We are now on week 3 of a 4 part series on prayer. In part one I told you my story of how the Lord led me into a life of prayer. Last week I introduced you to the different styles of prayer. Today we are going to take a look at the Lord’s Prayer found in Matthew and learn what Jesus meant when he said, “Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
Where is Heaven
Where is Heaven? If God the Father exists in Heaven, where is that? What is Heaven? Is Heaven a place, a realm, a dimension, a future time, a past time? Does it exist outside of time?
I challenge you to do a word study in the New Testament of the Greek word translated Heaven. You will find many references to Heaven in the book of Matthew, and Jesus gives many parables to us, saying, “The Kingdom of Heaven is like…” Jesus wants us to know what Heaven is like. Spoiler alert: it’s better than you think.
Just as a side note, when talking about Heaven, I’ll use these words interchangeably, because that’s what I find in the gospels: Heaven, Kingdom of Heaven, and Kingdom of God.
Let’s see what Jesus says in John, chapter 3:
John 3:1-3 (ESV) says, “Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, ‘Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.’ Jesus answered him, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.’”
See the Kingdom
I think most of the time we teach and are taught that “a person must be born again in order to… go to heaven when they die.” Although I believe that, it’s not what Jesus says. He says “unless a person is born again, they cannot see the Kingdom of God.” Or in the positive sense “a person must be born again to see the Kingdom of God.”
In order to see the Kingdom of God, or in order to see Heaven, we must be born again. Why? Because we need to perceive Heaven with our spirits, who come online and are filled with the Holy Spirit upon our conversion, or born-again experience.
Jesus says in verse 8:
“The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” (John 3:8 ESV)
We must perceive Heaven by the Spirit because Heaven is spiritual. That’s why it can’t be seen until we’re born again. We must be born of the Spirit.
Heaven is not just a place that exists when we die. It is a place that exists right now! Heaven is in the spiritual realm, or perhaps you can think of it like a Heavenly dimension. It exists and can be perceived by the Spirit.
Kingdom Come
Your kingdom come, Your will be done, On earth as it is in heaven.
These are declarations of an eternal nature. Is this something that you believe? Do you believe that God’s kingdom could come on earth like it is in Heaven? Do you believe that God’s will could be done on earth like it is in Heaven? This is a crisis of belief that must be worked through.
Speaking of a crisis of belief, let me challenge your eschatology. (Anyone know what that means? Doctrine of the Last Things.) Do you have more faith that the world is going to hell than you do that Heaven is coming to earth?
There has been a lot of preaching and teaching that things will go from bad to worse until Hell appears on the earth. And people are so confident of this preaching and teaching that they just accept it.
“Oh, well, I guess it’s just a sign of the times. I don’t have to do anything about this injustice or this evil, because Hell is coming to earth. Man, I can’t wait until Jesus comes back and takes me outta here. Good riddance!”
Powerlessness
What has this philosophy produced in the Church over the last several decades? Powerlessness! Whose plan do you think this is?
The Church has gotten weak and has stopped believing in miracles.
Are we so confident in our version of a hellish future that we’re willing to miss the amazing Heavenly future that God wants for us?
Do we believe the prayer of Jesus is being answered now and in our time? Or would we rather live in fear of hell-coming-to-earth? Do we believe that a worldwide revival could take place, or are we ready to give up all the people to the devil? