Kingdom Come?

 "Your Kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." Matthew 6:10

The Lord's prayer. In the church, we learn it as children in Sunday School. It's prayed by so many in both our large and small group gatherings. Most of us in the church have memorized it. We could pray it in our sleep. Maybe that's the problem. We've been asleep as we pray.

When we ask for His Kingdom to come, in what time frame do we mean that? I think for the most part, we mean it for a future realization. We know one day, with His return, He will usher in the fullness of His Kingdom. That's true, but does this mean that He doesn't also intend that we realize His Kingdom life right now? Right here?

Chris Tiegreen writes that, "Jesus' desire is for the earth to look like heaven." He asks what would be the result if we believed that literally, right now, and not just "put it off into some future time?" I think we in the church are guilty of doing just that. We know that the fullness of His Kingdom is coming, but we lose sight that it has also already come. It is here. Jesus said that the "Kingdom of God is among you." For those who have believed upon Him, it is within them, and Jesus means for it to spread and grow. The Kingdom of God can be realized in part, a real and great part, right here and right now. Even in the midst of a fallen world.

We need to get swept up in that reality. Our prayers, and particularly this prayer, need to be infused with His Holy Spirit and a holy expectation. We need to pray this with fervor and expect to see it being fulfilled in this present time. No, we are not going to see sin, evil, corruption, and all the fruits of darkness disappear from this world, but we can see them blunted and pushed back. This will be the result of His Kingdom expanding, one soul and life at a time. Kingdom light shines ever brighter with each life that is brought to the saving grace of Christ. The darkness shrinks at the same time. All the above fruits of darkness may remain, but their power is diminished as His power and presence grows through His church and people.

It has been seen in the world and in this nation before. It needs to be seen and experienced anew through Holy Spirit revival. In the great Welsh revivals of the 19th century, God so moved upon hardened, blasphemous miners and their families that the very donkeys that were used in the mines had to be re-trained because the only commands they'd ever heard had been foul cursing's and blows. Drunkenness and all manner of vile behavior in the streets of London was horribly rampant but the city and all of England was impacted deeply by the Wesleyan revival of the 19th century. These outbreaks spread to America and have continued. The last being the so-called Jesus Revolution of the 60's and 70's that laid hold of a lost generation, of which I was a part. The Kingdom that had already come, came in reality for a generation. It must be so again.

May it be that we, the people of God, would in heartfelt fervor and desire, cry out once more for His Kingdom to come upon this nation and this world, and, upon us. The evidence for that need is everywhere. May His Kingdom come and invade every aspect of our culture, including His church.  The church first, but also the government, the legal system, the economy, our schools and universities. Let us pray big prayers and expect great answers. His Kingdom has come. May we behold to come anew....right now and right here. In us, and through us.

Blessings,
Pastor O