The apostle Paul outlines some of the gifts bestowed on believers by the Holy Spirit in such passages as Romans 12:4-8 and Ephesians 4:11-16.  These gifts range from pastor, evangelist, helps, hospitality, wisdom and leadership to miracles, healing, faith, and mercy.

The authors suggest that one of the problems in using all the gifts available is that Christians often move about from church to church without settling down in a congregation and establishing strong relationships.

“People who drift from one congregation to another never give their gifts opportunity to become rooted in a set of relationships that will enable their gifts to grow and operate most freely,” the authors say.

Christians should be accountable to one another to use their gifts for the good of others in their church community.

Smith and Hennen also say that God has given believers gifts to be used in reaching those who do not know Christ.

So they say we should pray that Christian leaders understand the importance of all the Holy Spirit’s gifts for their own congregations and their communities.

“Pray that they will welcome and encourage the use of these gifts among their members.”

I must say I had not considered how vital it is that every church make use of all the spiritual gifts, not only for their own church members but for the advancement of the kingdom of God in their own communities.

Most evangelical churches place a high priority on teaching and preaching.

But the gifts of helping, serving and generosity may have an even larger impact on reaching people outside the church doors.  People may be more willing to hear the message of Christ after demonstrations of Christ’s love.

So let’s pray that God will move believers to use their gifts for God’s purposes.