Friday, November 13, 2020

PT-4 "God's Program" (Matt. 6:10a)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 11/13/2020 11:35 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                                           Focus:  PT-4 “God’s Program”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Matthew 6:10a

 

            Message of the verse:  10 ’Thy kingdom come.”

 

            In this finial SD on this short section of Scripture I want to continue to look at what John MacArthur wrote in his book “Jesus’ Pattern of Prayer.”  We want to answer this third question in this SD.

 

            “There is coming a day when He will rule and reign, when our prayers will fully be answered.

 

            “Third, how does it come?  What features lead to the consummation of His rule on earth?

 

            Number one, conversion.  He brings His rule to this earth when He reigns in lives.  Christ is His kingdom, and you will never separate Him from it.  He mediates it through the believers.  That’s why the Bible says we are priests and kings.

 

            To pray, ‘Thy kingdom come,’ is to pray that He may take up His reigning residence in the hearts and lives of those who are in rebellion.  It is a prayer for salvation, for kingdom citizenship.

 

            “The kingdom of God includes an invitation that involves repentance.  Jesus said, ‘Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.’  (Mark 1:14-15 sums it up so will:  ‘Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom.’

 

            “Kingdom citizenship is granted when one repents and believes.

 

            “That demands an act of the will.  Jesus once told a scribe, ‘Thou art not far from the kingdom’ (Mark 12:34).

 

            “He meant, ‘You’ve got the head knowledge, you just haven’t made that final decision commitment, you do not enter the kingdom, and the rule of Christ is not established in your heart.

 

            “The kingdom, then, has an internal aspect.  Such an internal kingdom, offered by an invitation  that demands repentance and a choice to turn away from sin and toward God, is available to every man.  That is conversion.

 

            How should you respond?  Jesus said, ‘seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness’ (Matt. 6:33).  You should be seeking it.

 

            “Luke 16:16 says, ‘The law and the p;rophets were [proclaimed] until John [the Baptist]: since that time the kingdom of God is preached, and every man presseth [is forcing his way] into it.’

 

            “There are a lot of ways to interpret that, but I like the one that takes the verb biazomai—which really means ‘to enter violently’ –so that when people whose hearts are right see the kingdom, they rush into it and literally seize it violently.

 

            We ought pray, ‘Thy kingdom come,’ in the sense that men be converted, rushing to grasp the reign of Christ in their lives.

 

            “And we ought to value it.  Matthew 13 quotes Jesus:  ‘The kingdom of heaven is like unto a treasure (v.44) and a ‘pearl of great price’ (v. 46).

 

            “I believe the kingdom also comes by commitment.  If you are a Christian, He is Lord and His is ruling, but there is in the Christian life a time daily for us to affirm that we bow the knee to the lordship.  That’s commitment.  I call it responding to the royalty residing in us.

 

            “That is what Paul meant in Romans 14:17, written to Christians:  ‘The kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.’

 

            “As I give myself over to the virtues the Spirit wants to produce in my life, I am asking that the fulness of Christ’s reign be made manifest in me.  In that sense, His kingdom comes.

 

            “Some people have taken those first two ways the kingdom comes—conversion and commitment—and assumed that that’s all there is.  I cannot accept that.  There is one more way the kingdom comes.

 

            “The kingdom comes in consummation.  One day the heavens will split open, and Jesus Christ will descend and plant His feet on the Mount of Olives, and He will establish His kingdom in this world.

 

            Paul paints a beautiful portrait of Christ’s coming to receive His kingdom in 1 Thessalonians 4:17.  The saints rise in the air ‘to meet the Lord.’  In the extrabiblical literature, the Greek word apantesis portrayed citizens leaving their city to greet visiting royalty.  Then they accompanied their royal visitor back to the city and honored him.

 

            At the rapture, Christ will come to meet His redeemed citizens and to call them out of the earthly kingdom in preparation for His soon-coming rule.  They will come into His presence, but instead of immediately returning, they will wait seven years while Christ conquers the remaining enemies in His earthly domain (Revelation 6-19).

 

            “At His second coming, He sill complete the victory and return with His redeemed citizens to consummate the kingdom.  The saints of heaven and the redeemed remnant of earth will then rule and reign with the Lord God Almighty as His priests for a thousand years (Revelation 1:6; 20:6).

            “The world will see Jesus Christ reigning here, when the curse is reversed and this earth is like God mean tit to be before the Fall.

            Jesus is coming again.

 

            “He will rule on the earth on the throne of David in the city of Jerusalem and will set right the curses that have been brought to this earth.  Like Peter, I look to and hasten the day when He comes.  I hear John saying again and again, ‘Jesus is coming, Jesus is coming, Jesus is coming.’  Finally, he says in Revelation 22:20, ‘Even so, come, Lord Jesus.’

 

            “We might ask the question, How does one become qualified to pray, ‘Thy kingdom come’?  The answer is, By changing citizenship.  And how does one change citizenship?  By conversion.  And how does one live out that citizenship?  By commitment.  And how is that citizenship fully realized?  By consummation.

 

            “That glorious day is coming, and in the meantime the kingdom is in your midst as He reigns and rules in the hearts of His people.”

 

AMEN!!

11/13/2020 12:06 PM

 

 

 

 

 

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