Your Kingdom Come
The so-called “Lord’s Prayer” says, “Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven”.
I used to really struggle with all the “Kingdom” talk, prayers, quotes. I wanted to understand what the “Kingdom” was all about. I was a Christian, a committed one. I loved God and really knew a lot of the Bible. But the concept of the “Kingdom” just seemed that bit elusive to me. God’s kingdom is not of this world. It is just that little bit too intangible to successfully put your finger on it, if you are trying to define it. Jesus’ own explanations didn’t really help: the kingdom is “like” this or “like” that … and they would be parables or analogies.
Paul wrote to the church in Rome, “The kingdom of God is not about material needs (food and drink issues) but about righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.”
Righteousness is about our relationship with God, not just about being “good”. It is the position God gives us when we come to Him for salvation. He forgives us and declares us to be “right”, or pardoned and no longer guilty. That releases us into a relationship with Him, and really righteousness is the result of that: we are in RIGHT RELATIONSHIP with God. That then puts the onus onto us to LIVE in the reality of that relationship, staying clean, staying right. But we do that BECAUSE He has made us right.
Peace comes as the result of living in right relationship with God. The angels proclaimed to shepherds after Jesus’ birth, “Peace on earth, goodwill to men.” The word “peace” is the Greek word eirenos, which was used by Hebrew scholars 2000 years ago to translate the Hebrew shalom. Shalom was a common greeting, often interpreted as “Peace be with you”, but its real meaning is one of completeness: ie, “May it be well with you – your life, health, family, relationships, prosperity.” Shalom radiates the awareness of a loving, healing, generous, protective God overshadowing us. Paul wrote that God’s peace will actively guard our hearts. Eirenos, or shalom, is restoring and healing and reconciling us, healing what was broken and bringing us back to wholeness, internally and in our relationships.
Joy is not simply a state of subjective elation. Rather, it is the quietly strong positive outlook that will sustain us through the darkest valleys and lift us to the heights of praise on the mountain top. It does not depend on good times and positive stimuli, but is a quality from the heart of God which connects with our faith and becomes the stimulus within that will help restore us to the positive.
So when we pray, “Your kingdom come … “ it is not a hazy appeal to some other place that somehow can never quite be touched, like the proverbial carrot on a stick hanging from a donkey’s harness. It is the reality of a cleansing relationship with our loving Creator, the completeness of his peace restoring us, and the igniting of an internal joy that will help us go beyond the pain, the frustration, the torment of our memories and of our present, and find a new way to live, a new way to talk, a new way to look at the life we have, a new way to face each day.
