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Friday 10 December 2010

Matthew 6:10-15 - Your kingdom come

"Your kingdom come ..." We are to pray for God's kingdom to come on earth. This means that we are to pray for God's will to be done on earth as it is in heaven. God involves us intimately in the furtherance of His plans. In fact if you look throughout the Bible when God wants to get something done He usually finds a man or woman who will trust Him and works through them. He continued this when He came to earth in person. He did not come as an angel or some kind of super being, but He came as a man. We are all involved in God's plans, and before we pray for our own needs and wants we should pray for His purposes to be fulfilled.
Next we pray for our daily bread. All we need to have is food for today. This does not mean that it is wrong to save, the Bible talks elsewhere of storing things up, but our security needs to be in God's provision.
This pattern of praying for God's will first, then our needs, is reflected later in Jesus' words on "seek first the kingdom ...".
As well as material provision, we also need forgiveness. The kingdom operates on forgiveness. This means we need to forgive others, and we need to receive forgiveness. Both need to happen. If we refuse to forgive, then we will very quickly find ourselves out of kilter with the operation of God's kingdom. If we ever become deluded into thinking that we no longer need forgiveness then we will very quickly be pulled up short.
In fact if you are in a situation where there seems no way forward, maybe it is worth asking two questions: (i) do I need to forgive someone; (ii) do I need God's forgiveness in some area of my life. Forgiveness opens up the floodgates of God's blessing.
Deliver us from the evil one. This can be either "the evil one" or "evil". Both are true. There is evil in the world, and there is an enemy who will from time to time attack us. We need God's protection.

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