Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. (Matthew 6:10, ESV)
Jesus tells us to ask for the kingdom to come in the Lord’s Prayer. He instructs that we ask this ahead of almost everything else. The only other petition that comes before is that God’s name would be hallowed.
The kingdom is key to providing daily bread. It is the key to forgiveness. It is key to delivering us from evil. There is a reason Jesus instructs us to ask for the kingdom at the beginning of this prayer. With the kingdom is provision, peace, and protection.
When Martin Luther wrote the explanation of this petition in his Small Catechism, he said:
What does this mean? The kingdom of God certainly comes by itself without our prayer, but we pray in this petition that it may come to us also.
Indeed God’s kingdom does come even whether we ask or not. The kingdom is already on the move. God is on the move. Remember Jesus said the kingdom is at hand.
So why do we pray this petition? Our prayer is that we would recognize the kingdom and that we would see the kingdom. We pray that we would have the opportunity to take part in that movement.
God does not need us to bring the kingdom, but he gives us a role in making it happen. Our prayer is for our participation in the kingdom. It is that we would grasp the kingdom. It is that it would be more than an academic exercise, but something that we experience physically, emotionally, and spiritually. We pray that it would be something we know and that we sense.
Our prayer is that the Kingdom would be evident in our daily interactions. We ask that it would be evident in the words we speak and the things we do. And maybe the most important part we pray is that others would experience the kingdom through us.
Reflection
- How do you pray for the kingdom to come?
- How do you help to bring the kingdom to reality.
Prayer
Lord, your kingdom come! Amen.
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