It seems like once a year or so I go through a period of time when I simply cannot get the Lord’s Prayer out of my head and heart. In those few lines, Christ lays out a basic pattern for praying, a mechanism for recalibrating worldview, a full-bodied redemptive theology, and a call to incarnate the image of God as Jesus himself did (I’m sure you could add to this list, but this is what I’ve seen so far).
Right now, I’m taken with the incarnational undertones of the beautiful prayer.
Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Don’t say it too quickly. Don’t absent-mindedly breeze through it. This is a game-changer, my friends. A world-changer, actually.
In proclaiming a desire for the kingdom of God to come to earth as it is in heaven, we do not simply acknowledge God’s supremacy over all creation or even request his intervention into it. In this one little line, if prayed honestly, we are laying down our lives and taking on the very work of Jesus. We are dying to ourselves and coming to life again not simply as supporters or advocates of God, but agents of God. This is a prayer that draws us into the redemptive work initiated on the cross, culminating in Christ’s return, but going on all around us right now by the power of the Spirit through anyone adventurous enough to look up to God and say, “Let’s do this!”
