Honouring God by one’s life

That, then, is one way by which we honour God – by treating him with reverence in his church.  Another way is by behaving outside church in such a way as to lead people to respect the Christian religion.  If boys and girls behave badly outside their homes, they will give their parents a bad name.  People will judge the parents by the way their children go on.  The same thing is true of you girls and boys of the Church.  If you behave so as to bring credit on the Church, you will lead people outside to think more of God.  They will say to themselves, “I don’t go to church myself, but there must be something in it because the girls and boys who do go behave very differently from the ones who don’t”.

But if people see Church girls and boys behaving badly, they will think nothing of the Church and nothing of God.  They will say to themselves, “Well, if that’s what they’re like, I don’t want to have anything to do with the Christian religion”.  So by the way you go on outside church, you give God either a good name or a bad name.

That is why in our morning and evening prayers we should ask God every day to help us, in whatever we do, to be worthy of him so that we may give him and his Church a good name.

SUMMARY

1. To hallow means to treat with reverence and honour.  God’s Name means God as he has made himself known to us.

2. We hallow God’s Name in two ways.  First, by worshipping him and by being reverent; and secondly, by giving him a good name, that is, by behaving in such a way that he and his Church may be honoured by us and respected by others.

Reference

Church of England (1662) The Book of Common Prayer.  A Catechism.  Available from: http://www.cofe.anglican.org/worship/liturgy/bcp/texts/catechism.html  (Accessed 19 August 2010) (Internet).