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Thy Kingdome Come

Publisher:

Henrik Wienen

This reading plan consists of:

11 messages

Description

Your Kingdom Come is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year. For ten years, we have been praying: “Your Kingdom come.” Each year, we have specifically prayed for five people we know who do not yet know Jesus. This year, as we continue this pilgrimage of prayer, we are focusing on the prayer Jesus taught us. The Lord’s Prayer teaches us how to pray and how to live, and it expresses that deep longing: “Your Kingdom come!”

IMPORTANT: Make sure the first message of this reading plan appears on Ascension Day – May 29, 2025.

What is the purpose of prayer?

When you listen to the prayers spoken in church, you might think the goal is to change God’s mind. Or maybe to inform Him of what’s going on down here. But surely, that’s not the point?

Just before Jesus teaches His disciples the prayer we now know as the Lord’s Prayer, He says, “Your Father knows what you need before you ask Him” (Matthew 6:8).

If that’s true, then why do we pray? What is the purpose of prayer? Perhaps one of the purposes is to change our thoughts.

The Lord’s Prayer is a lesson in longing. God knows what we need, even when we don’t. This prayer teaches us what we may desire and how we can live, as well as what we should pray for.

During a recent gathering of bishops in the Church of England, a young climate activist from Uganda spoke to us via Zoom. Uganda is one of the places in the world where the devastating effects of the climate crisis are most acutely felt. When asked where she found her vision and determination, she spoke about her Christian faith: a faith that offers a hopeful story of transformation, and a life of prayer. “In prayer,” she said, “we see a world that we cannot see with our eyes.”

Prayer is, of course, first and foremost directed toward God. As God's children, we bring Him our praise and worship. We acknowledge His sovereignty, seek His path, discover His will, and pray that others may come to know Him as well.

IMPORTANT: Make sure the first message of this reading plan appears on Ascension Day – May 29, 2025.

Published at:

5/28/2025

Category:

Devotionals, Bible studies

Preview

11 messages

Thy Kingdome Come

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Day 1: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name…

Matthew 6:9

God is intimate and holy

Jesus teaches us to call God ‘Father’.

Even though we know that God is neither male nor female, and even if some of us have had difficult relationships with our parents or challenging relationships with our father, what Jesus is showing us is that, though human relationships may let us down, God won’t. Our relationship with God is the beautiful, intimate relationship that is best understood as like the relationship between a loving parent and a dearly-loved and cherished child.

It is all there in the opening word of the Lord’s Prayer: Father! Which, by the way, in the Aramaic Jesus spoke and the Greek in which it is written down for us in the New Testament, is the first word. Our English translation is ‘Our Father’. But a literal translation of the Greek would be ‘Father of ours.’

The order of the words don’t really matter, of course. But the ordering of relationships does. As we say the Lord’s Prayer, so we place ourselves in the good ordering of this loving and intimate relationship with God.

And because we’ve said it so often, and as with so much else in the prayer, there is a danger we take the words for granted and overlook the radical content of what we are saying.

Yes, God is the all-powerful and all-creative Creator of everything.

Yes, God is the just Judge who will bring all things to completion and perfection at the end of time.

Yes, God is awesome and beyond us, the source of everything, all-knowing and almighty.

Yet we call God, Father. Or even Dad.

For one of the words that Jesus uses in the gospels when He prays to the Father is the Aramaic word, Abba (see Mark 14:36), the tender affectionate term of endearment that a child uses. For now we know that we are children of God; that God’s power is the power of love.

As well as Father, the Lord’s prayer also says that God’s name is hallowed. The God who is revealed to us in Jesus is both the most intimate and the most holy. We need to understand both: the closeness of God and the awesome majesty of God.

🙏 As we pray for the five people we know whom we long to know Jesus, let us pray that they may know God as intimately and confidently as a child knows the parent who loves them and as the one who is the source and end of everything.