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Part
10 HALLOWED
BE THY NAME
What a depth of thought, what a wealth of meaning, what a world of
reality, the model prayer contains that the firstborn Son of God has given
for His many brethren with the opening words, “Our Father which art in
heaven, hallowed be Thy name!” This is the first petition of the
Lord’s prayer. But while it is the first upon our lips, I fear that it
is often the last in our minds and hearts. Even in the secret place of
prayer, many of us think first of ourselves and our own needs. “Oh God,
bless me, help me, make a way for me, speak to me, meet my needs, heal me,
use me...” and on and on we go. But Jesus does not put our needs first.
“Hallowed be Thy name” comes first because it is the gateway in the
mind and heart of the Father. Before we pray for the coming of the
Kingdom, before we pray for God’s will, before we pray for daily bread,
before we pray for the forgiveness of sins, we are to pray that the name
of God — God Himself — be hallowed.
What does it mean to hallow? To many it suggests cloistered halls,
ivy-covered walls, long robes, dismal chants, halos, musty dim cathedrals,
solemn music, and other tired, religious traditions. Because the old
Anglo-Saxon word “hallowed” is not used so much in our modern world,
we shall do well to remind ourselves that it means “sanctified,”
“separated,” “held sacred,” “reverenced.” It means to be set
aside for a specific purpose. For example, if I said to you, “Please set
that bowl aside for the dinner with our friends tonight,” then the bowl
would become “hallowed,” that is, set aside for a specific function.
It would not be used for any other purpose until the special dinner.
The words “saint,” “holy,” and “hallowed,” are
synonymous. In the King James version of the Bible the first two translate
two Hebrew words, GADOSH and HASIDH. The root idea of the first is
separation, and in a spiritual sense it means that which is separated or
dedicated unto God, and therefore removed from secular use. The word is
applied to people, places and things, as: the temple, vessels, garments,
the city of
If a person, activity or thing is separated unto God and for God,
the Bible calls it “holy,” being separated unto holiness. For example,
the Lord Jesus in Matthew 23:17-19 shows us that gold, if used for the
temple, and a gift, when placed upon the altar, becomes “sanctified”
or “holy”. All the gold in this world is for human use and is
therefore common; however, if a portion is separated and placed in the
temple for God’s use, it becomes sanctified or hallowed. Again, if an ox
or a sheep are among the herd, they are for human use and are common. When
chosen and placed upon the altar, however, they become an offering unto
God, being separated unto holiness. It is altogether a matter of whether
they are for human use or whether they are separated and belong to God.
Before they are separated, they are common; after they are separated, they
become holy. Simply speaking, holiness means all that pertains to God, and
all that is of God, unto God, and for God!
Holiness or hallowed means to be separated and different from all
else. In the whole universe only God is inherently separate and different
from all else; thus the scriptures affirm that ONLY HE IS HOLY. However,
if a person, place, thing, or activity is separated unto God and for God,
it is also called holy, being separated unto holiness. Objectively, the
saints are God’s chosen and peculiar people, belonging exclusively to
Him by virtue of His own choosing and grace. “But ye are a chosen
generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye
should show forth the praises of Him who hath called you out of darkness
into His marvelous light: which in time past were not a people, but are
The saints are God’s chosen and peculiar people, belonging
exclusively to Him, made one with Him, to bear His nature and glory, that
HE might be glorified in the earth. One more and more comes to know what
it means to be a saint as he follows on into deeper and deeper measures of
His dealings and further separations unto His purposes. As we become ONE
WITH GOD the world does not understand what has happened; but they know
that a separation has taken place between us and them which is more than
bodily separation. Although we are living and moving among them, and they
see us at our earthly tasks and daily living, they realize that we have
mounted up beyond them and their understanding.
