I Will Honour the Father's Name

The phrase I want to look at within this post is "hallowed be your name" in the Lord's Prayer. Hallowed means to honour his name - recognising that the heavenly Father we have addressed in prayer is holy. This means we do not take his name in vain (like the 10 commandments speak about) but lift his name on high. From day to day to we see demonstration of His Lordship and in return, we should turn and honour his name. A couple of verses from Ezekiel, demonstrate this:

Ezekiel 36:22-23

"Therefore say to the house of Israel, 'This is what the Sovereign LORD says: It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am going to do these things, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations where you have gone. I will show the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, the name you have profaned among them. Then the nations will know that I am the LORD, declares the Sovereign LORD, when I show myself holy through you before their eyes.

Abba Father

Do you know the Father? The one which the Lord's prayer is addressed to? If you look at Matthew 6, you will find if you tally it all up that the Word "father" is mentioned 10 times from v1-18 0f this chapter. Notice that He is our Father in heaven and indeed, he is reffered to as Heavenly father in verses throughout Matthew.

The prayer addresses Abba Father. It is probably either translated to best fit our language as "Daddy" or "Papa". It speaks to us of Father who we have a close intimate relationship with yet we respect/fear him. Those who have respect for their heavenly Father will not want to try and manipulate him or seek their own way/glory.
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Ephesians 3 is another prayer which addresses the father, there is a posting on this to view click here

Will I be Heard Because of my Many Words?

Simple answer is not neccessary but lets read further into this passage of the Lords prayer to see the answer to the proposed question.

Matthew 6:7-8
"And when you are praying, do not use meaningless repetition, as the Gentiles do, for they suppose that they will be heard for their many words. "Therefore do not be like them; for your Father knows what you need, before you ask Him.

Pagans and Jews alike thought they could be heard because of their many words. To do this they used what the prayer describes as "meaningless repetition". We need to hold on to this thought that it is not requirement for us to pray long lengthy prayers in order for us to be heard.

The encouraging thing is that before you come to him surrendering yourself in prayer, the Father in Heaven knows what you need. So it is not even the case we need to pray long in order to inform him of the full story. It is good to know that the Father is waiting for us to surrender ourselves in prayer to him.

In prayer, we do not look for praise from others nor are we trying to manipulate God so that we get our own way. This is why we pray Father, let your will be done in the Lord's prayer!

God's Creation IV

The Secret and Corporate Place of Prayer!

Matthew 5:5-6
"And when you pray, you are not to be as the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners, in order to be seen by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. "But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will repay you.

When we read these verses they come with a disclaimer: Jesus is not banning corporate prayer but rather speaking about people who pray to be noticed, they pray in public to impress. These are the kind of people Jesus is calling Hyprocrites. They are like actors who pretend to be something they are not!

There is nothing like the quiet place when you spend that time in prayer getting to know Jesus more and it is to be commended and particularly needed if you find yourself in a period of busyness. Yes, Jesus is present even in that secret place.

There is nothing like the corporate place of prayer when we spend time together praying and sense the Spirit moving and the Spirit is showing us the direction! But our corporate prayer times shouldnt turn into a showmanship!

Jesus Help us to Pray!

2,000 years on we still long to be taught how to pray! Back to basics, we must go. The disciples asked Jesus to teach them how to pray. The Lords prayer gives us key things to pray for! Yet within these statements made to the heavenly father there is some content. We will look at some of these over a few postings.

Matthew 6:5-13
5 "And when you pray, you are not to be as the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners, in order to be seen by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full.
6 "But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will repay you.
7 "And when you are praying, do not use meaningless repetition, as the Gentiles do, for they suppose that they will be heard for their many words.
8 "Therefore do not be like them; for your Father knows what you need, before you ask Him.
9 "Pray, then, in this way: 'Our Father who art in heaven, Hallowed be Thy name.
10 'Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, On earth as it is in heaven.
11 'Give us this day our daily bread.
12 'And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
13 'And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever.
Amen.'

Jesus & Prayer

Mark 1:35-38
And in the early morning, while it was still dark, He arose and went out and departed to a lonely place, and was praying there. And Simon and his companions hunted for Him; and they found Him, and *said to Him, "Everyone is looking for You." And He *said to them, "Let us go somewhere else to the towns nearby, in order that I may preach there also; for that is what I came out for."

I was just studying Mark and found these couple of verses. Talking about being still and being busy - here is Jesus taking time out to pray. People were seeking him out but he needed to spend time in prayer with his father. Luke also records on a number of occassions how Jesus often withdraws to spend that alone praying with his father.

Be Still in Prayer!

Psalm 46:10
"Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.

A famous verse, we often turn to, there is a number of songs with this theme! To "be still!" is a command. In busy busy lives, there is not really a second when we get chance just to "Be still" .

What happens when we take that opportunity to be still?
We are free to listen
We recognise who God is
We recognise that our God is at work and he is moving in the nations and the earth!

