How to Pray? Adoration

Getting back to the Lord’s Prayer, we find that the second aspect of prayer is adoration, as we say ‘hallowed by your name’. This aspect of prayer has to do with God’s Name, which must be treated at Holy.

God’s ‘name’ is everything God is and does (1 Samuel 25:25). Psalms 150:2 says; ‘Praise him for his mighty deeds; praise him according to his excellent greatness!’ (ESV). That sums up God's name - All he does (his mighty deeds), and all he is (his excellent greatness). 

And all this can be encapsulated in one word, ‘HOLY’! God is holy. In heaven the angels perpetually worship him as ‘holy, holy, holy’ (Isaiah 6:3; Revelation 4:8). Both Hebrew and Greek words translated ‘holy’ can mean ‘sacred’. Repeating holy three times, indicates a perfection of holiness. 

Holy means set apart. God is holy because there is none like him. He is the only One who is God. Nehemiah 9:5-6 says; ‘Blessed be your glorious name, which is exalted above all blessing and praise. 6 “You are the Lord, you alone’.

God is unique. There is only One God. In Mark 12:29 we read of how Jesus affirmed the teaching of Deuteronomy 6:4 about the oneness of God, saying; 'Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.’ (ESV)

However, in Mark 12:36-37, Jesus also affirms the plurality of Persons within the Godhead. In this passage, Jesus spoke of how ‘David himself, in the Holy Spirit, declared, "'The Lord (κύριος) said to my Lord (κύρiw)’. Then Jesus asked, ‘David himself calls him Lord. So how is he his son?’ (ESV)

Mark 12:36-37 uses the same Greek titles for the ‘Lord’ Father and for the ‘Lord’ Jesus. ‘Son’, in this passage, obviously does not mean that Jesus is inferior to the Father. It defines his function, not his nature.

Then in 2 Cor. 3:17, we are told that ‘the Lord (κύριος) is the Spirit’. So, within the One Essential Being of the Lord God there are Three distinct ‘Lords’ or Persons; the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19).

To clarify what the Trinity is, it’s helpful to remember what it’s not:

• It is not Thi-Theism – Not three Separate Gods.

• It is not Modalism - God appearing in different forms at different times.

• It is not Arianism – An ancient heresy that taught that Jesus and the Spirit are less God than the Father.

In the next Blog, I will think about how the holiness, uniqueness, or oneness of God calls for our undivided loyalty.