This, then, is how you should pray: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. (Matt. 6:9-10)
Most of us Christians know the Lord’s Prayer. We have it since we were small children. It has been taught to us by our parents, it has been taught to us in schools and even today it is taught in the church. A lot of preachings and writings we have heard and read about this but i want us to focus on this somewhat missed out or less regarded part of the prayer.
Christians have formulated an acronym for this prayer which we call ACTS. Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, and Supplication. But we missed out the most important as being the primary or the first thing that should be on the list of the prayer. It is the one right after the Adoration. Because of this, we seldom if not have forgotten of this in our prayers because we’ve been conditioned that prayers should just have the adoration and then follows the rest in the acronyms. We have framed ourselves into something and yet missed the most important part of this prayer which i think should be the most important of them all.
How much of our prayers really contain this longing of the Lord that His kingdom come and His will be done on earth as it is in heaven. I can say i myself have missed this out for most of my prayers until I came to know what this really means.
The Lord is longing for this very thing. This seems to be the heart of God. If anything that needs to be ask of Him, it is this one and should not be missed out while the rest comes secondary or of less importance. This request is for God. God needs this and He had been longing for this to happen in His creation. But what does this prayer really tells us?
To have God’s kingdom to come upon us is just like saying to have the King to be here with us, and to rule in us and to live with us. There can be no kingdom without a king otherwise it is not a kingdom at all. A kingdom has its power and influence among its constituents a sovereignty over all its jurisdictions.
The Lord Jesus Himself has testified to be the King of this kingdom when He was sent to Pilate to be sentenced to death by the Israelites.(Luke 18:36-37) And we His people(believers in Jesus) are to receive a great welcome into His kingdom(2Pe.1:11) The Lord in His prayer is teaching us to ask the Father to let His rule over the earth to come. His influence over all the earth to be made to effect and on all who are His.
The next words in the verses also tells of the Lord’s desire to have for Himself. It talks of the Father’s will both for heaven and earth. Knowing this, will make us wonder why the Lord told us to pray for this. We know that God reigns from heaven but there are also passages in the Old Testament saying God’s future reign as king.
“Behold, the days are coming,” declares the LORD, “When I will raise up for David a righteous Branch ; And He will reign as king and act wisely And do justice and righteousness in the land.(Jer. 23:5)
Paul in his letter to the Ephesians disclosed the will of God which he said to have been hidden since in the beginning.
He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His kind intention which He purposed in Him with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of the times, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth. In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will, to the end that we who were the first to hope in Christ would be to the praise of His glory. (Eph. 1:9-12)
Also in his letter to the Colossians Paul talks again of this mystery of God’s will who is Christ in us the hope of glory.
To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.(Col.1:27)
This small part of the Lord’s prayer reveals of God’s heart’s desire. That His desire is to have His Son whom He has given everything and desires to have His Son to take His place in everything even in those people whom He has chosen even before time.
How can we miss such a great longing of the Lord in our prayers?. Most of the time prayer has become a selfish practice for the people of God because of missing this very important longing of God for Himself. And mostly just focusing much to our personal needs and the needs of others.
May this awaken us of this truth in this fragment of the Lord’s prayer that God desired for us also to ask and aspire to have its realization that may His kingdom come and His will be done here on earth as it is in heaven. God bless us all.
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