Making His Name Holy

By Ryan Shaw

Hallowed be Your Name

This is the first of the six specific prayers in the “Lord’s Prayer.” After having a right view of God, addressing ourselves to Him in His Fatherhood and transcendent glory as the eternal God, we cry out to Him that His name would be openly worshiped and glorified in all spheres.

We seek God that we ourselves would possess this growing revelation of God’s majesty and glory and then it would be openly manifested through us.

Before Jesus guides us into praying for our own needs and for His Kingdom glory and purposes to be done in and through us, He calls us to seek that He may reveal more of God’s honor and exalted state in us and to the whole world. We pray this over ourselves, our families, ministries, cities, nations and all the peoples of the world.

Through prayer we are primarily seeking God to be experienced and exalted in all spheres as He is in the essence of His being and to receive what He utterly deserves – worship and glory from the mouths of all humanity.

The Pharisees made their own desires the primary end of prayer where Jesus instructs that God’s glory and honor are the end of all true prayer. If the glory of God is not the primary motivation in our hearts then prayer becomes skewed and self-serving.

This keeps our prayer pure as we will not seek that which is at odds with bringing God glory, honor and worship. This prayer in essence is seeking God to act in every situation so that humanity may be more inclined to give Him that awe-inspired adoration He so richly deserves.

We are asking God to empower us to be vessels bringing Him the glory and honor we are praying He might receive. That we may worship Him and magnify Him in all we do, say and think.

No matter what comes of me I will seek to adore, exalt and proclaim Your name that You may be glorified in all things. We align with the self-surrender of God Himself as we willingly choose to worship, even in challenges and difficulties.

We know that we cannot glorify Him of our own accord and that we need “God to glorify God.” This moves us to pray this prayer with all sincerity.

We pray in obedience and faithfulness because we know Jesus calls us to. We do not, however, buy into the lie that our own power or abilities actually bring glory to God.
To glorify His name we need His power and enabling to do so. This is a prayer recognizing our desperate need for God to be all in all.

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