SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 11/6/2020 9:35 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-1 “God’s Priority”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew 6:9c
Message of the
verse: “Hallowed be Thy name.”
This phrase we see here “introduces a protection against
any sentimentalism or overuse and abuse of “Father,” which is prone to being
sentimentalized” John MacArthur writes as he begins this section in his
commentary. We have talked before about
prayer being something that brings glory to the Lord and therefore as Jesus
earlier warned against self-seeking prayer, this fits into what we are saying
here. "Whatever
you ask in My name, that will I do, so that the Father may be glorified in the
Son” (John 14:13). Now we have been
repeating this verse from John in our study of the disciples’ prayer and it is
a good verse to memorize for in it we can see much about prayer “so that the
Father may be glorified in the Son.”
This is the essence of prayer, not like going to the Father like some
type of rich grandfather who only wants to give us what we want all of the
time. Prayer is aliening God’s will with
ours, and not the other way, so that “the Father may be glorified in the Son,”
for after all this is one of the reasons why Jesus came to planet earth. We know that He came to save sinners, to
bring about a people for the Father, those He chose in eternity past, and
therefore believers are to follow what this verse in John tells us to follow in
order to bring glory to the Father in the Son.
Now
we see in this partial verse that we are looking at today the word “name,” and
God’s name does signify substantially more than His titles or
appellations. His name represents all
that He is, things like His character, plan, and will, along with His
attributes. Let us look at Exodus 34:5-7
“5 The LORD descended in the cloud and stood there with him as he called upon the name of
the LORD. 6 Then the LORD passed by in front of him and proclaimed, "The LORD, the LORD God, compassionate
and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth; 7 who
keeps lovingkindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin;
yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished,
visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the
third and fourth generations.’” Now we
want to look at the characteristics of God that are given in verses 6-7 from
these verses above as we see that they are equivalent of “the name of the Lord”
which is mentioned in verse 5. I believe
that it is safe to say that names were more important in the Old Testament than
in the times that we are living in now.
God changed a number of names found in the Old Testament. I can think of both Abraham and Sarah being
changed by God. Jacob is changed to
Israel too.
I
have mentioned many times the importance of studying the attributes of God in
my Spiritual Diaries and these attributes show us who God is. His names also show us who He is and both God
the Father and Jesus Christ have many names so we can understand who he
is.
I
will conclude this SD by quoting from John MacArthur’s book “Jesus’ Pattern of
Prayer” as he lists the names of God.
“God
is given many names in the Bible, and each expresses some part of His
character. In Genesis He is called Elohim, the ‘Creator God.’ Later in the same book He is called El Elyon, or ‘possessor of heaven and
earth.’
“The
Old Testament also calls Him: Jehovah-Jireh, ‘The Lord will provide’; Jehovah-Nissi, ‘the Lord our banner’; Jehovah-Rapha, ‘the Lord that healeth’; Jehovah-Shalom, ‘the Lord of peace’; Jehovah-Raah, ‘the Lord of hosts’; Jehovah-Shama, ‘the Lord is present and
near’; and Jehovah-Maqodeshkim, which
means ‘the Lord sanctifieth thee.’”
One
more thing that I want to mention again as I probably mentioned this earlier,
and that is that the word Jehovah is a name that the Jews made up in order not
to have to say the real name of God that He gave to Moses on the mountain. Yahweh is that name given to Moses and the
Jews would not say it so they made up their own name for God and it is
translated Jehovah in our English Bibles.
Spiritual meaning for my life today: It is good to go over the names of God
along with thinking about God’s attributes in order to be able to be more
efficient in my prayers to Him.
My Steps of Faith for Today: I trust that the Lord will be brought glory
with the results of this election even though it is a mess to us it is not to
Him and I trust the Lord to work things out for our good and for His glory.
11/6/2020 10:15 AM
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