Many times it is most grievous and perplexing to those who know not
the Lord, as well as to those Christians bound in the religious systems,
who cannot understand the workings and separating processes of the Spirit
of God, to have one who is near and dear to them in the flesh, separated
from them in the spirit. Though the body with its personality, is still in
the home, office, or business, it is as though the loved one were not
there. In such cases, how often do they who are watching the lives of
those who are following hard after the Lord, entreat them that they will
return; that they will again be unto them as they once were. When an
apprehended one has entered into this experience, he has counted all
things but loss, and suffered the loss of all things that he might win
Christ. Truly HIS DRAWING leaves us no choice but to FOLLOW ON that we
might know HIM in all His glorious and eternal reality! As we follow on to
know the Lord, earth and friends fade away in the exceeding brightness of
our vision of Christ. Our eyes are fixed with a steadfast gaze upon Him
who has gone before us, opening up the way into that fuller glory which
lies BEYOND THE VEIL.
As someone has written, “Those apprehended to be conformed to the
image of the Son of God have been caught away in the Spirit and set in the
ranks of the chariots of the Lord, even among the company of the
overcomers who shall come forth in the name of the Lord to rule and reign
and conquer and bless until all things have been subjected unto God. Those
called to this high calling are being separated from all that binds them
to a lower order, that they may enter into His fullness. Many people find
it a lot easier to be “one” with the Babylonian religious systems,
where the crowds are, and the excitement, than to become separated and go
out beyond, leading the way for others to follow. How I rejoice that God
is now calling a people — saints — separated ones — to a realm
beyond the norm of religious activity, beyond the programs and promotions,
beyond the sensationalism and hand-clapping, beyond the revivals and crowd
assemblings, into the new and seemingly strange paths of HIS LEADING. The
separations are not easy, friends and loved ones and brethren do not
readily understand, especially the preachers and organizations who try to
hold you to their own programs — which programs are often BEING USED OF
THE LORD to enrich many lives with salvation, infilling of the Spirit,
healings, etc., with their methods and techniques for an outreach to bless
the world. We praise God for His blessing on every level where He chooses
to work, but when the call comes, FOLLOW ME, wait upon ME in deep
separation and holy brokenness for the greater glory soon to be revealed,
those “called to be saints” come aside to make ready for the next
great move of the Spirit!”
“Hallowed be Thy name!” That is what I desire above all things.
I desire in my own life that sense of the majesty of my Father that will
sanctify and make sacred all that I think, say and do. Thy name be
hallowed in me! That is first and foremost. And I long for this knowledge
of the presence and love and power of the Father to be in all men in my
world. So my first and unending petition is for the name — the character
— of my God to be recognized and responded to and participated in among
men. TAKING GOD’S NAME IN VAIN
The third commandment is, “Thou shalt not take the name of the
Lord Thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh
His name in vain” (Ex. 20:7). We live in an age where profanity is
commonplace and blasphemy is equally commonplace, where cursing and
swearing are habitual and looked upon not as heinous sins, but actually as
virtues. Many
Woodrow Wilson’s father, a minister of the Gospel, was at one
time in the company of a group of men when one of the men used God’s
name profanely, and then looked over and saw Dr. Wilson. The man
apologized. “Oh, excuse me, Dr. Wilson. I didn’t realize that you were
present.” Dr. Wilson answered, “It is not to me, sir, that you owe
your apology.” It is amazing how many times people have apologized to me
for their blasphemy and profanity, when it is not my name that they
profaned. How absolutely incredible it is that people are more concerned
about offending a mere man that they are about offending the holy God of
the universe!
But — men often put far too narrow an interpretation on the
words, “Hallowed be Thy name.” We limit their application literally to
a name or title such as “God,” “Jehovah,” “Yahweh,”
“Lord,” or “Jesus Christ.” As though it meant we are not to misuse
the name, but always treat it reverently and discreetly, and to speak it
with bated breath. When someone vulgarly uses the expression, “God
d---,” we say they are “taking God’s name in vain.” Or when in
exasperation or anger they cry out, “Jesus Christ!” we accuse them of
“taking God’s name in vain.” But when we come to look at the real
meaning of the name of God, we find that it has much wider bearings and
much deeper significance.
The real profanity of man is not some swear words we use. Those
words are more stupid than sinful. The true profanity is our thoughts,
desires, attitudes and actions that fall short of the character of God,
that reveal and express a nature baser than His in a life that is
professedly His son or daughter! The way we hallow that wonderful Name of
names is by living what we preach, by revealing in our lives the nature
and character of God. If through our spirit we at all times express the
heart of our Father, then we do indeed hallow His name. To walk as a
worthy son is to sanctify the Father’s name in the earth. It is the
sweetest incense in the temple of worship.
