Hallowed Be Thy Name

What does it mean for God’s name to be holy? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Hallowed is simply a way to refer to something as holy, and holiness is something we have lost sight of. In our world today, the question “Is nothing sacred?” is entirely relevant. Most people today seem to live just for the next pleasure high, and that doesn’t necessarily mean drugs, though it can. Casual sex is all too often and apps like tinder can exist to pretty much just give a hook-up to someone.

Sometimes I look at our society and wonder what people think is worth living for. What is the true greatest good in our lives? For we Christians, we would say it’s the goal to see God one day, but while we say that, we often live like the greatest good is something else, myself included.

Holiness refers to something being set apart. It’s not just something common and normal. It’s to be reserved for a specific usage and time. God’s holiness means He is set apart from creation and refers to His goodness and purity. He is unique.

We can honor His name best by how we live our own lives. Do we live lives of service and gratitude to Him? Do we seek to love our neighbor as ourselves? Do we seek to do good to those around us even when they wrong us?

Also, do we treat God way too flippantly. Do we seek to speak for Him when we have no business doing so? I think about this when I hear so many people convinced that God is speaking to them. God gets treated in a casual manner. I don’t really care for John MacArthur, but I think he was 100% right when he talked about the guy who told him that God talks to him every morning while he’s shaving and MacArthur asked “Do you still keep shaving?”

My wife and I attend Celebrate Recovery together and normally, you introduce yourself as a faithful believer in Jesus Christ. I don’t say that. I try to remind myself of something else with my introduction and say “Servant of King Jesus.” Jesus is a friend for sure, but He is not just any friend. If you were friends with the president, regardless of what you think of him and if you don’t like Trump replace him with someone you do like, you would not treat that friendship casually. You would treat the president still with the utmost of respect.

Clay Jones in his latest book Immortal argues that one of the reasons we might not have such a Christian drive in our country is we have lost sight of what happens when we die. We try to not think about the fact that one day all of us will. When we lose sight of that, we also lose sight of the fact that we will be judged.

Think about that. You will give an account for every deed that you do. Really think about it.

Every deed.

So what have you done? Did you get snippy with your wife? Were you berating your husband? Did you scare the kids by being harsher than you should have been? Did you give your neighbor the cold shoulder? Did you rejoice over the suffering of a personal enemy?

Every deed.

Most of our sins against God are not directly done against God. They’re done against His creation, mainly other people. Jesus tells us this in His parable of the sheep and the goats. C.S. Lewis reminded us that we have never met a normal person. Every person we meet will one day either be a creature we would be tempted to bow down before and worship, or a creature that would come out of our nightmares.

And a lot of this starts with a low view of God. If God is treated casually, then we are missing out on Him. Most Christians don’t have a clue about the Trinity, for example, and what a difference that should make to our lives. God is really no different than Zeus to most of us. He’s just a superpowered human being.

Seeing God as holy will require a revolution in our thinking about God. We will need to take doctrine seriously and our own holiness seriously. We will need to seek to banish evil not just from the world around us, but from our very selves. Fair wager here, but I suspect most of us spend more time complaining about the evil of others around us than the evil within us. To refer to Lewis again, he said that we often seek to excuse our sins, but not the sins of others. When we sin, that is different, but the other person? They really ought to know better!

If we are going to be Christians who say Jesus is #1, our lives had better be different. Our marriages had better be different. Our parenting should be different. Our job performance should be different. Our entertainment should be different. Everything. We should be different people because we serve a God who is really different from everything else.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Book Plunge: Hot, Holy, and Humorous

What do I think of J. Parker’s book published by Broadstreet? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Christians have had a hard time sometimes talking about sexual issues. In many cases, this seems to be much more the case with women than it does with men. Many women have been raised up to think that sex is something that they should tolerate and a necessary evil and just act like you enjoy it.

Thankfully, women have help with a book like J. Parker’s Hot, Holy, and Humorous. I found this one while looking up marriage blogs and I’m interested in having the author on my show. She agreed to send me her book for free to which I am grateful.

This is an excellent look at this topic. Thankfully, she starts off in the right place, building romance. Many a woman can have a hard time believing her husband can really love her when it comes to sex. After all, a man really has a strong desire for that and it can seem to a woman like he just cares about using her body for his pleasure. If he just seems to want sex so much, does he really love me?

Yes. The huge majority of the time, yes he does. What Parker gets is that men want sex for a lot more than just physical release. As she says in the book, if a man just wanted only release, he could do that on his own. No. The man wants something different. To be sure, full intercourse provides something a lot better, but there is something more the man wants and it really can’t be put into words that easily. I would just describe it by saying a man wants to feel respected and honored and loved and he wants to feel like he’s really connected to his wife and is close to her and is a priority to her. Sex is often the loudest way that that is screamed.

Parker advises women to accept what their husband does. He tries. Even if he fails miserably, at least he’s trying. She does describe her husband as Spock and does not think in terms of emotion so being romantic is hard. I must disagree with this some. I’m a Spock type too and I believe in being romantic and do it because of the old saying. Happy wife, happy life. If my Princess is happy, we’re all much happier.

It’s only logical.

Still, her point is well taken. If your husband is trying to do something for you, don’t get after him because it’s not perfect. Your husband tries to fix dinner for you and burns a few items. He tried. He tries to clean up the house and puts things in the wrong spot. He tried. He tried to do the laundry and got everything messed up. He still tried. Get after him for how he failed and he likely won’t try again.

Parker also advises that you find time for sex. Some couples put a time on the calendar and say that barring some crisis of some sorts, we are going to have sex at this time. Scheduling sex may seem odd, but it can work. After all, the man can rest assured he’s going to get that connection and the woman can playfully tease her man with saying something like “Just wait until X day comes along.”

From here on, Parker gets down to the real deal. This is incredibly thorough and yet it is also incredibly clean. Parker’s style is very respectful and does not use dirty slang to speak. Her chapter on kissing has to be one of the most thorough I’ve ever read anywhere. She discusses everything from oral sex to what to do with your hands to dealing with fantasies to how to initiate.

Usually in a marriage, there is one partner who has a high drive and one who has a low drive. Now of course, there are exceptions, but this is the norm. Whichever side you’re on, Parker has some help for you. If you’re a high-drive wife, she has ways to coax your husband a little bit more. If you’re a low-drive, she has ways to make you feel more excited.

Parker also has advice on how to deal with pain and then about how Christians should view sex. Throughout the book, she definitely says no to pornography. When you conclude you can see that for Parker, as it should be for all of us, sex is indeed hot, holy, and humorous.

I definitely recommend this one.

In Christ,
Nick Peters