The Lord’s Prayer
Let us consider the great Prayer provided to His followers by our Savior, Jesus Christ. The very first line gives limitless inspiration, "Our Father which art in heaven." It starts us thinking of the Source of life and the dwelling place of God, Heaven. The wise King Solomon, when he had built the magnificent temple at Jerusalem, said in his prayer of dedication, "Will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, the heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain thee."
His statement points to an infinite God, a God that cannot be constrained or restricted in time or space, no matter how far they stretch. But at the same time, at any period in time or eternity or at any location in infinite space, His Presence is right there to hear our petitions. Far beyond our space probes {which must seem puny to Him} God is forever at hand.
Job said in awe, "Is not God in the height of heaven? And behold the height of the stars, how high they are!" Indeed this is true, but it gives only a hint of infinity and an infinite God. In Psalm 139, verses 8 to 10, David says, "If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there; if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. If I take wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me." This is the One God Whom His servant people know they must serve and obey.
"Hallowed be thy name." This line points out to us the nature of God, utterly pure and holy, and that God must be venerated and loved more than all else. To be obedient to this is to be freed from worldly appetites, greed and avarice, and as we lose these, fleshly fears also tend to leave us, grounded as they are in a belief in other powers beside the Power of God. Try to imagine a life without fear!
"Thy Kingdom Come." Our Identity Faith teaches us that Christ will return to this earth {that when we die, and are resurrected, we will be with Him here on the Earth, not in some never never land far beyond the stars!} as Ruler and King, and that as 1 John, verses 2 and 3 tell us, "we know, that when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure." This is steady employment for us, to drop from our lives all that is less than Christ-like, and to strive to put on more of those qualities of courage and of purity which characterized Christ.
Even though we stumble and fall many times, this is the goal held before us in the Scriptures, and we pray that we may be found worthy to enter His Kingdom. Nations thrive and prosper while they strive to do His will and keep His Laws. But if they are blind to this essential foundation of dominion, then their decline is inevitable. And if these nations are to recover their former influence for good in the world they must repent and return to the Godly ideals which made them great. Now is the time for the peoples of those nations to pause, assess how unsound worship and un-Christian policies are leading them into captivity, reverse those policies and return to their God and to Jesus Christ Whom He has sent. "If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land." (2 Chron. 7:14)
"Thy will be done in {on} earth as it is in heaven." Is this a petition or a statement of fact? When Jesus waited in the garden of Gethsemane for the terrible test of crucifixion which He knew lay ahead, He prayed to His Father, "Not my will, but thine be done," and "Not what I will, but what thou wilt." Jesus knew that this ordeal of crucifixion was but the prelude to the proof of His Father's infinite Power, the resurrection and ascension. We are told in Revelation 19:6 that God is omnipotent and through the Blood of Jesus Christ shed on the State, and through His resurrection by the Power of God, we have proof that this is so. As we read of this selfless sacrifice we realize that here is so much that is beyond the grasp of the limited human mind - we see the arc of the rainbow, God sees the full circle. We see through a glass darkly, we see Jesus helpless on the Stake. He saw that God's Will was being done. Need anything change except our human ignorance of God for us to see that His Will is supreme?
"Give us this day our daily bread." God alone does this. Psalm 37:25 assures us, "I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, or his seed begging bread." A blind man might starve beside a pile of food, but what excuse do the rest of us have? Our God-given task here is to proclaim the truth, and as we do that we can leave our needful supply in God's hands. Day by day He will supply it. Remember the multitudes fed with a few loaves and fishes, and remember the manna in the wilderness, with its implicit ban on hoarding and greed. Each day it came fresh, but it would not keep for two days except for the Sabbath Day, which is God's Day of rest and worship. Do we think for a moment that human provision equals the love and provision of God for His creation? If we serve God and man as His servant people are bidden to do, then we are safe in His care.
"And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those that trespass against us," or "Forgive our debts, as we forgive our debtors." How we need that forgiveness, to have the slate wiped clean! Do we pray for this? The answer is there in those lines, right beside the request. If the injury to us was deep and painful, it has brought us to our knees before God, and that is the best thing that ever happened to us. Even our friends cannot do that for us! Our enemies thus do more for us than our friends! This makes it easier to forgive, because to feel God's love and mercy surrounding us is more than all else. Why should we resent the sharp experience which brings us to God?
"And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil." Evil is a great falsehood. It promises all sorts of glittering rewards for disobedience to God and His Law. Its temptations are lies too, and the Christian follower of Jesus learns this by study of the Bible and by experience. Christians learn that the sinful world can give nothing of any lasting or permanent value. When we finally learn that Christ is all we need, what temptation can Satan offer us? This prayer to be delivered from evil is really a prayer to be delivered from ignorance. Jesus tells us to seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added. Do not be fooled by Satan's illusions and delusions and his false values.