Be still!

Depths of his Mercy

Romans 11:34-46
Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out! "Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?" "Who has ever given to God, that God should repay him?" For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen.

Wow! Do you ever sit and wonder at God's mercy Paul, the Apostle certainly did. He am I sure marvelled at how God had been merciful to his very own people.
God out of his mercy sent his son to die for us, demonstrating his love for us.
When we consider what he has done , we can never thank him enough!

Gods Creation III

Lift your eyes and look to the heavens: Who created all these? He who brings out the starry host one by one, and calls them each by name. Because of his great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing. Isaiah 40:26

Gods Creation II

Internet Evangelism Day 7th May

Today is Internet Evangelism Day. This Sunday, around the world, Christians are focusing on the potential that the Web gives us to communicate the good news. Please take time to look at the Internet Evangelism Day website, and find how God is using this new medium. You may have the gifts to be involved in web evangelism yourself – and surprisingly, you do not need to be technical! To find out more click here

Thanks for...

What do we say when we see wondrous Creation? we sit back amazed at what has been created? What do we do in response? Say thank you to the creator! We are called as Colossians says to be a people "overflowing with thankfulness".

God's Creation

Operation World

If Matthew 9 tells us to pray for labourers to be sent into the harvest field. One way of praying for the harvest field is to begin for praying for various countries. Came accross the website for the book "Operation World" Which gives various statistics for various countries. If you go on to the website, they have a different country to pray for each day. If you want to begin to pray for various countries then this may be a good resource to follow up. I have added this to the links on the right but you can also click here

Philippians Prayer: Fruits of righteousness

It is now time to look at the final verse. It speaks about being "filled with the fruit of righteousness".

Verse 9-11
9 And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight,
10 so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ,
11 filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ-- to the glory and praise of God.

What does it mean for us to be filled with the fruit of righteousness? In Galatians 5, Paul has spoken about the fruit of the Spirit (eg love, joy peace etc) but here he is speaking about the fruit of righteousness. Fruit seems to speak about bearing fruit. Rightesousness speaks about the way we live our life? Do we have a living life in the right way. Romans 3 tells us that no can obtain righteousness by what they do themselves. It is appropiate then that here that Paul makes clear that you can only be filled with the fruit of righteousness through Jesus Christ. It is good to know that God is the source of all righteousness.

The prayer ends like the previous prayer we looked at in Ephesians with a doxology. While this is a phrase which may be used in a Jewish prayer, the prayer recognises that all the praise and glory is to go to God like the previous doxology. To view that post click here

Philippians Prayer: Discernment

Verse 9-10 (NASB):
9 And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment,
10 so that you may approve the things that are excellent, in order to be sincere and blameless until the day of Christ;

As well as love and knowlege, we need discernment. Other translations used "depth of insight", "understanding" "all judgememt" "all insight". We could describe it as something we need to percieve. Why do we need to be able to discern? We find the answer in verse 10. We are told that so that we are able to approve. When we are speaking of approving, we need to be able to test if something is genuine or not. Someone going through the process of checking metal does the same thing. We need to be able to test to see that what is being presented before us is indeed genuinely of God, that they are of excellence. We need to be able to discern so that we can live sincere and blameless lives until the day of Christ.

Father, help us have the love and the knowlege and discernment so that we approve things of excellence and live lives of sincerity and free of blame.

Phillippians Prayer: Love and Knowlege

Verse 9-10 (NIV) :
And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ,

In this post, I want to focus on verse 9 and the theme that "your love may abound more and more in knowlege". I believe that Paul is saying here that our love must be overflowing. Not only that be connnected and accompanied by knowlege. With Knowlege we are able to make moral discernment. Pauls prayer for them must be that their love would lead them to a fuller and deeper knowlege of the Christian Gospel. Does the love we have lead us to desire to grow closer to the Lord?

To view a prevous post on the theme of love and knowledge being accompanied by each other click here

Philippians Prayer: Special Place in my Heart

I titled these next couple verses as " a special place in my heart" as New living translation translates verse seven as Phillippians having a special place in Paul's heart.

Verses 7-8 (NIV):
It is right for me to feel this way about all of you, since I have you in my heart; for whether I am in chains or defending and confirming the gospel, all of you share in God's grace with me. God can testify how I long for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus.

Paul in these verses has desribed for the reader the feeling he has for these partners in the gospel at Philippi. Paul tells them that they have a special place in his heart. Why? Becuase they have continued to share with Paul whether he was in prison or he was defending the gospel. In verse 8, he calls God as a witness, the affection he feels for those at Philippi. Paul knew that they were supporting him in whatever he was doing in the Lord service. If you have been called to do something by the Lord - isnt it encouraging when you know there are others walking along side you supporting you along the way.
In the verses that follow, he shares with them the prayer he has for them. We will look at these over the next couple of posts.