Kingdom Come

Kingdom Come

Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Matthew 6:10, ESV

WHEN JESUS TAUGHT HIS DISCIPLES TO PRAY, he covered several broad topics—our relationship to the Father, our need for daily sustenance, the centrality of receiving and giving mercy in our lives, and the importance of resisting evil. But the petition that frames all others in this model prayer is a request for God’s Kingdom to come and his will to be done on earth as it is in heaven. In everything we pray, this is the context. We orient our lives toward God’s Kingdom advancing in this world.

Traditionally, the Lord’s Prayer has been recited with a between-the-lines assumption that Jesus certainly must mean a future Kingdom, perhaps in his millennial reign or the heavenly realm. But Jesus clearly specifies his Kingdom come “on earth,” and there is nothing in his words that implies that it must wait until generations after the disciples are gone. No, he wants all generations to be praying for the advance of his Kingdom on earth right now, in real and tangible ways. After all, the Kingdom came with the King (Matthew 4:17), and the King has not left us (Matthew 28:20; John 14:16-18). He saves, heals, delivers, and offers abundant life. He fully intends to fill the earth with his people (Matthew 24:14) and his glory (Habakkuk 2:14). He came to destroy the works of the enemy (1 John 3:8). He is on a mission, through us, to transform the world.

It’s true that the Kingdom doesn’t come in all its fullness until the King returns. But it is coming in the meantime because the King inhabits his people. And one of the primary ways it comes is through our prayers, just as Jesus instructed. Never hold back when praying Kingdom values into this world. Pray for abundant life, justice and mercy, restoration of lives, and the environment of heaven in the societies of earth. Expand your prayers from your visible field of influence to your community, city, nation, and world. Ask God to intervene anywhere and everywhere. Let your will and his will be one.

The only significance of life consists in helping to establish the kingdom of God.