Walking in Light of the Presence of God

By Pastor Benjamin Glaser - Posted at Thoughts From Parson Farms:

How Our Heavenly Father Helps Us to Live a Life of Prayer

Good Morning,

Including today we have six lessons left in the Larger Catechism. Over the past four years, starting in October of 2020, we’ve walked gently through the shorter and larger catechisms and took a bird’s eye view of our confession of faith. When we started this it looked a lot different than where we are now. Having spoken with a few folks who receive this there is a desire to get into what is called hermeneutics, which is a fancy way of talking about how we read the Bible and how Christians are supposed to approach understanding using the Bible properly in order to both honor God and benefit from our interactions with the living word. We’ll start that up in August. For now though we are closing out our look at the Lord’s Prayer.

Here is our Q/A for today:

Q. 190. What do we pray for in the first petition?

A. In the first petition, (which is, Hallowed be thy name), acknowledging the utter inability and indisposition that is in ourselves and all men to honor God aright, l we pray, that God would by his grace enable and incline us and others to know, to acknowledge, and highly to esteem him, his titles, attributes, ordinances, word, works, and whatsoever he is pleased to make himself know by; and to glorify him in thought, word, and deed: that he would prevent and remove atheism, ignorance, idolatry, profaneness, and whatsoever is dishonorable to him; and, by his over-ruling providence.

Names have a lot of importance in the scriptures. When Hosea’s children with the harlot Gomer are presented to us, Lo-Ammi and Lo-Ruhamah, their names signify God’s lack of mercy and covenant-ownership of Israel due to their sin and wickedness. On a more positive note we see this with the angel as he speaks to Joseph in Matthew 1:21, “And she will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.”. Lastly, in relation to our catechism lesson today we see an application of the Third Commandment, “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain.” When we come to our Heavenly Father to pray we do so with a lot of pre-conceived notions as to who He is, what He can do, and how He goes about doing it. Lifting up our needs is an act of faith founded upon the finished work of Christ and the promises contained in the covenant of grace. Speaking the name of God, as the answer reminds us, is a testimony to our own weakness and inability to do whatever it is we are seeking in prayer.

Continue here.