The first order of business in prayer is not our business, it’s God’s business!
We’ve seen over the past three posts how Jesus taught us to pray by coming to God in worship. Where does He go from there? Sure, Jesus taught us to confess our sins, to ask for daily provision, and bring our requests for our own needs to God, but that’s not where he goes next!
Before we start to pray for our own needs, for the things that we need, Jesus focuses our attention on the overarching purpose of God – that His Kingdom would come on the earth.
And what Jesus teaches us to pray, while it is simple, is breathtaking in it’s scope!
Jesus tells us to pray that His Kingdom would come on earth, and that the will of God would be worked out on the earth. And then He gives us a reference point from which to pray it: we should pray that the way things happen on earth reflect how they happen in heaven!
Let’s think about that for a moment…
• How is the nature of relationships in heaven? They are restored, healthy, unified, selfless and self-sacrificial. So we can ask God for this!
• What about sickness? There is none! It is healed and dealt with. So we can pray that God will heal people here and now.
• What about bondage to life controlling habits and addictions? In God’s heaven people are totally and utterly set free. So we can pray for that here on the earth.
• What about poverty and injustice? There is none in heaven.. So we pray that God will break the curse of poverty in people’s lives, that the poor will be raised up and justice will be done.
We are a heavenly people. Our citizenship is not in this world, it is in Christ. We are aliens and strangers to this world, we are passing through. All too often, though, we think as people of this world. Our expectations don’t reflect those of the Kingdom that is breaking in!
Jesus taught that the Kingdom was at hand.
As God’s church, God wants us to partner with Him in bringing the Kingdom. The first part of that partnership happens in prayer.
Don’t skip this as you come to pray. Pray bold, audacious prayers. Pray that God’s will be done in our city, our work places and schools, our homes… and pray with heaven as your reference point. Lift your expectation for what God might do!
