From the Pastor

The Christian writer, Anne Lamott, writes about taking her son to the beach at the Pacific Ocean in California. They spread out their towels on the sand and settled in to enjoy the day under the sun. About that same time another group of people spread out their towels right next to them. They were a noisy bunch with a bad habit of using Jesus’ name in all sorts of crude and disrespectful ways. At one point Anne’s young son, Sam, walked over and quietly requested of them, “Please don’t talk about Jesus that way. He is our friend and we love him.” 

 In the Lord’s Prayer, we pray to “hallow God’s name.” To hallow God’s name is to give God all the attention and weight that God deserves. It is to know God as he really is, and to live life the way he, as the Creator of all things, intends for it to be lived. 

 To “hallow” God’s name is to give him all the glory. Glory and gravity come from the same source. Gravity is what weighs us down, not in a burdensome way, but in a liberating way. When we glorify God, he gives our lives weight, in other words, meaning. Life’s greatest security comes in being anchored down in God’s love and power. So, when the winds of health turmoil blow, when job prospects look bleak, when family trouble grabs the people we dearly love and scatters them to the wind, when financial doubts dial up a whole bunch of fears, though we may be rocked, -- we will not be moved. Psalm 16:8 says, “I will keep the Lord always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.”

 In teaching us in the Lord’s Prayer to hallow God’s name, Jesus teaches us to give God the respect he is due, the respect God so richly deserves. God’s glory is in the skies above, but he is also down to earth right here where you and I live. He is our Father, and we love him. Hallowed be Thy name!  

 Pastor John

Quote of the Week                                                                                                                            “The attention at the beginning of these petitions is on the exaltation of God and His concerns. In the initial phrases of the Lord's Prayer, Jesus fixes our gaze not on ourselves but on God.”  

R.C. Sproul

 Robert Charles Sproul was an American theologian, author, and ordained pastor in the Presbyterian Church in America. He was the founder and chairman of Ligonier Ministries and could be heard daily on the Renewing Your Mind radio broadcast in the United States and internationally.