Today, magnify the Lord

Notice two things about the Lord’s Prayer. It begins with the words “Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name” (Matthew 6:9) and ends with “Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen” (v. 13). God wants us to begin and end our prayers thinking of Him. Why? Because it does us twice as much good to focus on God as it does to focus on anyone or anything else! When we magnify an object, we enlarge it so that we can see and understand it more. When we magnify God, we do the same thing. We enlarge our awareness of Him so we can understand Him more. This is what happens when we worship Him—we take our minds off of ourselves and set them on God. We put the emphasis on Him. In The Message, Eugene Peterson paraphrases the final words of the Lord’s Prayer this way: “You’re in charge! You can do anything you want! You’re ablaze in beauty! Yes. Yes. Yes” (Matthew 6:13). Could it be any plainer? God is in charge! Speaking of Jesus Christ, Peterson paraphrases Paul’s words like this: “God raised him from death and set him on a throne in deep heaven, in charge of running the universe, everything from galaxies to governments, no name and no power exempt from his rule. And not just for the time being, but forever. He is in charge of it all, has the final word on everything. At the center of all this, Christ rules” (Ephesians 1:20-23 MSG). So when you magnify the Lord, you’re saying, “You not only rule the universe, you rule my heart!”