“Your kingdom come. Your will be done, On earth as it is in heaven.”
Matthew 6:10
The “Our Father” has been a favorite of mine to reflect upon and to use as a model of “how to pray” for some time. This particular verse, Matthew 6:10, has also been powerfully encouraging and captivating of my boldness to intercede.
Let’s do a simple reflection of each of these three phrases:
1) “Your kingdom come.”
Are you excited when you think of this phrase? Do you realize what a wondrous promise and “kingdom reality” in which Jesus says we have the privilege to participate?
Our prayers make a miraculous difference, here on earth. When we pray this, we are asking God to touch our reality with His. The word “come” can also translate as “appear, make an appearance, show up”.
Did you hear what the Father’s Heart is toward us? God, the Father, through Jesus, the Son, wants to let the reality of our world be “touched” by the manifestation of His Kingdom breaking into our world.
When we pray this prayer, “Heaven and earth will touch through us …”.
2) “Your will be done…”
I think the words “be done” are “under-done”. The root word in the Greek is the same word that is used for “be born” (ginomai). Do you hear the wonders of what the Father is privileging us to pray? “Birth”… “new birth” is being offered. That which is “heavenly” and here-to-fore “not in existence”, God is offering to “birth” through you and me.
What is this birth? It is all the things that God “will to be birthed” into our world. Those things that God “desires, wishes, has designed and purposes” to be brought upon our world that have been planned before the very foundations of the world, God, the Father, through Jesus, the Son, is now offering to “birth” in the power of the Spirit. As we seek and pray forth the Heart of God, the Spirit of God, who is “hovering over the void” that is waiting to be filled with the Creative Word and Will of God, goes forth just like at creation to fill that void with the miraculous (cf. Genesis 1:1-3) … with “new birth”. “That which is born of the flesh is flesh; but that which is born of the Spirit is spirit” (John 3:6).
When we pray this prayer, “Heaven and earth will touch through us …”
3) “… On earth as it is in heaven.”
The phrase in the Greek completes the previous thought: “Your will be birthed/done, as in heaven, and [also] upon the earth.”
When we pray this part of the prayer it is as if we are saying, “Me, too, LORD! … US, too! LORD, we do not want to miss out on any of the wondrous peace and power exhibited by You and Your glory in the heavens. As Your will is desired and manifested there, so also let it be here, with us!”
When we pray this part of the prayer we are asking God, the Father, through Jesus, Our Redeemer, to let the Garden of Eden be redeemed, and grow throughout all of His creation until …
“The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ,
and He will reign for ever and ever.”
(Revelation 11:15)
When we pray this prayer, “Heaven and earth will touch through us …”
I have been learning that, when I pray this prayer, not as a formula, process, or as a part of my “devotional routine”, but as a part of my love for God and His Kingdom, then when I pray this prayer it becomes a part of my intimacy with God.
When our prayers become “intimacy with God” and not a “process”, then…
“Heaven and earth will touch through us …”