Come, Kingdom of God

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedThy Kingdom Come

Last week I shared the spiritual principle that the Father
has direct personal power in heaven,
but that on the earth that power has been given to human beings.
We have been given dominion over the earth
and our job is to be good stewards over this earth
so that everything would multiply and be fruitful.

The purpose of this
is so that God could have a relationship of love
with men and women
that is to some degree equal.
As my friend Steve Seamands has remarked,
removing relationship from the Kingdom
is going against the grain of the Holy Trinity.

God wants you to choose him as your friend and lover.
This is a risky proposition,
because people choose wisely and poorly.
People choose God differently,
Some choose fully and completely,
and other choose half heartedly,
and some think they can choose God
and have a few other relationships on the side.
Along with this, we have a bunch of spiritual forces deeply committed
to deceiving humanity and destroying the earth.
These forces do everything to keep you out of relationship with God.
But ultimately
the kingdom can only come through humanity in relationship with God
agreeing with it,
and calling it in.

And so,
Jesus gives us a prayer
that is incredibly focused,
and supports this principle.
In order for His Kingdom to be established on the earth
he needs human beings to pray it in.
As I mentioned,
this prayer
Given to us by Jesus
is very different from standard Jewish prayers from his time
and throughout time.
It is also very different than all the forms of prayer in the pagan world,
which are accompanied by a lot of frenetic activity
and repetition.

One of the tests of New Covenant prayer is this:
does this prayer model,
or prayer movement,
demand you do something in order to make God do something?