| The Golden Gate of Prayer |
Chapter 5 |
Page 4 |
We ask in this prayer, also, that God’s name may become better known among men. Dear as God may be to us, his children, and highly as we may honor him in our own heart, he is not worthily reverenced in the world about us. Men do not know him and do not honor him as he ought to be honored. We say of a good man, that he needs only to be known in order to be loved. If we can get men to know God, they will love him. We should pray, therefore, that his name may become better known, that those who pay him no reverence now shall thus be brought to trust him. What joy it would give to thousands of weary sufferers in this world to-day, if they knew God!
This is one of those prayers that is not finished when we have breathed its words, however sincerely and earnestly, into the ear of our Father. When we ask God to make his name known among men, he says to us, “I have put my name into your keeping — do you make it known. I have given you a knowledge of me — go and tell the people everywhere of my love, my mercy, my holiness, my grace. I have gone to the cross to reveal there the divine heart — do you show now in your life the meaning of the cross, interpreting it not merely in words, but in life, in service, in deeds of self-denial and sacrifice.” It is ours to make known to men what God is.
We ask in this petition that we may be enabled to do our part in spreading the knowledge of God in the world. There are many ways in which we may do this. We may scatter the printed word of God, and its pages will be as the leaves of the tree of life for the healing of the nations. We may speak to men everywhere of what God is, what he has done, especially of what he is to us and what he has done for us.
Another way in which we may hallow God’s name among men is in our own life. If a child does well and lives worthily, he honors his parents before the world. If he lives unworthily, he brings reproach, shame, and grief upon them. We, as God’s children, by our life bring either honor or dishonor upon the name of our Father. Dr. Christlieb said, “Christians are the world’s Bible.” The world does not read the written book, but it does read the life of those who profess to be God’s children. If our life is to be the interpretation of God’s word to the world, we should write nothing in it which would in any way misrepresent of misinterpret God. If we live carelessly, dishonestly, speaking lies, acting deceitfully, doing unloving things, we are dishonoring God. It is important that all those who stand for God in this world shall live in all their common days so that all who see them shall learn something more about God’s grace and the beauty of holiness.
Wherever we go our life itself should declare God. It should not be necessary for us to tell people that we are Christians; there should be something in the very temper and spirit and atmosphere of our life that would say to every one that we belong to Christ and have been with him.
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