The Jews held the sacred name of Yahweh in such reverence that they
would not even pronounce it lest it be profaned upon their lips. Yet these
Jews, with all their seeming reverence, were continually taking God’s
name in vain! Oh, they were not cursing or using profanity — but the
name of God was called over them in vain. As a people they had become the
vehicle of God’s revelation in history, but again and again they had
proved false to the trust. Many of them, while scrupulously hallowing
God’s name with their lips, were defiling it in their hearts, attitudes
and actions. They read into God’s nature their own ignorance and
prejudices, and made Him altogether one like unto themselves. They did
exactly as the idolaters whom they despised; they built up a God for
themselves, not out of wood and clay in the image of a beast or a man, but
out of the materials their own hearts supplied; and He was harsh, narrow,
vindictive, bigoted, and cruel as they were. And the secret of the bitter
hostility of these men toward our Lord Jesus Christ was, that He came to
teach them a new God. His work was to depose this glorified Tyrant whom
they worshipped, and set in his place a loving and tender Father,
infinitely just in His dealing with sin, but infinitely merciful in His
dealing with sinners. In the eyes of Jesus Christ, the theology of the
scribes and Pharisees did real dishonor to God. It libeled His character,
besmirched His reputation, and took His name in vain.
When we hear people cursing, using the title of Christ, God, or
Jesus, we regard them as taking God’s name in vain. The reality is, such
profanity has nothing whatever to do with “taking God’s name in
vain.” In order to take God’s name in vain one must first “take”
God’s name upon him. It is not by words spoken — it is in a standing,
position and relationship. To take the Lord’s name is to take His nature
and authority, for the name expresses the nature and character of God.
Most folk who curse and swear with the Lord’s name have never taken the
name, or yet taken God as their Lord and Master. They have made no effort
to take the Lord’s name upon them, or to live and function in His name.
At every wedding the minister or officer says to the bride, “Do you take
this man to be your lawfully wedded husband?” She responds, “I do.”
She “takes” the man for her husband and she also “takes” his name.
She is no longer Sally Smith — now she is Sally Jones. She has taken a
husband and she has taken a name. Now, if after taking this man and his
name she does not love him, refuses to live with him, spurns his support
and fails to fulfill her responsibilities or receive her privileges as
Mrs. Jones — she has “taken his name in vain.” It is all to no
avail, for naught, in vain. She is called “Mrs. Jones” — but it is
in vain.
Today an alarming number of men and women have taken the name of
the Lord in vain. They call themselves Christians (Christed ones) or
children of God. Yet they deny the nature and the character of the One
whose name they have taken. They do not live up to their responsibilities
as the people of God, nor do they walk in the privileges of their
relationship to God. When a woman loves her husband, shares all with him,
makes a happy home and compliments him in every way — his name is
hallowed, honored, enhanced, enlarged, exalted and magnified. This is what
the Lord has in mind with His people. “I will mention the
loving-kindness of the Lord, and the praises of the Lord, according to all
that the Lord hath bestowed on us, and the great goodness toward the house
of Israel...so didst Thou lead Thy people, to MAKE THYSELF A GLORIOUS
NAME” (Isa. 63:7,14). “God at the first did visit the nations, to take
out of them A PEOPLE FOR HIS NAME” (Acts
Ray Prinzing has commented upon this: “The loving-kindness of the
Lord, His great mercy to us-ward stagger the mind, and stir deep into our
spirits, when He illumines the fact that HE IS APPREHENDING A PEOPLE TO
BECOME HIS NAME, to be a living expression of His nature and character in
the earth. Under the blessings of obedience promised to
“How could they pollute His name? It was HIS NAME, it stood as a
revelation of His nature and character, and His nature and character
remained pure. It was because He placed His name upon them, so they
polluted His name when they polluted themselves. In the measure that they
bore His name and then went and corrupted their own lives, they were also
polluting the name of the Lord. Thus it is written, ‘Let every one that
nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity’ (II Tim. HALLOWED BE THY NAME
In order to learn the meaning of this prayer, let us go back to the
beginning, to God’s original intent for man. CHRIST is the image of God,
the scripture says. I know these words may seem to be incredible, but they
are truth — the very first mention of the “image of God” is applied,
not to Jesus Christ, but to our forefather
Some years ago a brother shared a word of revelation with which I
