Thursday, November 17, 2011

Help Us, Father, to Honor Your Name

Luther praying for God's help to glorify and honor God's name:
Help that no one may perjure, lie, or deceive by your name. Preserve us from every false comfort fabricated under the disguise of your name. Guard us against all spiritual pride and vanity of earthly glory or distinction. Help us to call upon you in all our needs and weaknesses. Assure us that in the distress of our conscience, and in the hour of death, we may not forget your name. Help us that with all our possessions, words, and works we may praise and honor only you, and not through them seek to win a name for ourselves. We glorify you alone to whom all things belong. Guard us against the shameful evil of ingratitude. Amen (28).
And again:
Help us so that by our lives and good works others may be prompted not to exalt us but to praise you in us and to honor your name. Grant that no one may be offended by our evil works or shortcomings, and so dishonor you and praise you less. Keep us from desiring anything temporal or eternal that does not praise and honor your name. If we should ask you for any such things, we pray that you would not hear our foolishness. Help us so to live that we may be found true children of God, and that your fatherly name may not be used falsely or in vain because of us. Amen (29). 
 —Martin Luther, Luther's Prayers (ed. Herbert F. Brokering; Augsberg: Minneapolis, 1994), 28-29.

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