Week six the focus is on the cry that fills the prayers of God’s house. Again, there is some background thoughts and verses, and then passages to meditate on. Return to these as often as you like (our suggestion is every day during this period!), dialog with the Lord about what they mean to Him, use the questions at the bottom as fuel, and then pray it: God if that’s what’s in your heart than do … in me, and do … in my city and in the nations of the earth!
Week 6: The Cry of God’s House – Kingdom Come
PDF Handout – Week 6 – Kingdom Come
Background Verses: There is a cry associated with the call to be “a house of prayer” that you simply won’t find anywhere else. Everybody prays – in the sense that we cry out for help in our time of need – some to a God we know and some to a god they don’t know and aren’t even sure exists. When Jesus teaches His followers how to pray, though, there’s a different cry, birthed from knowing and hearing our Father in heaven and praying from heaven to earth for His plans to be fulfilled, that is first and primary before our own physical, spiritual and even ministerial needs.
Matthew 6:9 In this manner, therefore, pray: Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name. 10 Your kingdom come. Your will be done On earth as it is in heaven. 11 Give us this day our daily bread. 12 And forgive us our debts, As we forgive our debtors. 13 And do not lead us into temptation, But deliver us from the evil one. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.
God’s house of prayer is so confident in the truth that the Father knows and is looking out for our needs and our desires, that our life of prayer isn’t made up of drawn out attempts to convey to Him our desperate situation. We get to simply entrust to Him the needs He already knows and delights to meet, and focus on kingdom come – we focus on His interests as He takes care of ours.
Matthew 6:7 And when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do. For they think that they will be heard for their many words. 8 Therefore do not be like them. For your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him.
Matthew 6:31 “Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.
Jesus redefined what’s at the heart of a life of prayer and fasting when He walked the earth. Prayer and fasting in the days since Jesus’ incarnation and ascension are about a Bridegroom longing to be back with His bride, and a bride longing for her Bridegroom to come.
Matthew 9:15 And Jesus said to them, “Can the friends of the bridegroom mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast. 16 No one puts a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment; for the patch pulls away from the garment, and the tear is made worse. 17 Nor do they put new wine into old wineskins, or else the wineskins break, the wine is spilled, and the wineskins are ruined. But they put new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.”
Revelation 22:17 And the Spirit and the bride say, “Come!”
The cry of God’s house of prayer is the cry of God’s own heart, which is all about a wedding day – the day of the gladness of His heart – and things that must take place so that day can come.
Matthew 22:2 “The kingdom of heaven is like a certain king who arranged a marriage for his son, 3 and sent out his servants to call those who were invited to the wedding…
Revelation 1:1 The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show His servants—things which must soon take place.
While it’s easily relegated to a side issue when we make “church” about meeting the needs of people, when God’s house is God’s house, seeking first the kingdom, we are by nature a people focused on the end of the story, because that’s when God receives the treasure which creation and redemption were meant to bring forth, and our call is to watch and pray and hasten that day.
Mark 13:33 Take heed, watch and pray; for you do not know when the time is. 34 It is like a man going to a far country, who left his house and gave authority to his servants, and to each his work, and commanded the doorkeeper to watch.
2 Peter 3:11 Therefore, since all these things will be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, 12 looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be dissolved, being on fire, and the elements will melt with fervent heat? 13 Nevertheless we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.
Meditation Passage 1: Matthew 6:7 And when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do. For they think that they will be heard for their many words. 8 Therefore do not be like them. For your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him. 9 In this manner, therefore, pray: Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name. 10 Your kingdom come. Your will be done On earth as it is in heaven. 11 Give us this day our daily bread. 12 And forgive us our debts, As we forgive our debtors. 13 And do not lead us into temptation, But deliver us from the evil one. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.
Food for Thought: Jesus not only tells us how to focus our prayer life, but what we need revelation of in order to pray those simple prayers of trust and press on in to the plan of God’s heart. Talk to Him about what it feels like and how it shifts our prayers to really believe these truths, and ask Him for greater revelation: that the Father knows our needs… that He is enthroned in heaven… that He is longing to come to earth… of His eternal kingdom and power and glory…
Meditation Passage 2: John 17:24 “Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory which You have given Me; for You loved Me before the foundation of the world. 25 O righteous Father! The world has not known You, but I have known You; and these have known that You sent Me. 26 And I have declared to them Your name, and will declare it, that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them.”
Food for Thought: Ask Jesus about what “Father, I desire” feels like. Ask about the emotions of His heart as He’s preparing for the Cross and the Ascension and leaving His friends He’s walked with and loved (ask Him how John 17:11-13 feels). Try to imagine and talk to Jesus about what it’s like to have a plan birthed in love between Father and Son “before the foundation of the world” and eagerly anticipate it unfolding (check out Proverbs 8:22-31 and again, ask what that feels like). What’s mission and the gospel and evangelism really about according to verses 25 and 26? What’s the end result in Jesus’ heart that makes Him want the nations to hear the name of God?