heartily concur. In the following paragraphs I will share as faithfully as
I can the concepts he set forth. In that wonderful day when the Lord God
planted a Garden in
Man, formed of the dust of the ground, lay just outside this realm
of the interface. God came to man there — just beyond the shining
Man in Christ, man in God’s image, is God’s government in the
By such rulership committed to Adam we get some idea of what kind
of beings we are. One might be so impressed with the majesty of the
silent, speechless mountain that lifts its white peak high above the
clouds as to worship in silence at its altar; so suggestive is it of the
infinite. But what is a mountain, or a star for that matter, or billions
of galaxies of stars and suns and planets and moons as compared with a
man? They think not, speak not, neither do they feel or hope or love or
plan or build or have a duty or a destiny. Man is God’s image and
likeness! It is interesting to note that the almighty Creator fashioned
and formed everything of nature throughout the unbounded heavens and unto
the depths of the earth and then, after completing and ordaining all, He
gave us the true estimate of man’s greatness and purpose when He said,
“Let us make man in our image, and after our likeness; and let them have
dominion.” Man therefore is not only the most important creature on the
earth, but the most important creature anywhere in the universe. Even
mighty angels are not made in His image, nor are they given dominion over
all the works of His hands. Can we not see by this that Adam stood in the
midst of the vast creation as the revelation of God to it all. In man in
God’s image the invisible God became visible to the material creation.
God’s purpose was to reveal Himself to His creation and bring everything
everywhere into intimacy of fellowship and vital union with Himself.
Adam was God’s special gift to the entire creation. He came not
from the brute ancestry, nor from the muck of some primordial sea, nor
from the mire of the jungle, but from the hand and spirit and breath of
the Divine Creator. Time will not allow us to dwell on the glories of man
in God’s image, but Adam was perfect, pure, powerful. He was without
spot or stain, taint or tarnish. Pure in character, perfect in holiness,
powerful in personality. He was the embodiment of all wisdom and
knowledge. He was able to do on the morn of creation what no sage,
scientist, or naturalist could do today. He found himself surrounded from
the beginning with vast kingdoms of living things — fish, birds, animals
— many more than exist today. These were brought to him and at the
command of God he gave them names. In the typology of scripture a name
denotes a nature. Make no mistake about it, my friend, Adam did something
greater far than merely classifying all the creatures which God had
created in the world. When he “named” these creatures the wonderful
truth is that he “natured” them — that is, he spoke creatively into
them the nature that his mind of wisdom and knowledge conceived.
Sovereignty and authority rested like a crown of glory upon the head of
Adam. He was made the Lord over all the creation of God to rule and reign
as the visible expression of the invisible Creator. In him God was to be
seen and known and touched by everything everywhere.
We are never told how long Adam lived in that wonderful Garden
where the glory of God was revealed through him in dominion and blessing
to creation, but that glorious reign of wonder and peace under the
direction of a son in the image of God was but a dim figure of the day
when a whole company of sons in God’s image would reign in splendor over
all things in all realms throughout all worlds and all things in heaven
and in earth would be gathered together into union with God in His life
and purpose. Our Lord Jesus Christ is the first and Head of this glorious
company, and as typified and shadowed by the first man Adam He is the
connecting link between God and creation — the revelation of the
invisible Father to the physical worlds. A God who is unseen and unknown,
or who is only the product of inferences from creation, or providence, or
the mysteries of history, or the wonders of my own inner life, the
creature of logic or reflection, is very powerless to sway and influence
men or to affect creation. The limitations of our physical faculties and
the boundlessness of our hearts both cry out for a God that is nearer to
us than that, whom we can see and love and know. The whole world wants the
making visible of Divinity as its deepest desire.
Christ meets this need. How can you make wisdom visible? How can a
creature see love or purity? How do I see your spirit? By the expression
and deeds of your body! And the only way by which God can ever come near
enough to the natural creation to be a constant power of eternal life and
light and love is by creation seeing Him at work in a man who is His image
and revelation. Christ’s whole life is the making visible of the
invisible God. He is the manifestation to the world of the unseen Father.
