Kingdom
Prayers
“Your
kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” Matthew 6:10
“He
who testifies to these things say, “Yes, I am coming quickly.” Amen. Come, Lord
Jesus.” Revelation 22:20
“Pray
for the peace of Jerusalem…” Psalm 122:6
We
are looking at the example of prayer the Lord Jesus gave us as He taught us to
pray. The next part is to pray for the
Kingdom to come. This phrase I think is
skipped by many, I would guess, because we don’t fully understand what Jesus is
teaching us here. When we come to
something we don’t understand we should dig in and find out what it means,
because it could be important, and we might miss something that could change
our lives. “Your Kingdom come” is one of
those things that is important, and we need to examine what Jesus means by
this.
Jesus’
message was, “the kingdom of God is at hand.” (Mat. 3:2; 4:7) Jesus is the
rightful king of the nation of Israel!
He is the only one to sit on the throne of David. Anytime Christ is walking on the earth, then
the Kingdom of God is at hand. With that
knowledge, when Jesus is teaching the apostles and those around Him to pray, it
would make sense that He would say pray that the Kingdom would come! We celebrated Palm Sunday or the “Triumphal
Entry”, that is when Jesus entered Jerusalem as the King (Mat. 21:1-11). We do know though, He was rejected by the
people as the king.
Even
though Jesus was rejected by the people and crucified, we know that He rose
again, and so the King lives (Mat. 28:1-7; John 20:11-18). Although Jesus went to be with the father and
to prepare a place for us, He will be back for us (John 14:2-3). Jesus will someday not just come back for us,
but will also rule over His kingdom here on earth (Rev. 20:4-6). This will be exciting times for all the earth
and is yet to come.
This
as we know is not our home and is full of pain, suffering and evil. As a believer we know that Jesus is coming
back, so we can pray that He would come back and come back soon. There are more than 63 scriptures about the
kingdom of God coming, and so it is an important part of our prayer life. It should affect even how we pray for others
as well. We don’t want our friends to
miss the kingdom, so we need to pray that they come to know Jesus. For those suffering we need to pray for them
in light of the kingdom to come as well.
The
last scripture I have listed above says to pray for Jerusalem. Israel will be the center and place of Christ
earthly kingdom (Rev. 20). Even though
we know that the Jewish people are back in their land we know that peace has
not yet happened there. Where the great
temple of the LORD was in the city, there is a Muslim mosque. The only part left of the great temple is a
wall called the Wailing Wall. The Jewish
people want their temple back and they will in the end, when Christ comes back
to rule. For this to take place there
will need to be peace in that city. When
praying for the kingdom to come, we need to pray for peace in the city of God.
This
is only skimming the surface of this subject on the Kingdom of God, but I hope
it causes you to dig deeper into this subject.
Adrian Rodgers gives us a few things to think about on this subject of
praying thy kingdom come. He says we are to learn of His coming, long for that
day to come, pray that it would come, and pray that there would be peace in
Jerusalem that there might be peace on earth. (Rodgers) Do you look forward to that day? I hope so.
Come, Lord Jesus!
References
Rodgers, Adrian. https://www.oneplace.com/ministries/love-worth-finding/read/articles/can-we-hasten-the-second-coming-of-christ-15204.html.
2018. 10 April 2018.
All Scripture from The New American Standard Bible, copyright 1995 by The Lockman Foundation, La Habra, CA
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