YOUR KINGDOM COME – MAKE “UP THERE” COME “DOWN HERE”

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

Somehow in the process of trying to understand Jesus and what He came to do, this part of His prayer has either been neglected or twisted so that we think it is only about the life to come. This prayer is not a vague hope for the future as much as it is a desire to be part of the future. In the unseen realm of the spirit, God governs perfectly. His will, which is the expression of who He is, is perfectly done, which means that there is nothing broken, or imperfect where He rules. Only here on earth, where sin has disrupted the perfection of God’s rule, is there need for restoration and renewal.

It is God’s design for us who are representatives of His kingdom on earth, to put His rule in place wherever we are as a foretaste of how His kingdom will ultimately replace all the corrupted kingdoms of this world.

God appointed Jesus to rule as king – Psalm 2:6 – “I have set my king on Zion, my holy hill...” but He rules through us by His Spirit who lives in us.      

In Matthew 5, Jesus has already explained how His kingdom works in the ungodly world system. As kingdom people, we are not to conduct our lives the way the people in the world do. We are to live generously towards other people, treating them with love and mercy, not reacting but responding as our heavenly Father would respond. To be able to do this, we need God’s grace which He freely gives us as we choose to obey Him.

This request is another piece in the puzzle about prayer. Prayer is not about us as much as it is about our part in the bigger picture of God’s kingdom – Matthew 6:33 – “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness…” As we put the pieces together, we are beginning to see that prayer is about God’s re-establishing His rule on earth through His people. He does not act independently of us, His vice-regents, but we, in turn, must not rule independently of Him.

As we spend time in God’s presence, gazing at Him and listening to Him, we become aware of His love, mercy, and grace that touched and changed our lives and of His passion to touch others through us. Instead of acting and reacting out of selfishness and greed like the world does, He wants us to imitate the way Jesus responded to people in need, with mercy, compassion, and generosity so that we can make their lives better and to show them what God is really like.

God doesn’t need us to tell Him what to do. He needs us to listen to Him so that we can do things His way to show the world who He is. He wants us to make “up there” come “down here”!