Jesus Christ in all His words and in all His works is the perfect
instrument of the heavenly Father, so that His words are God’s words,
and His works are God’s works; so that, when He speaks, His gentle
wisdom, His loving sympathy, His melting tenderness, His authoritative
commands, His prophetic threatenings, are the speech of God, and that when
He acts, whether it be by miracle, by wonder, by transforming grace, by
creative energy, what we see is God working before our eyes as we never
see Him in any other creature or thing anywhere in the whole vast
universe.
The grand fact is that this Jesus of Nazareth, by the sheer force
of His personality, has so impressed Himself upon mankind, and upon human
history, and upon principalities and powers in the heavens, and upon
spirits in the darkest underworld, and continues to impress Himself, that
the only adequate description we can give of Him is EMMANUEL — God with
us; that in the Man Jesus dwelt and dwells all the fullness of the
Godhead, under bodily conditions. In Him all we can ever know of the
invisible Creator becomes concrete, and therefore becomes powerful to
save. And if all this has been effected by one son of God revealing the
Father to creation, what, I ask, shall be the result when A VAST COMPANY
OF SONS SHALL BE BROUGHT TO RULE AND REIGN in His glorious image and
likeness over all the earth and throughout the vastnesses of infinity
forevermore. Ah! What an Eden of God’s glory it will be when judgment is
given TO THE SAINTS of the Most High, when all the OVERCOMERS out of all
the ages SIT WITH THE CHRIST OF GOD IN HIS THRONE even as He overcame and
is set down with His Father in His throne; when SAVIOURS shall come up on
MOUNT ZION to judge the house of Esau (flesh) and the Kingdom shall be the
Lord’s (Obadiah 21). Then shall the earth be filled with the knowledge
of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. Then shall all things in heaven
and in earth be reconciled and gathered together into one in Christ. Then
shall God be All-in-all.
The firstborn Son said, “Father, the hour is come; glorify Thy
Son, that Thy Son also may glorify Thee. I have glorified Thee on the
earth: and now, O Father, glorify Thou me with thine own self with the
glory which I had with Thee before the world was” (Jn. 17:1-5). To
“glorify” God means that man’s total expression of life would emit
the very presence and effulgence of God. An illustration of what it means
to glorify God can be seen in the simple incandescent light bulb. Screw it
into the socket and the invisible electrons flowing through it are
transformed into the light and heat energy that causes the halo of light.
The bulb is glorifying the invisible electricity making it visible and
beneficent to mankind. The sons of God are thus ordained to glorify the
Father, emitting His presence, revealing His character, manifesting in a
visible way His invisible glory.
John Wesley, it is recorded, was one day preaching in a rough
neighborhood of
We are all aware, I believe, that in each of us there are areas
where God’s name is not hallowed, where God’s name is still taken in
vain, where He has not written His name. No matter how we try to arrange
every step of our lives to express Him, there is a fatal weakness, a flaw
that somehow makes us miss the mark. When we say, “Father, there is no
area in my life that I’m not willing to let you deal with me about, that
I am unwilling to submit to your judgments” — that is saying,
“Hallowed be Thy name!” When we pray that way, and mean it, we
discover that God will walk into the dark closets of our life where the
odor is sometimes too much for us, even us, to stand and clean them out
and straighten them up and make them fit for His dwelling.
“If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up
his cross, and follow me,” Jesus said. All death is not the same death.
