The Lord’s Prayer (Part Two)- Matthew 6:9-13

In the previous post, we are instructed that we are to hallow the name of God. Jesus now tells us just how we are to go about doing so. Hallowing His name means letting His “kingdom come”. Jesus here moves from the passive voice to the active voice, in which the subject performs the action. His kingdom comes only as we act to make it so. What is meant here by “kingdom”? It is not to be thought of as a place or geographic location, the kingdom here is found everywhere in which the authority of the king is acknowledged and obeyed, it “comes” anywhere where God is recognized as sovereign king. The kingdom here is not a place, but an attitude of the heart, and what we have here is a plea that God would make us an instrument through which His kingdom may be advanced here and now, as we as individuals submit to His kingship in our own lives. Each time we pray this, we are reaffirming our commitment to His kingship in our lives, that we intend to act in all things under His lordship, that His kingdom may come in the hearts of others as we live in it out in our own lives. We have made a one time decision to make God the sovereign king of our lives, and here we affirm that decision and ask Him to make it the defining characteristic of our existence. Jesus then proceeds to tell us exactly how His kingdom will come, it will come as His will is done. We pray here that God’s will would be done, acknowledging that He knows best and that his will overrides our perceived needs, an affirmation again that He is God and we are not, that His will is best for us. The verb done here is ginomai, literally “to become”. We here are the instruments through which His will becomes activated on the earth as it already is in heaven. Done here is also in the passive voice, His will is done through us as we submit our wills to His, and we here ask Him to make us people through whom His kingdom will come as His will is done by us and through us. His will is also to be done “on earth as it is in heaven”. We are here asking that our wills may be so submitted to His that His will is done as automatically on earth (by and through us) as it always is in heaven. The first part of the Lord’s prayer, understood in context, can therefore be seen as a prayer for transformation, as a petition for God to transform us into people who do His will, not an attempt to move Him to do our will.