In this manner, therefore, pray: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. (Matthew 6:9)
Hallowing The Father
Today is Father’s Day as the nation celebrates the man who used to be the central figure of leadership in the home. It seems paradoxical that Father’s day is honored when the American culture is doing everything it can to destroy the definition of marriage, break down the home and take away the role of leadership from the man. Fatherhood is honored on the third day of June but every other day of the year is impugned as outmoded, old fashioned and belongs in the Smithsonian with all the other relics of the day. The television has shown the progression of respect for the father when Father Knows Best has turned into American Dad and TV shows exalting homosexuality, divorce, sexual immorality and the ridicule of the man being a leader in his home as the norm. This progression of destroying the influence of the father began when the American conscience no longer decided to reverence the Father in heaven. When God is taken out of the home, the leadership of the father is next on the chopping block. Following the abdication and destruction of fatherhood society turns on itself and becomes a moral cesspool of ungodliness and unrighteousness. Father’s Day should remind the nation of the Father that is heaven and his name should be hallowed and revered as holy.
Jesus taught his disciples to pray and the most important lesson he began the prayer with is acknowledging authority. There is an inclusion of relationship the Son of God employs with saying that God is “our Father.” He shared a relationship with the Father no man would ever know but the Lord allows men to come before his father and share in the love of the eternal God who loves all men. It begins with respecting the authority of who God is, what the Father represents and how men should approach him. God is in heaven and that puts man in his place. No matter how tall man believes himself to be in all of his accumulated wisdom and might he falls eternally short of coming to the hem of the garments of God. Man’s greatest feat may have been to put a man on the moon and bring him back but the Lord God dwells in the farthest stars with ease. The habitation of man is limited and placed there by his creator. When the nation of America turns its heart back to the authority of God it will rekindle a spirit of strength and courage that will answer the problems of life.
One of the most important factors of America’s decline is the failing of keeping hallowed the name of God. The Lord God is the Father of all men because He created the worlds and everything that dwells on it. All of the needs of man are met by the hand of the Father who is in heaven. Now the world profanes the name of God and rejects the holy nature of his name, his word and his presence in their lives. Jesus taught his disciples that praying to the Father requires a belief that God is holy and everything about him must be revered with respect, honor and venerated for who he is. Any nation that rejects God will fall in disgrace. Father’s day is a wonderful day to celebrate the homes where fatherhood is still honored by those who honor the heavenly Father. Our Father, who is in heaven – holy and reverend is YOUR NAME!
