Monthly Archives: February 2010

-Victory in ‘Living’ The Lord’s Prayer: “Hallowed be Thy Name”

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Matt 6:9-13
Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.

10 Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.

11 Give us this day our daily bread.

12 And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.

13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.   -KJV

The “Hallowed” part is something I glossed over quickly for years without understanding that it was really a declaration of worship. I knew it meant that God was ‘holy’ but never gave it much thought. I was always in a hurry to get to the “give us” part.

The actual words in the Greek text are in this order:

“Let it be hallowed- the- name- of thee”

It really is a statement of praise and worship of God. What it literally means is- ‘God let your name be known and consecrated and set apart as holy or sacred.’

In our culture today nothing is considered sacred or holy anymore and the name of God is commonly used in the marketplace and in many homes as an expression of surprise or worse yet in the form of a curse. On the opposite end of the spectrum, there are some Muslim countries today where if the name of ‘Allah’ is defamed in any way heads will literally roll.

To put it all in perspective, Jesus taught that the greatest commandment of all is to Love God. Obviously if we truly love God we will treat his name with respect:

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment.” –Matt.22:37-38clip_image002[1]

Wow! This means that we should be thinking about God and that he needs to be on our minds and actually apart of everything we do daily.

For most of my life I have honored and worshipped God on Sundays and have prayed to him every day at least when I remember too. Also I have made a point of honoring his name and have not used it in ‘vain’. But have I really honored him daily by including him in my daily life? Not always, particularly at work where I have usually forgotten all about him most of the day even though I have always tried to be a ‘good’ Christian.

Obviously a change is way over due.

I believe that we are entering a time when ‘business as usual’ is no longer going to be an option for those who bear the name of Christ. In the dominant Western culture, God has been removed from the schools and the marketplaces, and many of our courts are removing him from the public square entirely. Now it is even a struggle just to keep him in our busy homes.

Nevertheless, I believe that we are called to honor God daily. In fact we literally need too for our own good. If God our Father is in our daily life then it becomes easier to receive his blessings, reject the temptations of the enemy, and receive of the happy abundant life that God intends for us to have. Sure we are still going to have ‘bad’ days, get sick, and experience a tragedy or two but for once we are not going to be alone.

Therefore, we actually need to think about God and His name needs to be set apart and consecrated or ‘hallowed’ in our daily living—if we truly love him.

But how and where?

Where? In our homes, at our jobs and work, on the freeways driving, and at the malls and shopping centers. Everywhere that life carries us we need to honor God and serve him in all that we do.

How? Jesus is really our example and he teaches us how to Love, worship, and honor God every day. More on that later, but we need to learn how to live a ‘red letter’ life and allow the very words of the Son of God to enliven us and inspire us to include His Father –Our Father–in our daily journey.        

-I had a Terrible Day but God said it was ‘Good’!

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Yesterday I had a terrible day at work but when I was complaining to the lord about it he said it was ‘Good’.

I said–but Lord, how can you call this a ‘good’ day—it was one of my worst days in sales that I can remember. Business was so bad that I ended up calling on 3 days worth of customers in 1 day with hardly any sales to show for it. How can that be good?

Then the Lord told me:

1. You could have wasted 3 days and 3 tanks of gas instead of just one.

2. More important you actually listened to me.

Then the Lord reminded me that around noon when I had run through all of the customers that I had originally planned for the day I was ready to quit but listened to His Spirit and kept on going instead and ran through all of the customers that I planned for the next day also.

By then it was 2pm and it started to rain and I was going to call it quits and put the lousy day behind me. After all I had a Bible study project I was working on at home that I wanted to get to. Then came the surprising impression to keep on going.

I kept on going thinking that maybe I would be rewarded with a big sale that would make my day but it never came. Instead I quickly ran through what would normally be another days work and was done by 4pm.

Normally I do 6-8 customer visits a day but this day I did 21 stops with very little in sales to show for it. Each call went rather quickly since business was so terrible for my customers that only a few needed anything at all.

Normally it would have been a discouraging day to say the least. But as I headed home I found myself praising God and being thankful instead.

After all I had saved 2 tanks of gas, gained two days, and had the Lord with me all day. It was a ‘good’ day after all, a very good day indeed. Praise God!                 

-What I’m Looking For: A ‘Red Letter’ Awakening

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What I’m looking for is a new ‘red letter’ awakening to spread across our land.

In the 70’s we had the ‘Jesus people’ move out here in California that spread across the whole country particularly among the young people. The emphasis was on salvation and Jesus coming back soon for his church.

In the 90’s in Toronto and at Brownsville in Florida it was the ‘Fathers Love’ which flowed into the churches and touched the lives of millions.

For nearly the entire 20th century beginning with Azusa Street in LA the emphasis was on reviving the work of the Holy Spirit and brings back all of the gifts and offices to the church. That one is still ongoing.

Nearly 500 years ago the Reformation began with Luther posting 95 Theses on a church door. That move was directed towards getting back to the Bible and making it available to everyone. There was an emphasis on Salvation by Grace, right theology, and the Letters of Paul.

Each one of these revivals brought back something that was missing in the church at the time.

Now I believe that we are soon going to experience a new ‘Jesus’ revival.

The Holy Spirit, the Father, and The Word has been brought back to the church. Even an expectation for Jesus coming back for his church is alive and well.

Now it is time for the Church to stand up and be the ‘Body of Christ’ to the world.

I believe that a new awakening is coming when the very words and teachings of Jesus in the Bible will be enlivened in a special way and leap right off of the page into the lives of Millions across our land. A move when Jesus will come to his church in a special intimate way and cause the church to stand up and be the representative of Christ and His Kingdom in the world.

The prophets said that The Messiah would bring justice and good news for the sick, the poor, the oppressed, and the enslaved in this life. That is the calling of the church also—to be the Body of the Messiah in the world.

For too long the church has relegated the good news of the Kingdom to the hereafter and the future. Now it is time for the church to stand up and bring The Kingdom to bare in this world just as Jesus taught us to pray: ”Thy Kingdom come thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven”.

The Church is called to be agents of justice in this world and ambassadors or practitioners of the Kingdom of God in this life and the life to come.