The Invasion

 Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your Kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth, as it is in heaven." Luke 11:2

How many of us have prayed the above prayer, perhaps times beyond number? Here's a question; is that prayer being answered in your life, in mine?

There are countless reasons why it may not be; disobedience and rebellion, unbelief, or just plain spiritual laziness. It could also be that we feel unsure as to just how it might be. We do tend to make things far more complicated than Jesus ever intended them to be, and it was Jesus who gave His disciples this prayer when they asked HIm for one. He wouldn't have done so if He didn't know that it's reality can be realized in our lives, needs to be realized in our lives.

Many years ago I was led to write down this prayer in my journal as a means of seeing the prayer from Luke 12 come to fruition in my life. I pray for three things to that end, and then ask myself, by His Spirit's leading, to what degree have the first three come to be my life experience?

The first step in the prayer is that His heaven, His Kingdom, would invade this earth. Every aspect of this earth and its culture. That no part of our society would be left untouched by the effects of His Kingdom upon it. His Kingdom can be rejected, but even in the lives of those who reject it, His Kingdom exercises strong influence on the ways and behavior of even those who ultimately reject it's King, Jesus Christ.

Secondly, I pray that His Kingdom Light will invade the darkness of this world. The expansion of spiritual darkness in our world can not be denied. We really have entered into days where good is called evil, and evil is called good. Yet that darkness at its greatest, cannot stand against the Light that is Jesus Christ, who is the Light of the World. I pray that there is no corner of darkness that has not been confronted with His Light.

Thirdly I pray that His Life will invade the spiritual death of this world wherever it may be found, and my friends, we are seeing it and its effects everywhere. Jesus Christ is the resurrection and the life. It has been said that Jesus during his earthly ministry, never attended a funeral where the lost one remained dead. The enemy of our souls has been holding a funeral for this world from the beginning. His horizon for us is death, but Christ's is Life. Abundant, full, free, Life. The curse upon the human race is death, but as the old hymn says, His Life extends "far as the curse is found." May His Life invade every degree of death in every place.

Lastly, I then ask myself just how deeply has His Kingdom invaded my life on this earth, His Light into any darkness in my heart, and His Life into any place where death may be reigning in my mind, heart, and spirit? I think until we can come to such a place in our prayers, prayers for the coming of His Kingdom are mostly empty ones. The fullness of His Kingdom comes through individual lives within the Body of Christ. One by one until they comprise the whole, and then that Body is the very presence of the fullness of His Kingdom here on earth.

I hope this makes the prayers for His Kingdom to come a little more clear for you. I know this, I need to pray it even more now than ever before. His Kingdom has come, and is coming. May we, you and me, enter into all its fullness. May we welcome the invasion of His Kingdom into all the kingdoms of this world.....most especially ours.

Blessings,

Pastor O