Many think that when the scriptures speak of death they always refer to
the death of the body. The truth is, in the New Testament death only
occasionally speaks of the death of the physical body. When Jesus says
that we must take up our cross and follow Him, He does not mean that we
all must be martyrs, laying down our bodies to fly away to heaven. Jesus
died physically on the cross, the symbol and the pattern of the death of
old Adam. But Adam in us is not crucified by hanging on an outward, wooden
cross. Paul says, “Mortify (put to death) therefore your members which
are upon the earth...” (Col. 3:5). Paul said, “I die daily.” He
said, “For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” In none of these
passages is he talking about leaving this body and going to some far-off
heaven somewhere; he’s talking about dying to that outward, that
external, that realm of appearances, that natural, that physical, that
human, that carnal realm of old Adam’s life. That’s why he’s saying,
“To die is gain.” There is no gain in going to the cemetery, but to
die to the carnal mind is to gain the mind of Christ. To die to the
natural is to gain the spiritual. To die to the Adam nature is to gain the
divine nature. God gives us the opportunity every day to die. Are we
taking up our cross and following Him to
The death of the cross was the death that was reserved for
criminals and for the vilest of men. What would you think of a person who
had a gold chain about their neck with a pendant of an electric chair on
it? Or a hangman’s gallows? Or a guillotine? Or a gas chamber? Or a
hypodermic needle? “How gross, how repugnant, how macabre, how gruesome,
how insensitive,” you say. “How terrible to think that anyone’s mind
is that death oriented!” Let me tell you something, my beloved — in
the day of Christ the cross was an instrument of execution, no different
than the gas chamber or the electric chair today. It was the place where
criminals were put to death. And Jesus said we are to deny ourselves and
take up our cross — our gas chamber, our electric chair, or hangman’s
noose — and follow Him. It’s a place of execution. It’s the place
where you are brought to your extremity, where old Adam reaches his final
catastrophe.
The church world knows very little of these great truths of which I
now write. The church world understands very little of the depths of Jesus
Christ. They are too busy seeking to be blessed, to be protected, kept,
provided for, watched over, pampered, healed, delivered and to go to
heaven when they die, or meeting Jesus in the air. Those are their great
and consuming concerns. They want to get others saved, too, so they can be
blessed and go to heaven when they die. But when it comes to laying your
life down, being broken and melted before God, taking up your cross and
being obedient unto death, even the death of the cross, the church world
for the most part has never even spoken of it. They have no idea of what
this really means.
My surname was inherited from my father; I didn’t choose it. Much
of my natural constitution, also, is not of my own making. It is inherited
— including my small stature, bald head, and pre-mature graying. To a
great extent, in the natural, I am what my parents made me. I am known by
their name and have sometimes been recognized, even in far-away places
with strange-sounding names, as an Eby because of my physical features. I
bear a facial, and sometimes a behavioral, resemblance. This bearing of
the family name involves a certain responsibility on my part. I must seek
to honor my parent’s name. I must not hold it unworthily. Either my
behavior must be consistent with what my name stands for, or I must be
responsible enough to change my name. This is exactly what we mean when we
pray the great prayer, “Our Father...hallowed be Thy name!” If He is
your Father, you are His son or daughter and you bear His name. Creation
looks to you as God’s son, and men hope to observe in you the family
characteristics of God. At one time or another, we’ve all heard it said
of someone, “He’s just like his father.” That is the witness that
must be given of every son of God. In the words of the popular
country-western song: I’m
seein’ my father in me, I
guess that’s how it’s meant to be; And
I find I’m more and more like him each day. I
notice I walk the way he walks, I
notice I talk the way he talks, I’m
startin’ to see my father in me.
God’s name has been conferred on us, not by virtue of our
imitating God, or keeping certain rules or regulations, but by virtue of
our birth into the God-family. The story goes that a group of tourists
visiting a picturesque village saw an old man sitting by a fence. In a
rather patronizing way, one of the visitors asked, “Were any great men
born into this village?” Without looking up the old man replied, “No,
only babies.” The greatest men were once babies. The greatest saints
were once toddlers in the things of the Spirit. Saints are born to become
sons of God, but become such only after the divine process has been
completed.
We hear of the new birth and think we understand it. Faintly we
hear the truths of sonship and imagine we are already sons of God. We have
seen through a glass darkly, but face to face we behold all things as they
really are. The mists that have hung like shrouds upon the distant
majestic peaks are fleeing away before the rising sun of righteousness
that we may know as we are known. In the true and eloquent words of
another: “Believers of all ages have sold themselves woefully short on
all the great promises of God. We have been content to say that every
believer was born again and needed but to wait until some distant day when
he would fly away to heaven either by death or by rapture. I remember
seeing this sign vividly portrayed by the public highway: Except a man be
born again, he CANNOT GO TO HEAVEN. That statement, I fear, has been the
sum and substance of Christian belief, but we have missed the true meaning
of the truth given to Nicodemus so long ago. To be born from above is to
be BORN FROM A HIGHER
“The realm of the new birth is the REALM OF SON
How wonderful are these things! They are far beyond our expression
or the ability of the most eloquent to describe! It is a marvelous fact
that the very life of God is communicated to the believing heart via the
new birth. But what is the life of God? It is the content of God and God
Himself. All that is in God and all that God Himself is are the life of
God. All the fullness of the Godhead is hidden in the life of God. The
nature of God is contained in the life of God — His wisdom, knowledge,
will, power and glory. Every facet of what God is and can do, is included
in the life of God. With any kind of living thing, all that it is rests
within its life. All its capabilities and functions issue out of its life,
and all of its outward activities and expressions originate from its life.
