In Palm Sunday services many worshippers sang, “Hosanna, Loud Hosanna,” including this desire: “Oh, may we ever praise Him with heart and life and voice and in His blissful presence eternally rejoice!” To do that we pray, “Hallowed be Thy name.”
This Monday of Holy Week, “Jesus went into the temple and began to drive out those who bought and sold in the temple, and overturned the tables of the moneychangers and the seats of those who sold doves.” Why did Jesus go on that rampage? He explains why, quoting Isaiah 56:7 and Jeremiah 7:11: “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations’? But you have made it a ‘den of thieves.’” (Mark 11:15, 17)
“Hallowed be Thy name;” “Holy be Your name.” Keeping God’s name holy is more than not cussing or swearing. God’s “name” is His revelation to us. Keeping His name holy means following everything that He teaches us. The moneychangers didn’t keep God’s name holy because their business was keeping Gentiles from worshipping God, and God “desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” (1 Timothy 2:4) It’s more than not cussing and swearing! “Oh, may we ever praise Him with heart and life and voice!”
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