The Lord’s Prayer: Matthew 6:10
Yesterday we started studying the Lord’s Prayer. While instructing us how to pray, Jesus teaches that we need to be in awe of our Holy God the Father. This is important when we go into an extended period of prayer, but the key to living the Kingdom life is that we live out life in this way. Jesus instructs us to live like little children (Matt. 11:25-26). By constantly being in wonder of who He is, we become open to knowing Him more deeply and seeing how He is moving in certain situations. If we want to truly enter the Kingdom life that Jesus calls us to, this is the key. Only after this is established does the rest of what Jesus is teaching matter.
“Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven“
Jesus is teaching us to pray for our Father’s heavenly Kingdom reality, which is perfect, to come in and take over the earthly situation that we find ourselves in. That His perfect will be done in our present situation in this lost world as it would be done in Heaven above.
God assigns us as His sons and ambassadors in our circumstances to represent His Kingdom and then to usher in His Kingdom reality into that situation. We are living in a world broken since the time of Adam. God has not given up on His plan for man to rule the earth in perfect harmony with Him (this will be discussed in separate posts about the Kingdom of God); therefore, we are to pray to God that His Kingdom reality take over the situation that we are in.
This refers to both the bigger areas of calling in our life and to the little situations that we find ourselves in from day to day.
So Jesus started “the Lord’s Prayer” by saying we should be in worship of God. He then instructs us that our prayers should be focused on representing and introducing His Kingdom onto this earth. These are the first and second most important things that He teaches. After these two things, the other desires that we have in life come easily as we’ll see tomorrow.