CHAIRMAN'S CORNER

PASTOR DEE JAY SHOULDERS "THY KINGDOME COME"

Our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount is not a “three points and a poem ” sermon In fact, in the course of this single sermon, Jesus touches on more than twenty topics. All of these topics are worthy of our attention, but here my concern is with only one of these topics, namely the Lord’s instructions regarding prayer.

To be more precise, my concern here is with one petition found within the Lord’s Prayer When our Lord taught us the way in which we should address our heavenly Father, he taught us to pray: “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” Many of us have prayed these words for years, but how many of us know what Jesus meant by these words? Jesus’ message from the very beginning was that of the Kingdom of God (Mark 1:14–15) Luke tells us of an occasion when, after preaching and healing on the Sabbath day and healing many more that evening, He rose the next day to depart to a quieter place and then to move on However, the crowds found Him and begged Him to stay. “But He said to them, ‘I must preach the kingdom of God to the other cities also because for this purpose I have been sent'"

The Kingdom of God sometimes called the “Kingdom of Heaven” was the primary message Jesus proclaimed throughout His earthly ministry, and a careful reading of the four gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) demonstrates this

God’s rule on earth is what every true believer ought to strive for, as Jesus instructed: “But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you ” (Matthew 6:33).

And everyone who puts that goal first in his mind and heart will pray every day in whatever words he is moved to use for the very same thing Jesus said we should pray for:

“Thy kingdom come ’’ We must also understand, however, that when we pray for God’s kingdom to come and for his will to be done on earth as it is in heaven, this begins with each one of us We must ask ourselves if we are hallowing God’s name. We must ask ourselves if we are doing God’s will As Christians, we are those who claim to have already submitted to the Lordship of Christ. We are already citizens of His kingdom, and He is already our King But are we faithful subjects? Or are we rebellious? If we are to pray in the way our Lord instructed, we must be those who live in the way our Lord instructed Also when we say thy will be done it should mean…..Let our intelligence, then, be moved to seek God, let our desire be roused in longing for Him, and let our intensive power struggle to keep guard over our devotion to Him." Let our body which was taken from the earth likewise serve the Creator and not war against the spirit I have said before, that it’s hard to pray ’Thy kingdom come ’ until our little kingdom goes In praying “ your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as in heaven,” we ask God to save us from any unwillingness to learn God's will and embrace God's kingdom; to save us from choosing our own plans and desires; and to save us from trying to limit the scope of God's purposes. My prayer is that we all pray this prayer and to seek first the Kingdom of God