It is that kind of living thing because it has that kind of life. Its
being rests in its life. God is the supreme living Being, and all that He
is, of course, is in His life. All that He is — whether truth, holiness,
light or love — is derived from His life. All His expressions —
whether goodness, righteousness, mercy or judgment — are derived from
His life. His life causes Him to have such divine capabilities and
functions inwardly, and such divine actions and expressions outwardly. The
reason that He is such a glorious and powerful God is that He has such a
glorious and powerful life. Hence His being God rests in His life.
Oh, to be able to grasp the greatness of our calling! We have been
born again of the very life of God! When we have matured and God has
brought us experientially to the full potential of His life in us, there
will be nothing impossible to us. We will even have creative powers. We
will be creators! Can your faith go this far? If we are born of God we are
born of the life of the Creator. This is the life that Jesus lived and
demonstrated. Twice out of a few rolls of bread and a couple fish, He
created enough food to feed five thousands of people, and He said we would
do the same. “The works that I do shall ye do also, and greater works
than these shall ye do...” I want to know the life of this God! I want
to know experientially the power He wrought in Christ when He raised Him
from the dead. I want to know and experience all His holiness,
righteousness, love, power and goodness. To this end I seek to completely
surrender myself to Him and I am asking Him for grace to be able to do
this.
Gracious Son of God, reveal the Father to us in a way we have not
known before! Make us overcomers, that you may be able to write the name
of your God, the Father’s name, the name of the city of your God, and
your new name, on our foreheads. God is in the process of preparing a
people FOR HIS NAME — a company that will bear His name, that will be
called by His name, those who know His name and will hallow His name in
all the earth. To these the Son reveals the name of His Father, He reveals
the Father unto them. They will bear the name of Yahweh for they will be
filled with His fullness and they will do His works, for the fullness of
His power and understanding and nature will be in them. He will be in them
in the measure that He was in Jesus, and will speak His words and do His
works through them. They will be like His first-begotten Son, they will be
conformed to His image, the express image of His person.
Jesus, the Son, knew the Father and He was the only one in His day
who did. The Lord said to the religious, as He undoubtedly says to the
religious today, “...ye say that He is your God; yet ye have not known
Him; but I KNOW HIM and keep His saying” (Jn. 8:54-55). “As the Father
knoweth me, even so KNOW I THE FATHER” (Jn. There is a Jewish story in which rabbi Nahman once asked rabbi Isaac to bless him as they were saying good-bye. Rabbi Isaac replied: “Let me give you a parable. A man traveled a long way in the desert. He felt hungry, weary and thirsty, when suddenly he came upon a tree filled with sweet fruits, covered with branches that provided delightful shade, and watered by a brook that flowed nearby. The man rested in the tree’s shade, ate of its fruits, and drank its water. When he was about to leave, he turned to the tree and said, ‘O tree, beautiful tree, with what shall I bless you? Shall I wish that your shade be pleasant? It is already pleasant. Shall I say that your fruits should be sweet? They are sweet. Shall I ask that a brook flow by you? A brook does flow by you. Therefore I will bless you this way: May it be God’s will that all the shoots taken from you be just like you.’” Ah, that is it! We bless God, we glorify God, we hallow the name of God by being like Him, the radiance of His nature, power, and glory in the earth. This is how God Himself is blessed. And this is most truly what we mean when we pray as the firstborn Son has taught us to pray: “Our Father...hallowed be Thy name!” By J. Preston Eby. [ENTER TEXT OF WRITING / SCRIERE HERE] |
Other Writings in This Series:
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