The idea of Kingdom is somewhat foreign to us who live in the United States, but the core of what is a King is authority. By that what we mean is that their will is asserted as that which is determinative, or decisive. The will of the King in an absolute monarchy is the law or reality that everyone had to live by, for they were the authority of the realm. To pray “your Kingdom come” is to ask God to make His will supreme, the reality that we live by.
This week continues a new series on prayer designed to lead us closer to Christ. We pray to the Lord "Your Kingdom come, your will be done..." This is key for our praying as Christ prayed, Taken from Luke 11.1, it is a prayer of desire, our desire for Him.
Morning Mercies is a podcast dedicated to the deepening of trust with God, our maker, through a relationship with Jesus Christ. He has become our Master, our teacher, and so we follow Him with our lives, be they what they are. They are brief, and follow the simple format of scripture, meditation, and prayer.
Morning Mercies are posted several times a week on all major podcast platforms, and are presented by Michael Mullen.
The content of prayer, the conversation between the believer and the LORD, revolves around one concern- the will of God in the life of the believer. As such it is a Kingdom conversation. It flows out of desire for God’s name to be honored, for his reputation to be hallowed. So it is a heart thing.
The heart is the part in you that desires, that makes commitments, that keeps loyalties. Some theologians would say that the heart is the place of feeling in the soul. As such, the heart shapes deeply our speaking and doing. Our motivations come chiefly from the heart. It is the heart that Christ first centers His prayer on, for the petition “Halowed be thy name” reflects the desire that God would make his name, his reputation, his authority first in the world and in the believer. The petition we are looking at today, “thy Kingdom come, thy will be done,” concerns the will within us, the will that resides within our hearts. Our desires and the posture of our hearts concerns the Lord, for it is here where we either follow our own selves, or Him. Everything flows from this. As the Solomon says, “Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life” (Proverbs 4.23).
God wants us to walk with Him, but not under compulsion, but by our heart’s desire. This means we would want His will to be made manifest in our decisions, our affections, even our feelings. Our desire as we pray this petition is that we would want His words to be our words, his choices to be his choices, his thoughts to be our thoughts. “His Kingdom come,” here where I am, even in me.
The idea of Kingdom is somewhat foreign to us who live in the United States, but the core of what is a King is authority. By that what we mean is that their will is asserted as that which is determinative, or decisive. The will of the King in an absolute monarchy is the law or reality that everyone had to live by, for they were the authority of the realm. To pray “your Kingdom come” is to ask God to make His will supreme, the reality that we live by.
Now for human beings this is problematic, for we all have a kingdom within us where we rule, or we decide what is ultimately done or sought. When we pray for the “Kingdom of the Lord” to be made manifest in this Earth, we are including all the kingdoms of this world, including our own. We are taking steps in our praying of giving our heart, with all our desires, to that which is of God. We may want one thing, but if it is in conflict with what God wants, we choose God and His will before ourselves. We simply want God more, so we choose him and his rule before our own.
The arrival of Jesus, the Son of God in our midst, makes this possible. It says in the Gospels that Jesus arrived first in Galilee preaching “the Kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe!” In other words the will of God and his power to make it real is available to us, if we repent and believe Him. Then he demonstrated the truth of this meassage by healing the sick and setting free those who were demonized. The availability of the Kingdom of God is ours if we want it. Do we want it?
That is our dilemma isn’t it? To accept God’s will in place of our own? To replace my kingdom with that of the Son of God requires me to trust him implicitly for that which I control. Am I willing to do that?
To pray this sincerely from our heart is to see our prayers change. No longer is there room in our thinking or desires to ask for the self-centered petition, but our prayers have been lifted up to a higher level. Now we seek the will of God, which is love for our brothers and sisters, concern for the peoples of the earth. It also shifts our petitions to that which is more eternal in perspective, or impact. We can pray for that which is temporal, but the immediate does not occupy the vision as it once did. We can pray for a financial need that is here now and forgotten tomorrow, but our heart is given to praying that the Lord would teach us how to be a better more loving parent, for that is more substantial, more eternal, more of His kingdom.
There is an apocalyptic element of this petition that should not be missed. When we pray “Your Kingdom come, your will be done, on Earth as it is in heaven,” we are asking God to bring to consumation His promise to mankind that He will come back and make all things new or right. So much of the heart ache of our age is that which can be tied to things that are contrary to God’s will and desire for us. Bigotry, hunger, abuse, exploitation, isolation, rejection, are all things which have no future in His Kingdom. When he comes to his people again, he will do away with such things once and for all. This also is what we pray for.
All of this is good and well, but how do we make it real? How do we become people who pray for His kingdom, His will, from the heart?
That’s just it, we don’t make it real, He does. We are asking Him to do this, starting with us, but also throughout all creation. He has made his Kingdom available to us, and we need only trust Him for it. He is the one who changes the person I am into the Child he has created me to be. I must repent from trying to save myself, of trying to secure my life for myself, and instead simply surrender.
I surrender Lord! May your will be done. In Jesus name, Amen