The Disciple’s Prayer – Thy Name

What is commonly referred to as the Lord’s prayer is actually the disciple’s prayer.  The Lord’s prayer, His intercession for His disciples and for us, is found in John 17.  In Matthew chapter 6 Jesus is instructing His disciples on how to pray when He instructs them as follows: 

But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. Be not ye therefore like unto them: for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him. After this manner therefore pray ye:  Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed (set apart) be thy name.

When God called Moses to deliver the children of Israel from bondage in Egypt, Moses asked God; Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say to me, What is his name?  what shall I say unto them?  And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you. Exodus 3:13&14.

We may ask, what’s in a name?  What does the name I AM teach us about God?  I AM is present tense.  With God, there is no past or future.  He sees all things in the present.

God has always been and He always will be.  He is eternal and infinite.  We are not.  Time is just a parenthesis in eternity.  Time is a created thing with a beginning and an end.  God is not confined to time.  He created it.

God lives outside of time and outside of the universe in the third heaven.  The universe is His tent.  He observes and controls everything within time according to His purpose.  We are created beings, confined to time and the physical, but God is a Spirit and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.

Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me.  In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.  And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.  And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know.  Thomas saith unto him, Lord, we know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way? Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.            John 14:1-6

…let the word of Christ dwell in you richly…

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