"Thy Kingdom Come; Thy Will Be Done..."

Jesus coming to earth was the reconciliation of heaven and earth; a correction to the separation that resulted from our sin in the Garden of Eden. When he prayed “Your kingdom come” He was expressing God’s kingdom is established here on earth with His arrival; that His will be done on this side of the kingdom as it’s done in heaven. It’s a prayer that calls us to be brought into a lifestyle that mirrors what humanity was like before sin. Heaven isn’t just about a future time and place. It’s ever present. It’s now. Accepting God’s gift of salvation through Christ is an acceptance of this reality. 

The heaven/kingdom mindset is trusting God for His daily provision and abundance (“daily bread”). It’s extending grace to others and releasing them of the wrongs they did to us (or we perceive they did or are doing to us), letting them go, the same way God releases us of our wrongs (“forgive us our debts”). It’s being firm in not giving in to the deceit of doing wrong (in thought, word, or deed) that threatens to separate us from God (“lead us not into temptation”). It’s relying only on God for our salvation, no one else, including ourselves (“deliver us from evil”). And we would live this way because this kingdom is His…always. 

It is not easy living this mindset when we are limited by our temporal existence. But Jesus, through His resurrection, defeated the myth that all there is is this life. Through His death and resurrection He blurred the lines between heaven and earth, and therefore we are called to live in a way that reflects that. Our bodies will die, but our spirits will not know the difference in time or space. So, we ought to carry with us the eternity of heaven all the time, sharing it with others (“go into the world and preach the gospel…”) in order to spread heaven here on earth - God’s kingdom - until His final return. 

May our prayer and thought always be “Does the way I think about this, or react in this moment, or express myself in response reflect and advance God’s kingdom here on earth?”