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God's Holiness is Not Dead!

I may have posted this here on my blog before, but I'm up at camp teaching and I'm using this story as part of a lesson on God's holiness.

I'm teaching my kids the Lord's Prayer. It leads to some fun conversations. We're purposely taking our time discussing the different aspects of this prayer. How it begins is interesting.

Our Father in Heaven
Hallowed be Your Name
I want them to really own this prayer. Too many of us only know this as the prayer we say during a service. Depending on your tradition, you say it during communion, after the pastor prays or some other set period of time. But Jesus wasn't giving us something we could all say in unison.

So we read the prayer. Then I asked them to imagine, to use their imaginations, much like I want you to do now.

Imagine I invited you to my home. Upon entering, you saw that I had a giant picture of myself placed prominently in the living room. As you might guess, it's a glamour shot. Once you came in, I also told you there was one house rule. It was simple. I rule. Oh, and you should tell me I rule. (In case you're wondering, I am using the 80's version of the word rule.)

What would you think of me? While some of you would not be surprised at this scenario, my kids correctly labeled me arrogant. Then I asked them why this was okay for God. Why is it okay for God to teach us to pray and begin with telling God how awesome He is?

In a moment that made me realize I am not, in fact, speaking to a wall when I speak to my kids, my son answered, "Because God actually IS awesome!"

Truth. Word. Yes. Yes. Yessssss!

For God to tell us that He is worthy of our adoration is simply true. For God to tell us anything else would be wrong. It is not humility for God to deflect our praise. He is God. He is awesome! Therefore, He is worthy. His name is to be hallowed.

This is why we begin our prayers with telling Him so.

God is holy! It is up to each of us to accept this truth and to live our lives like God wants. Because God wants us to be holy.

God is not dead.
God’s call to live right is not dead either.
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