Hallowed be Your name. As we pray to our Father in heaven, we are to keep in mind that his name is hallowed. That means that he is holy and his name is holy. Holy means separate and set apart. God is distinct from us not only in his power, but he is distinct from us in his perfectness and sinlessness. We belong to the human race and as such we are a sinful people. We have sinned against God both in word and deed as well as in the things we have failed to do that we should have done.
God has not sinned and does not sin and therefore he is separate from us and cannot have fellowship with us unless our sin issue is resolved. This, of course, is what Jesus Christ came to do. As a human being he lived a perfect life which God is offering to count as our perfect life if we will accept the offer. When we trust Christ and receive him, we are declared holy by virtue of Christ's perfect righteousness. He becomes our father and allows us then to speak to him in what we call prayer.
Jesus, in teaching us how to pray, is telling us to remember that God is holy and his name is holy. By praying something like, "Hallowed be Your name," we are acknowledging God's holiness, but we are also asking that his name be hallowed. It forces us to think about who we are speaking to and how we need the righteousness of Christ in order to be in fellowship with God. It's a reminder that coming to him outside of Christ is like barging into a sterile hospital room with our filthy and muddy clothes on. It reminds us of who we are in our natural state and how thoroughly cleansed and righteous we have become because of Christ's work on our behalf.
May God's name truly be hallowed in the way we pray.
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