Matthew 6:9-13 (NKJV) - “In this manner, therefore, pray: Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done On earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, As we forgive our debtors. And do not lead us into temptation, But deliver us from the evil one. 1For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.”
Faith and Worship. The first two parts of this Model Prayer that Jesus gives to us. Who and How we are to come to the Father. Today, we start to move into the body of this example of prayer. Jesus begins to help us see what we can pray for when we have the right faith and worship God in the right attitude.
His next point, #3 is Expectation – (6:10a) “Your kingdom come.”
Matthew is writing to portray Jesus as the Messiah – the King they were promised by God in the Old Testament. And, if Jesus is the King, then there must be a Kingdom. And, Jesus’ Kingdom is the Kingdom of His Father. A kingdom is the territory of the King. And, the desire that we bring before the Father is that His Kingdom becomes established. This Kingdom that exists in Heaven is what everyone who is a child of God should be longing for. We live in the kingdom of the world – with its evil and perverse establishment. We desire the pure, the holy, the wonderful kingdom that only comes with God. It is what is often referred to as the Biblical Hope. In the Scriptures, Hope is not wishing or desire, it is a confident expectation. It is a realization that it will be fulfilled. Thus we are praying that He will establish this Kingdom now, in us.
And, in conjunction, that means that we must be #4 in Submission – (6:10b) “Your will be done On earth as it is in heaven.” What do we mean by will? Here it means God’s desire and pleasure. It means that we are willing to submit to His will, we are seeking to bring about His desires, His pleasures in the here and now. “It is” is not in the original Greek. The words were added by the Translators to help us read and understand the passage. Literally in the Greek, it says, “On earth as in Heaven.” We are seeking God to take control. For God to establish “Heaven on Earth.”
Today, consider that the only way that God’s Kingdom will be on earth is if we live like the Kingdom Citizens we are. We are to represent Heaven in our lives to those around us. Are we willing to submit and let God fully live through us? This is also a reminder to us that Jesus is coming again to establish on Earth His Kingdom. We need to be ready for His return, and when we pray this, we are asking for Him to come back. Are you ready? Is there anything in your life that needs to become different if He was to show up today?
____________________________________________________________
1 Many of the older manuscripts omit this last phrase of the prayer. I am including it because of the popularity of the way we say the prayer.
No comments:
Post a Comment