In this petition our Lord teaches us to become intercessors as we pray for his kingdom to come and his will to be done on earth.Sometimes we hear ministers telling us to become specific in our prayers. Here Jesus teaches us to become almost childlike in our prayers. For instance we would smile if we hear a child pray:'Bless everyone in the world because we know you love everyone.'
This prayer encourages us to bring big petitions to God such as : 'Let your Kingdom come in Iran and Iraq' or 'Let your will be done in this country!'We are encouraged to pray as children because we are praying to our Father.
But as we think about this petition: to pray for his Kingdom and his will to come on earth it also implies that his kingdom would have to come in my life, my family, my street, my country, my continent. It therefore leaves nothing and no one out at all- everything is covered, with nothing too great that it can not be asked for. It is up to our Father to decide whether to act upon it.Jesus personified the Man who had fully the reign and will of God in his life and so desires that we as children of God should have the same.
Come, my soul, thy suit prepare:
Jesus loves to answer prayer;
He himself has bid thee pray,
Therefore will not say thee nay.
Thou art coming to a King,
Large petitions with thee bring;
For his grace and power are such,
None can ever ask too much.
With my burden I begin:
Lord, remove this load of sin;
Let thy blood, for sinners spilt,
Set my conscience free from guilt.
Lord, I come to thee for rest,
Take possession of my breast;
There thy blood-bought right maintain,
And without a rival reign.
While I am a pilgrim here,
Let thy love my spirit cheer;
As my Guide, my Guard, my Friend,
Lead me to my journey's end.
John Newton
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ReplyDeletethanks anonymous for your comments.
ReplyDeleteJesus is now the Lord; He is enthroned at the right hand of God; He is reigning in His kingdom. But this is a Lordship and a kingly reign which is known only to believers. It must be confessed by faith. His Second Coming will mean nothing less than the Lordship which is His now will be visible to all the world. When we pray, "Thy kingdom come," this is what we are praying for: the effectual and universal rule of Christ in all the world, not only over believers
ReplyDeleteGeorge Eldon Ladd
Whether we like it or not, asking is the rule of the kingdom.
Charles Spurgeon
Despite their overthrow, the powers of darkness have not yet conceded their defeat; they continue to contest every inch of their territory. The kingdom of Satan retreats only as the kingdom of God advances.
John Stott
When I say 'hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come," I should be adding in my mind the words "in and through me," and so giving myself to God afresh to be, so far as I can be, the means of answering my own prayer. And when I say "thy will be done," I should mean this as a prayer that I, along with the rest of God's people, may learn to be obedient.
J.I. Packer
It must be asserted that petitionary prayer only flourishes where there is a twofold belief: that God's name is hallowed too irregularly, his kingdom has come too little, and his will is done too infrequently; second, that God himself can change this situation.
David F. Wells
The followers of Jesus are to be different-different from both the nominal church and the secular world, different from both the religious and the irreligious. The Sermon on the Mount is the most complete delineation anywhere in the New Testament of the Christian value-system, ethical standard, religious devotion, attitude to money, ambition, life-style and network of relationships-all of which are totally at variance with those of the non-Christian world. And this Christian Counterculture is the life of the kingdom of God, a fully human life indeed but lived out under the divine rule.
John Stott
The person who does not seek the kingdom first does not seek it at all, regardless of how worthy the idolatry that he or she has substituted for it.
Richard J. Foster
Many inquire who is the greatest in the kingdom of God, who know not whether they shall ever be numbered among the least.
Thomas a Kempis
To express it simply, the Kingdom is where the King is. So, early in the gospels, the news is announced:"The kingdom of God is near you" (Luke 10:9). The Kingdom was near because the King was near. And yet, though near, the Kingdom was not a locality, not a province to be entered.
James Long
The Kingdom is to be in the midst of your enemies. And he who will not suffer this does not want to be of the Kingdom of Christ; he wants to be among friends, to sit among roses and lilies, not with the bad people but the devout people. O you blasphemers and betrayers of Christ! If Christ had done what you are doing who would ever have been spared.
Martin Luther
Expect great things from God; attempt great things for God.
William Carey
Give me one hundred preachers who fear nothing but sin and desire nothing but God, and I care not whether they be clergymen or laymen, they alone will shake the gates of Hell and set up the kingdom of Heaven upon Earth.
John Wesley
If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.
C.S. Lewis
There is a war going on. All talk of a Christian's right to live luxuriously "as a child of the King" in this atmosphere sounds hollow -- especially since the King himself is stripped for battle.
John Piper
“Thy kingdom come.”
ReplyDeleteAnd this again is the language of a right-minded child, not to be riveted to things that are seen, neither to account things present some great matter; but to hasten unto our Father, and to long for the things to come.
And this springs out of a good conscience, and a soul set free from things that are on earth.
This, for instance, Paul himself was longing after every day: wherefore he also said, that “even we ourselves, who have the first-fruits of the Spirit, groan, waiting for an adoption, the redemption of our body” (Rom. 8:23).
For he who hath this fondness can neither be puffed up by the good things of this life, nor abashed by its sorrows; but as though dwelling in the very heavens, is freed from each sort of irregularity.
If, accordingly we would be ruled over by God, by no means let sin rule in our mortal body nor let us obey its commands when it calls our soul forth to the works of the flesh that are alien to God, but let us mortify our members that are on earth and bear the fruits of the Spirit that the Lord may walk in us as in a spiritual garden, ruling alone over us with His Christ seated within us on the right of the Spiritual power that we pray to receive, sitting until all His enemies within us become a footstool for His feet and every rule and authority and power be undone from us.
ReplyDeleteThese things may come to pass in the case of each of us, and death the last energy be undone, so that Christ may say within us also O death, where is your sting? O grave! Where is your victory? Even now, therefore, let our corruptible put on the holiness and incorruptibleness that consists in chastity and purity, and our mortal, death undone, wrap itself in the paternal immortality, so that, being ruled over by God, we may even now live amid the blessings of regeneration and resurrection.
'Let Thy will be done on earth.'
ReplyDeleteI'm sure Jesus prayed in a similar way to his Father himself and therefore wanted his followers to pray in the same way. Of course he would not have needed to pray for forgiveness!
Christ throughout his life sought to do his Father's will, not only when he was hard pressed to do his own will such as in the garden of Gethsemane. For instance I'm sure Satan would have tempted him to start his ministry early, but no, his prayer to his Father would have been 'not my will but your will be done. Likewise at times he may have been tempted not to start his ministry at all because he knew what would ultimately happen on the cross. Again he would have submitted to his Father's will.
Through this we can take so much encouragement-A Man was able to resist Satan, albeit it was a God-Man, but nevertheless he was in a man's body. In Christ we too can resist the strongest enemy as John states 'For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith.' ( 1 John 5.4)
'Jesus personified the Man who had fully the reign and will of God in his life and so desires that we as children of God should have the same.'
ReplyDeleteI like this as it means there is hope for us all in God.
There are two verses missing from this song
ReplyDeleteWhich two verses?
ReplyDelete