God’s Holy Name

God’s Holy Name

This, then, is how you should pray:

“Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.”

Matthew 6:9

Although it’s short, the Lord’s Prayer is delightful and profound when prayed from the heart. Among the seven parts of the Lord’s Prayer, the greatest part is “Hallowed be your name.” Notice, however, that God’s name is holy in and of itself. It’s not made holy by us. God is the one who makes all things holy and makes us holy as well. So “Hallowed be your name” means that God’s name should be made holy in us. When this happens, God becomes everything, and we become nothing. The other six parts of the Lord’s Prayer point to the same end—keeping God’s name holy. When we keep God’s name holy, we do everything well.

To learn how to keep God’s name holy in us, we should first look at how it’s dishonored and made unholy in us. Clearly, it’s dishonored in us in two ways. First, we dishonor God’s name when we misuse it to sin. Second, we dishonor his name when we steal it from him. To illustrate, consider a holy object at church. We can desecrate it in two ways: we can use it for human purposes instead of God’s purposes, or we can steal it from the church.

God’s name is made unholy through misuse. Instead of using it for improving our souls and making us more faithful, we might actually use God’s name to sin and damage our souls. This happens in various ways—through witchcraft, magic, lies, oaths, curses, and deceptions—which are all covered in the commandment “You shall not misuse the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name”(Deuteronomy 5:11). In summary, we dishonor God’s name when we fail to live as God’s children.