In this prayer that Jesus used as a model to teach His followers how to pray effectively, Jesus said we should pray that God's Kingdom will come. I think that we often relegate this idea of His Kingdom coming to sometime in the future -when Jesus comes again -perhaps the millennial reign of Jesus.
But Jesus actually talked about the Kingdom of God more than any other topic. While modern evangelical Christians talk a lot about being born again, Jesus only used that term one time. Of course, people do, indeed, need to be born again, but being born again clearly wasn't the heartbeat of Jesus' message. We also talk about church and the importance of attending. Jesus only used the word church (ecclesia) three times. Of course, gathering together with other Believers is important, but it wasn't the heartbeat of Jesus' message. We talk about the importance of missions -going into all the world and preaching the Gospel. Jesus specifically mandated Believers to go just before He ascended into heaven, and He sent the disciples out evangelizing a couple of times, and He did say once, "As the Father has sent me, now I'm sending you." Of course, missions is important, and we do, indeed, have a mandate to go forth and make disciples, but missions was not what Jesus talked about the most.
What Jesus talked about the most was the Kingdom of God. He taught about this well over 100 times as recorded in Scripture. Even after the resurrection during that short time before He ascended to heaven, Acts chapter one tells us that He was teaching them about the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom is the heartbeat of what Jesus taught. And only a handful of times was Jesus referring to end times events. The Kingdom is not primarily about His second coming. Jesus said the Kingdom is already among you. He said the Kingdom is in you. The Kingdom is wherever the King is. The Kingdom is wherever God is working.
When Jesus is teaching us to pray that God's Kingdom will come, He is not saying that we should pray that the end times will come quickly. God has a plan and a time scheduled for Jesus' second coming. It will happen when Father decides the time is right. That is not what we are praying for. What we are praying for is that God's Kingdom will be fully established in us, so that God can work through us. What we are praying for is that our hearts and minds will be fully aligned with God's desires and agenda so that we will be Kingdom people. In a sense, praying "Your Kingdom come," is an act of surrender. We are surrendering ourselves to God's Kingdom, God's will, and God's purposes.
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