Serving Rascals, Clumsy Disciples, and Physically and Mentally Ill Believers with the Unconditional Love of Jesus Christ
Very funny, but when I first saw it, I felt convicted. I remembered the many times that I was a jerk about my faith, and very annoying to many. I don’t want to get self-critical (that is spiritual quicksand) but I’m blessed to know all my sins have been forgiven, and my “good works” are not held against me.
“Surely you have granted him eternal blessings
and made him glad with the joy of your presence.”
Ps. 21:6
The Lord’s Prayer is like a skyscraper that has an inner skeleton of steel, very solid and very strong. Jesus wants to teach His disciples to pray–to pray intelligently. He is eager for them to learn what He knows. This prayer cuts through the grime of religious gobble-de-gook, and is intended to make disciples out of believers with its assertions of what is real.
There is a need for people to pray–really pray. Jesus shares what is of ultimate importance; the need of people to bring down heaven to earth. Heaven on earth! Think of it. The spiritual climate of heaven, brought to earth for men to enjoy. It’s like when it’s 100 F. and you come into an air-conditioned building. What a relief! This phrase of the Lord’s Prayer indicates our license to pray for outrageous things to happen in the culture we are steeped in.
So far, we have seen little that would lead us to believe that praying like this would affect our world. But that would diminish and even trivialize Jesus and His teaching. The problem must lie with us then, and we are the reason that it hasn’t happened.
Praying for obedience, praying for the will of God to come and take over. Our Churches are not merely a spot for A.A. to have their meetings, or the Food Pantry on Mondays, or a Men’s Breakfast on Saturdays. We are the place of God’s presence, the territory and throne of the omniscient and omnipotent One.
So let us pray this prayer. Let us invite heaven to earth. Let us look for the obedience that is being perfectly done in heaven, to come to this planet as well. It says in Isaiah– “Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end.” Its an astonishing concept of an ever-expanding kingdom, always pushing its boundaries, never defeated. Can we keep up?
Broken Believers 