PASSWORD!

It is estimated that 32% of one’s waking hours is spent typing passwords and usernames and all that stuff. The remaining 68% is spent trying to remember what on earth the password was for this or that website or service.

(Of course, 79.36% of all statistics is concocted without any respect for reality, so you can’t trust any of these numbers.)

But the fact remains that waiting to log on is the story of our lives.

Those sage and sapient experts warn us never—never!—to write down our passwords. Excuse me? I had, at last count, 87 passwords. Most of them meaningless permutations and combinations of characters (e.g., 3Oa%1*M@sT) and I’m expected to carry them all around in my head? Yeah, right!

Having forgotten yet another password the other day, and as I was thinking about my sermon this weekend on prayer, I thanked God that I didn’t need a password to access the throne-room of Almighty God. Or I’d forever be staring at a blank monitor.

… through Him [Christ] we … have
our access in one Spirit to the Father.
Ephesians 2:18

Free access to God the Father, through Christ, in the Spirit. And no password needed!

On second thought, while no password is necessary, there is a username we need in order to gain access to God: Child of God.

Nothing to pay. No email address to give out. Last 4 of your SSN not required. Color of skin, hair, and nails irrelevant. But you do need a username—the username: Child of God.

And that is obtained when one places one’s trust in Jesus Christ, an act of faith, believing that the penalty of our sin has been paid, fully and finally, by His sacrificial death on the cross.

Everyone who believes
that Jesus is the Christ
is born of God.
1 John 5:1

No more is sin a barrier between the child and the Father.

… Christ Jesus our Lord,
in whom we have boldness
and confident access
through faith in Him.
Ephesians 3:11–12

And so we can pray about our ailments, our jobs, our patients, our families, our churches, our society, our nation, our world. We can pray about little Johnnie’s future, Aunt Sue’s job, Jake’s car, and everything else we can think of and are concerned about—terrorism, economy, elections, weather. For our God is a prayer-hearing God.

O You who hear prayer,
to You all men come.
Psalm 65:2

What a terrific verse and a marvelous encouragement to us. No hurdle to climb, no obstacle to remove, no wait to enter. So keep praying!

In fact, the Bible commands us to do so.

Pray without ceasing.
1 Thessalonians 5:17

And we have a model to follow in prayer—our Lord. He prayed at His baptism. He prayed at the beginning of His ministry. He prayed at the Transfiguration. He prayed in Gethsemane, sweating blood. His last words on the cross were an address to God, in the throes of death. In fact, the Bible tells us that Christ continues to intercede for us before the Father.

… we have an Advocate
with the Father,
Jesus Christ the righteous.
1 John 2:1

If He, the only-begotten of the Father and the Son of God, the sinless Second Person of the Trinity prayed so often, how much more we?

Therefore let us draw near
with confidence
to the throne of grace,
so that we may receive mercy
and find grace to help
in time of need.
Hebrews 4:16

Keep praying!

WILL!

Continuing on the theme of the Lord’s Prayer …

“Your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.”
Matthew 6:10

The Kingdom program was the concern of the previous clause of the Lord’s Prayer. Now, as we pray this sentence, we are affirming, “Father, even though your kingdom is not yet fully established, may you rule in our lives right now.” Even now, already, in this in-between time as we wait for the end, and until that day arrives, until your Kingdom comes, O God, rule in our lives. Your will be done.”

This is a particularly important petition to bring before God. You see, the rest of the Lord’s Prayer focuses on our particular needs. But before we rush to present our grocery list to God, we must pay attention to this line, to his will. He is no cosmic vending machine, you know. So we pray, “Father, even before we ask you for our needs, we acknowledge that your purpose comes first, your will is preeminent. Yes, we are going to ask you for a number of things, Father, but we remember that your will must be done first. And we, we are OK with that. We willingly align ourselves to your will and to your purpose. Even if we don’t get what we want, even if our desires do not come to pass, may your will be done.”

So pray with submission! This is our acceptance of God’s purpose in our lives. This puts the will of God very early in our praying. Before we begin praying for ourselves, we have settled God’s will—we submit to that. Indeed, if we are aligned with His purpose completely, we can be sure God will meet our requests.

This is the confidence
which we have before Him,
that, if we ask anything
according to His will,
He hears us.
1 John 5:14

“Your will be done.” Are we ready to have His will done in our lives, to submit to His demands, even if it means what we want may not necessarily be realized? Are we ready to swallow all the pills God gives us—sweet and bitter, to accept with joy all that He takes us through—pleasure and pain?

“Your will be done.” Remember Jesus’ prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane?

“Father, if you are willing,
remove this cup from me;
yet not my will,
but yours be done.”
Luke 22:42

“Your will be done.” God’s Purpose. Pray with submission! Not easy. The agony of what lay before Him, caused Jesus’ sweat to take on the appearance of blood. No, not easy at all. “Your will be done.”

