How to Talk to the Father

Luke 11:2
So He said to them, “When you pray, say:

Our Father in heaven,
Hallowed be Your name.

When I study passages like this, I often fall into the habit of looking and the individual phrases and words, parsing them, and analyzing the elemental truths to be found there, but as Jesus taught His disciples to pray, the words and phrases are so interdependent that the individual and specific meaning of each phrase is incomplete without the others.  I’m saying that to the point that to say “Our Father” is incomplete without also saying “Hallowed by Your name.”  Before we can adequately address God as Father, we must understand His holiness.

Though this is commonly called “the Lord’s Prayer,” Jesus meant for this prayer to be the model for my own prayers.  When I pray, this is how I should pray and basically, what I should pray for.

Prayer is addressed “Father” or “Our Father” or more specifically, “My Father.”  Though as Paul states, by the Spirit we may cry out “Abba, Father,” this is not what Christ used as the address in this prayer.  Perhaps there is more on that for later….

The important point for me today is the second phrase which is translated “Hallowed by Your name.”  The word “hallowed” is  ἁγιάζω hagiazō – which is the verb form of ἅγιος hagios – “holy.”  As a verb, the word means “to sanctify or to make holy.”  The verb is an aorist imperative with the subject, “you,” understood.  The prayer is addressed to God the Father with the first request for Him to make His name holy.  If God is to make His name holy, where and how will that prayer be answered?  Some possibilities…

-          In the world? – not likely
-          In the church? – still a bit of a stretch
-          In my own life and heart? – Absolutely!

Now, that brings me to an issue – what does it mean to be holy?  There are a number of words in the New Testament that describe various aspects of holiness, but the word hagiaz, is special.  I have a working definition drawn from Vine's Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words. 

To be holy is to be:

·         More and higher than just sacred, outwardly associated with God
·         More than just worthy and honorable
·         More than just pure, free from defilement

To be holy is more comprehensive than other terms that describe our character and our relationship and service to God.  Holiness is characteristically godlikeness.

To address God as our Father without a deep, unswerving commitment to personal holiness borders on blasphemy.

Coram deo