Greetings Dear Reader,
Hallowed is a word that we no
longer truly understand. It means to see
something as holy, consecrated, greatly revered, and honored. We see it in the Gettysburg Address as the
ground that was hallowed by the dead from the battle. Though we no longer revere it as holy, it is
the root from which we get Halloween.
Then there is the Harry Potter book, The Deathly Hallows. These give us a definition of hallow but may
not give us a practical understanding of how we hallow the name of the Father.
This too is something we do not
clearly understand. It is attached to
the command to not take the name of God in vain. Neither means that we simply do not use the
name of God as an expletive. That is
true, but it is much more than that.
Hallowing the name of the Father is to understand that in the depth of
his love for us, he is still a holy, righteous, and powerful God who should be
respected and revered.
This then leads to thoughts concerning
how one is to respect and revere the Father in the moment, every moment. The Father addresses this. He wants us to know and understand his
commands to us. The first is the greatest. We are to love the Lord with all our heart,
mind, soul, and strength. We are also to
understand the words he has communicated in order to guide us in that endeavor. The second command is to love all humans as
we love ourselves.
How to apply this practically is
vital to our continued understanding of hallowing the name of the Father. The thing to realize is that there are no moments
when we are not supposed to do what we endeavor in light of our love for the
Father and his creations. Here is what
Moses communicates from the Father about our obligation to this:
Deuteronomy 6:4-9 (NIV)
4 Hear,
O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 5 Love
the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all
your strength. 6 These commandments that I give you
today are to be on your hearts. 7 Impress them on
your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the
road, when you lie down and when you get up. 8 Tie
them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 9 Write
them on the door-frames of your houses and on your gates.
I do not think that we are to literally wear symbols on our
hands and foreheads but I do think that the idea here is that there are no
secular issues. There are no actions,
thoughts, or feelings that are separated from our obligation to honor the
Father. This includes how we treat
strangers, the guy who cut us off in traffic, and the issue at work that is making
us nuts. My thoughts and attitudes toward
politics, social issues, and community are to be bound to the command to love
the Father and hallow his name in every moment.
My attitudes about my family and friends, even when they cut me to the
heart, are to be loving, forgiving, and couched in grace and mercy.
I must do all this to hallow the name of the Father who
loves me no matter how important, disrespectful, or unloving I behave. It is in this love that he asks that I hallow
his name with all that I do in my journey.
In this moment my thoughts must be centered on loving and honoring my
Father no matter what the circumstances.
This thought is the way out of so many difficulties.
It is so easy to see the way home if this is my focus. The Father in heaven calls us to him and
longs for us to be driven only by love.
He knows what we have been through and knows what we still face. He loves us and longs for us to find the
peace that is available because we have hallowed his name by setting our lives
apart to him. That, Dear Reader, is simple
and difficult all at once. I think if we
narrow our focus to the moment it may be easier. It means that we walk in the understanding
that all ground is holy and that our freedom is found renewed in each moment
that we honor the Father with our heart, mind, soul, and strength.
If You Want to get Free – Waterdeep
In the gas station bathroom by the condom machine
I heard the word of the Lord
He said "Take off your shoes, this is holy ground too
You know I came for the sick and the bored."
Beneath the selling of beers
And the welling up of tears
Out beyond the beam of the remote control
There's a whispering voice
That the humble ear ears
that says "I am still waiting for you to ask just to be
made whole."
And the bush it was burning on the mountain top
And though the leaves never blackened, the fire didn't stop
That's the way that it works in this old life of sin
You gotta let the fire burn you just to get clean within
I am so often deterred from my actual intent
by distractions in a cellophane wrap
And the cruel voice that taunts me when I open them up
to find just one more box full of crap
It's where you're mocked while you abstain
and then cursed when you give in
It's all a game that's impossible to beat
But there's a peaceful refrain God'll sing in your brain
when you put the nails to your hands and your feet
And the smell of our sacrifices
still fills up my head
There's just a few left at the altar, Lord
all the rest of them fled
And we've cried and we've tried
We've sweat and we've bled
But we don't just need atonement
We need to be raised from the dead
When they took down the cross from that dark hillside
The blood on their hands was the blood from his side
That's the way that it works, That's the way it must be.
You gotta let His blood stain you of you want to get free
If you want to get free
Don't you want to get free?
I think you want to be free.
Wishing you joy in the journey,
Aramis Thorn
Mat 13:52 So Jesus said to them, "That is why every
writer who has become a disciple of Christ’s rule of the universe is like a
homeowner. He liberally hands out new and old things from his great treasure
store.”
(͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
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Thorn:
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