Your Kingdom Come

Good Shepherd Community Church

Jesus taught his disciples to pray, Our Father, your kingdom come.Two words are key to understand this petition. Kingdom. What is this kingdom of God? In what way is it to come?Jesus who teaches his disciples this prayer is the king of God's kingdom. Where the King is there is his kingdom. The prayer is not focused on geography but on relationship with God in the person of Jesus. So we are asking God to bring in a greater realization of the kingdom in and through our lives culminating in the personal arrival of the king in power and glory at the end of the age. We want God to actively bring in his reign in the midst of the rival kingdom of Satan ultimately totally destroying that kingdom and filling the earth with the eternal kingdom. The kingdom of God has a present and a not yet aspect.The present reality of the kingdom and its future aspect are present in this petition as demonstrated in the gospel narratives and Acts and Paul's descriptions of the kingdom in his letters. Revelation shows its ultimate fulfillment at the return of Jesus to this earth in power and glory.