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What Prayer can be! Part II ...

Tuesday, April 5, 2016. When Jesus teaches his disciples to pray, he starts with God being the eternal father: “our father in heaven”. We will come back to this very important first point. The second point which Jesus makes is the holiness of God. Our father in heaven, hallowed be your name! What is the name of God. It is the “I am”, which he uses when he comes to Moses in the burning bush. It is the “I am God”, the “I am with you”, the “I am the beginning and the end”.

Holy Name …

We are asked to see, to understand, to experience the holiness of the almighty God. Do we know what his holiness means? Do we know? Our knowledge might come from reading books. It might be purely academic, or purely theoretical. Or do we walk with the Lord, pray to him, listen to him and follow him in what we say and do? Do we experience his holiness, when we put his word into action?

I would describe the first mode of prayer by the word “father”. The second one by the word “holy” or “pure”. Without a sense of the purity of God we cannot understand the meaning of sin, we cannot understand justice and all those parts of the bible about judgment and condemnation! It can only be understood when we get at least a faint idea of God's purity and holiness. There are many images made in the biblical texts. He is without any shadow, pure light. He is fully humble, with a humility which is unbelievable, mixed with his power and majesty!

How can we ignore the holiness of the source of life? When you understand it, it will change your life. You cannot cheat any more. You cannot build anything on force alone. It must be full of trust as well, full of purity, full of holiness! It must start to resemble God, to become like him, to be changed or transformed. He is so majestic and wonderful in his light, his love, his humility and truthfulness, how could you live without it, when you once in your life got into contact to it?

Your Kingdom Come, Your Will be Done …

When you try to put the third mode of prayer into a headline, I would choose “Your kingdom come”. It is the wish that God's truthfulness and love will start to reign our life, that it will reign my own life. Your kingdom come is a far reaching prayer. It means so much: that I change. That my attitudes, my words, my behavior changes.

It means that I become more like him. It means that his love becomes my love. It means that his truth becomes my truth. It means that I find true freedom - but not to destroy or to steal, but to love, to give, to choose, to enjoy. It means that I can let go, and be glad. It means that I find riches which I could not even dream of before I gave up what I was trying to keep. Your kingdom come is personal, it means me. It is also universial, it means all. It is private, since it starts in my heart - and God wants my heart. It is also political, since it will change the political szene, when even just a few become Christians and act as such.

Your kingdom come means that his will be done. It means that we realize that God is good, and that it is good what he wants, it is more than good, it is just fantastic, it is healing, it is joy and freedom, it is perspective and future, it is new life, eternal life. Your kingdom come means so much, what a prayer! (RWEP) ... more texts