And this submission to God’s will involves understanding His purpose for our lives.

For this is the will of God,
your sanctification ….
1 Thessalonians 4:3

Our holiness. Not our happiness, but our holiness. That’s God’s purpose. And so may “Your will be done.”

And do not be
conformed to this world,
but be transformed by
the renewing of your mind,
so that you may prove
what the will of God is,
that which is good
and acceptable and perfect.
Romans 12:2

And there is a reward promised for those believers in Christ who have actualized this prayer in their lives—“Your will be done.” For those in whose lives the will of God has been done, there is the promised recompense of God’s pleasure.

For you have need of endurance,
so that when you have
done the will of God,
you may receive
what was promised.
Hebrews 10:36

Endure … and pray with submission!

KINGDOM!

Continuing on the theme of the Lord’s Prayer …

“Your kingdom come.”
Matthew 6:10

Elections are just around the corner for those of us in the US of A. (Five more months of campaigning—Lord, have mercy!) Who knows who the successful candidate will be? Pollsters and pundits pontificate. Talking heads produce verbiage ad nauseam. Who will win? Who will lose?

I know one thing—whoever wins or loses, one thing is for sure: Our God never loses. Ever. His rule is not going to be determined by ballot boxes and majority votes.

And it’s coming—His kingdom. His reign is going to be established. It’s going to happen. The clock is ticking. God’s program is already being executed. His plans are already in place, already undergoing fulfillment. And to this grand finale of His kingdom, all history is moving inexorably.

God highly exalted Him,
and bestowed on Him the name
which is above every name,
so that at the name of Jesus
every knee will bow,
of those who are in heaven
and on earth and under the earth,
and that every tongue will confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
Philippians 2:9–11

The King is coming! The kingdom is coming! The seer in Revelation depicts His grand arrival.

And I saw heaven opened,
and behold, a white horse,
and He who sat on it
is called Faithful and True,
and in righteousness
He judges and wages war.
His eyes are a flame of fire,
and on His head are many diadems;
… and His name is called
The Word of God.
And the armies
which are in heaven,
clothed in fine linen, white and clean,
were following Him on white horses.
From His mouth comes a sharp sword,
so that with it He may strike down
the nations, and He will rule them
with a rod of iron ….
And on His robe and on His thigh
He has a name written,
“King of Kings, Lord of Lords.”
Revelation 19:11–16

Praying “Your kingdom come,” reminds us that God is even now working to bring about His reign and rule on earth. God’s unchanging program, already set in motion.

The kingdom of the world
has become the kingdom
of our Lord and of His Christ;
and He will reign forever and ever.
Revelation 11:15

We may be in dire and desperate situations here and now, but take heart. A glorious eternity awaits us, soon. Pray with hope! Harrowing troubles? Agonizing trials? Tormenting tumults? The King is coming. The kingdom is coming! So pray with hope!

Soon is coming a day when there will be no more tears, no more sorrow, no more grief, no more distress, no more disease (and I’ll be out of a job!), and no more death.

And I heard a loud voice
from the throne, saying,
“Behold, the tabernacle
of God is among men,
and He will dwell among them,
and they shall be His people,
and God Himself
will be among them,
and He will wipe away
every tear from their eyes;
and there will no longer
be any death;
there will no longer
be any mourning,
or crying, or pain;
the first things have passed away.”
Revelation 21:3–4

Soon and very soon. “Your kingdom come.” God’s Program. Pray with hope!

We give You thanks,
O Lord God, the Almighty,
who are and who were,
because You have taken
Your great power
and have begun to reign.
Revelation 11:17

The King is coming. The kingdom is coming! Pray with hope!

HALLOWED!

Continuing on the theme of the Lord’s Prayer …

Hallowed be your name.
Matthew 6:9

Hallow. To treat as holy, and therefore, to reverence, to honor, to respect, to glorify. This line of the Lord’s Prayer underscores the priority of God. God is the central focus—not only of our prayer, but of everything in the universe. Everything revolves round His throne. Everything exists for His hallowing, not ours.

Not to us, O LORD, not to us,
but to Your name give glory
because of Your lovingkindness,
because of Your truth.
Psalm 115:1

Everything exists for His glory, not ours.

Oh, the depth of the riches
both of the wisdom
and knowledge of God!
How unsearchable
are His judgments
and unfathomable His ways!
For from Him and through Him
and to Him are all things.
To Him be the glory forever.
Amen.
Romans 11:33, 36

So when we pray “Hallowed be your name,” we are, in essence, praying …

“To Him who sits on the throne,
and to the Lamb,
be blessing and honor
and glory and dominion
forever and ever.”
Revelation 5:13

Everything in the universe is moving towards God’s glory. This is the end, the goal, the terminus, the Omega of all creation—the glorification of God. The priority of God. He is to be pre-eminent in all things. That is what it means to glorify Him.