"For thine is the kingdom and the power, and the glory, for ever." In 1 Chron. 29:11 we read of David the King when he was gathering the precious materials for the temple which his sons Solomon would later build, priceless things which the Children of Israel gave so willingly. We read, "Wherefore David blessed the Lord before the congregation: and David said, Blessed be thou, Lord God of Israel, our father, for ever and ever. Thine, O Lord, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory and the majesty: for all that is in heaven and in the earth is thine: thine is the kingdom, O Lord, and thou art exalted as head above all." This is an inspiring statement, even more so because it is written in the present tense and is as relevant and applicable now as then. Loyal followers today as then are experiencing many of the joys of the Kingdom of God. Not that they are necessarily rolling in worldly wealth, but they are assured of enough to carry on the work of the Kingdom day by day. And each time the Lord's Prayer is repeated they perceive a little more of the infinite truth contained therein, and feel more and more gratitude for Him Who gave it to His followers and to Israel.
"Amen." This word has many interesting connotations which indicate that the truth has been expressed and is final, undeniable. The Hebrew means 'certainly, verily.' The idea of the convergence of two or more slanted lines, or the point of inevitable agreement as in geometry, is another meaning. The word also has the meaning of 'so be it,' completeness, that the final word has been spoken and no more can be added.
Amen: Strong’s Concordance: #543 'amen (aw‑mane'); from 539; sure; abstract, faithfulness; adverb, truly: KJV‑‑ Amen, so be it, truth.
THE KINGDOM OF GOD ON EARTH
Wherever one looks in the Bible, references to the Kingdom of God is to be found. Which of course is what the Bible is all about. The Kingdom of God On Earth. When we think of God's Kingdom we must think of all that is of God, and all that God has created. And that is described to us in the phrase "the heavens and the earth."
Of course the heavens is anything above ground level on the earth to the unknown reaches of the galaxies. Of course we know where the planet earth is. But for our purposes God created the Kingdom of God on earth when He created man and woman and is stated in Genesis Chapter One verse 28: "And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth."
The words here to have dominion is to be sovereign or have supreme in power; and here they are told to have dominion. That is to rule the Kingdom of God on earth. That is what they were supposed to do. But, of course, the dominion was taken from Adam and the dominion became a contested issue throughout the earth as Adam and Eve were told in Genesis Chapter Three verse 15: "And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel."
Now we fully understand that this verse is used to mean Christ and the Evil one; but this passage also suggests strife between two people - the seed of man and Nacash. Or the seed of the woman and Nacash. This strife being the dominion of all mankind, and since those days we have seen nothing but strife {war} between people, nations and kingdoms.
All these nations that we see and are described in Scripture are all earthly kingdoms there is no heavenly kingdoms, there is no kingdom off the planet earth that we know of. This leads us forward in time to the promises of Abraham. We will not, at this time, look at them all but we will look at a few.
Turn to Genesis Chapter Twelve verse: "And I {God} bless them that bless thee {Abraham}, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all {the} families of the earth be blessed." Genesis Chapter Seventeen verses 4, 6 and 7: "As for me, behold, my covenant is with thee, and thou shalt be a father of many nations{not just one}...And I will make thee exceeding fruitful, and I will make nations of thee, and kings shall come out of thee. And I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant..."
God didn't covenant with the other people we saw back in Genesis Chapter Three, He only made a covenant with the Adamic seed or line. Here I would also like to point out just through Chapter Seventeen provided the following. We will try to point out at least 14 things that some have noticed.
(1) I will make of thee a great nation,
(2) I will bless thee,
(3) Make thy {Abraham's} name great,
(4) Be thou {Abraham} a blessing,
(5) Bless them that curse thee,
(6) Curse them that curse thee {Abraham},
(7) In thee {Abraham's seed} shall all the families on the earth be blessed,
(8) Give unto thee {Abraham} and thy seed {Abraham's descendants} this land,
(9) The father of a multitude {more than one - many} nations,
(10) Exceedingly fruitful,
(11) Nations {again a promise of many nations not just one},
(12) Kings shall come out of thee {Abraham},
(13) A covenant between thee and thy seed after thee throughout their generations {This is an everlasting covenant} and
(14) Everlasting Covenant.
All too often it is said that all the promises made to Abraham were fulfilled in Christ. However, there are many who do not think for even a single minute that is true. In addition in the seventh one - In thee all the families of the earth shall be blessed -is the only promise that people seem to hear about from the Judeo-Christian preachers in the pulpits of America today. But we would like to ask them about all the rest of the promises which God made to Abraham which are still in full force and effect and MUST come to pass.
We know, of course, these promises were passed on to Abraham's seed, to Isaac, to Jacob and then to all the Children of Israel and ultimately to the nation of Israel. And when Israel was led out of Egypt and entered into a covenant with God, it was a reestablishing of the Kingdom of God on earth, under the Adamic line.
In Genesis 48 and 49 we find the patriarch Israel blessing his sons and giving them their inheritance; and telling them what would befall them in the latter days. Likewise in Deut. 33 we find Moses restating the inheritance of the twelve tribes. And nowhere in all of these blessings do we find a reference to non earthly things. It just simply is not there. Everything mentioned there is in reference to earthly things; earthly kings etc.
After the exodus from Egypt we find in Exodus. 25:8 God talking through Moses: "And let them make me a sanctuary; that I may dwell among them." Now this sanctuary, of course, at that time in history was part of the tabernacle and was called the most Holy Place. This was where God was to dwell with His Israel people.