SIMPLE PRAYER (Part VI)

By Odon Bulamba

“Hallowed by Thy name”, you must make holiness known to yourself. God is Holy! Your body will pray and make it known to your spirit God’s holiness. And when your spirit prays, it will make it known to your body. When you pray your body must be holy and your spirit too. You cannot come before God filthy and say, ‘you are holy’. You must be holy spiritually and your spirit knows that if it is holy, the body must be too.

Spiritual holiness is the work of Jesus’ blood at the cross. Physical holiness is what comes out of your mouth, comes from inside your body, which defiles you. Our thoughts are our desires in our heart (deep inside). Our hearts can sometimes say no to our thoughts, we have the ability to say no. You can think something bad but your heart can say no (Mathew 15:10-11). The thoughts feed the heart and now the heart has to decide, if the heart says no the body will not do it. Our body belongs to us and we are the one who can decide, we can say no to sin, it depends on the heart. We must control our hearts for the body’s holiness. Satan met Jesus only once and talked only three times and he left him and it never says that he talked to Him again. Jesus had power against satan and anyone with a bad spirit would shake in the presence of Jesus. Those spirits wanted to flee Jesus.

Satan also flees from you once you are strong. If he comes, just resist him. If you are not strong, remember God has the power to resist him. The first decision is in our hearts; I don’t want to defile my body because my body is a temple of the Holy Spirit and I don’t want to defile my body. If I react badly I have fallen into sin because it will shock others and they will say, “why did she do that?” Because I didn’t decide in my heart so my body can fall into sin. When the sin is there and your heart starts making bad decisions tell your heart, “my heart, you must understand and accept what I command you to do.” Tell your heart, “I command you to do this because I don’t want my body to sin.” And ask God to give you strength so you can’t sin again.

Jesus gave us a solution, John 15:1, “I am the true vine and my Father is the vinedresser.” The Father is the vinedresser (He prunes). Jesus is the vine and we are the branches. Branches that don’t bear fruit will be cut and thrown out and set on fire and they will disappear completely. For us, there are certain parts of our Christianity that doesn’t bear fruit and the Father cuts them and once they are cut off, they don’t stay in the garden but are burnt and vanished. E.g. my weakness is anger and bad thoughts, I must cut that. Jesus will cut it off. I must go to Jesus and say, “ I don’t want this sin anymore, cut it off.” If we pray with honesty and truth, Jesus will do it, because people you would come to Jesus would find healing and He would say, “sin no more.”

- if we pray in honesty and truth
- if we know the Word of God
- God has listened to our prayer
- He has given the strength to sin no more
- Thank Him and sin no more

How can we fulfil Mathew 6:9 in us? God’s holiness must be seen in us. When you are alone meditate on what you are doing. In everything I do is there the glory of God? Or not? If yes, it’s good and if no, it’s not good and I must change. We must meditate on what we are doing. Observe yourself carefully because nothing is hidden for God, He knows so we better know ourselves too. If you forget what you have done ask God to remind you. Sometimes we might do things we are not aware of, ask God to be aware and if you see something you don’t like, you must change. List them and see where you must change so the verse, “Hallowed be Thy name” will be acknowledged in you so you can reach holiness and obey this commandment. Do that spiritually and physically, ask every time, ‘why do I do this?’ Tell the tongue, ‘control yourself’ so the glory of God will be acknowledged in your body so Jesus will say you are in Me and I am in you.

We are in God and He can protect us. He offers to protect us and it’s up to us to protect Him and His image in us (protect His holiness in us). Protecting God inside us means keeping all the commands He gives us, then God will feel free in us and sin will not touch Him. The devil will not touch Jesus who is God in us and if we live like that it’s very easy to communicate with God. If we don’t, God won’t hear us.

Mary had Jesus in her womb and although people were talking evil of her, she protected Jesus and accepted Jesus. Mary was also protected because she protected Jesus for nine months. God protected her from danger (when they fled to Egypt). Mary’s reputation was protected when Jesus was born because she was chosen by God. Not all the virgins were chosen. She understood because she had Jesus inside her by the strength of the Holy Spirit. What she had in her was holy and she had to be careful. She was called saint Mary by the catholics because she was a saint and she protected herself from sinning. It’s the same for us and helps us to discover our sin and helps us not to fall into sin if we make an effort.