It should be the basis of everything we do. I.e., the priority of God should be our priority.

So whether you eat or drink
or whatever you do,
do it all for the glory of God.
1 Corinthians 10:31

This is what believers were called for.

But you are a chosen race,
a royal priesthood, a holy nation,
a people for God’s own possession,
so that you may proclaim
the excellencies of Him
who has called you
out of darkness
into His marvelous light.
1 Peter 2:9

Our part in the grand scheme of God is to manifest His glory. The Westminster Shorter Catechism (1648) declares:

“The chief end of man
is to glorify God
and to enjoy Him forever.”

And one way we do that, the essential way we work towards the hallowing of His name, is by being holy ourselves.

You shall be holy, for I am holy.
1 Peter 1:16

God’s demand for glory is met when His creation becomes like Him in His holiness. That is how we contribute to the hallowing of His name. “Hallowed be your name.”

… He chose us in Him before
the foundation of the world,
that we would be holy
and blameless before Him.
Ephesians 1:4

God desires to receive glory through our life of holiness. One of my colleagues at Dallas Seminary puts it this way:

“Glory relates to how good
God looks through me,
holiness relates to how much
I look like God.”

We hallow His name by looking like God, being holy ourselves. “Hallowed be your name: we agree, O God, with your priority and demand for glory. Hallowed be your name: may we honor your holy character and not embarrass you.” So we pray with purity.

The priority of God—His glory. And we should seek to be like Him.

Be exalted
above the heavens, O God;
let Your glory
be above all the earth.
Psalm 57:5

“Hallowed be your name.” Pray with purity!

… the temple of God is holy,
and that is what you are.
1 Corinthians 3:17

May prayers of purity arise from the temple of God.

FATHER!

The other day, I had the opportunity to teach on the Lord’s Prayer. Parts of that exercise will keep showing up in the next several installments of the aBeLOG.

Our Father, who is in heaven ….
Matthew 6:9

Imagine the sun is an orange, about 3 inches in diameter. On that scale, the earth is a grain of sand about 26 feet away. On that scale, the next nearest star, Proxima Centauri, is a staggering 1,500 miles away (the distance from Dallas, TX to Washington, DC). And these, plus another 200–400 billion stars, populate the Milky Way, which—on that same scale—would be about 37.5 million miles wide. (In actuality, the Milky Way is about 100,000 light years in diameter = 600,000,000,000,000,000 miles.) And the Hubble Space Telescope estimates there are 100s of billions of such galaxies. Can you even imagine the vastness of the universe?

“To whom then will you liken Me
that I would be his equal?”
says the Holy One.
Lift up your eyes on high
and see who has created these stars,
the One who leads forth
their host by number,
He calls them all by name;
because of the greatness of His might
and the strength of His power,
not one of them is missing.
Isaiah 40:25–26

Every one of the billions of stars in the universe is there by God's specific appointment. He knows their number. And He even knows them by name—they do His bidding as His personal agents.

And all this magnificence is only the hem of his grand and glorious garment.

In the beginning
God created
the heavens and the earth.
Genesis 1:1

The Almighty God, the Creator of the universe, unlike no other, incomparable, sublime.

And—wonder of wonders—this God is … our Father. This is the one to whom we pray: “Our Father who is in heaven.” This great God, omnipresent (being ever present from the distant reaches of the farthest planet to the inscrutable interatomic spaces), omniscient (knowing everything—past, present, future, actual and possible, real and imagined), and omnipotent (finding nothing impossible for Him), is—believe it or not—our Father.

The New Testament calls God “Father” almost 300 times. Jesus used nothing but “Father” to address God when He prayed (except on the cross). This sovereign God … our Father. Here is the essence of Christian life: it is a relationship—a child-parent relationship with God, that begins when we place our trust in Jesus Christ as our Savior. A relationship that recognizes our ongoing need of God. As we call Him “Father,” we acknowledge our continued dependence on Him and His absolute capacity to be sufficient for us.

Life, I have discerned, is messy! I realize that for some to call God “Father” might bring back painful memories. Jesus was aware of that, too. He realized how fallible earthly fathers were, how inadequate. He said:

“Do not call anyone
on earth your father;
for One is your Father,
He who is in heaven.”
Matthew 23:9

What we must ask is not whether we should call God our “Father.” We should. He is. The question is can we ever call our earthly fathers our real Father. God is better than the best earthly father you could ever have had. He is the true Father. The real Father, who cares, who loves, who gives. That’s why we can go to Him …

… casting all your anxiety on Him,
because He cares for you.
1 Peter 5:7

That’s why we can pray, “Our Father!” So … pray with confidence!