Lord’s Prayer Devotional, Part 2
Meditate: What does it mean to “Hallow” something?
VERB: hallowed (past tense) · hallowed (past participle)
Merriam Webster Dictionary
1. Honor as holy. “the Ganges is hallowed as a sacred, cleansing river”
2. Greatly revered or respected.
Question: What kinds of places/people/things do we tend to hallow in our current culture? This prayer longs for a day when the Name of the Lord is hallowed above all others.
Consider: There is always something in the hallowed place(s) of our lives. These are the things we promote and ultimately conform our lives around.
Dig Deep: Spend some time taking a good look at your own life. What are the hallowed things in your life that need to be demoted?
Read: Exodus 19:4-6. Though the whole earth belongs to Yahweh, His people are his MOST TREASURED (hallowed) Possession.
Ponder: Our praise is a response, not something we initiate. We hallow Him because He first hallowed us. Jesus isn’t requiring some hollow, mechanical formula for prayer. Praise is the completion of the experience of joy (C.S. Lewis). It is a natural response to something great.
Implication: To hallow anything as more valuable than God is to bow down and make myself subservient to something less valuable than myself, and is, therefore, to demote myself, or diminish my own value and self-worth.
Act:
- Meditate on what God has done to claim you as his most treasured possession.
- Discern what occupies the most hallowed places of your life, and demote those things… This might mean taking some extreme action – unplugging the TV, fasting, cutting off an unhealthy relationship, etc.
- Praise: Spend some time praising with your lips, worshiping in song… Some external expression of praise to God.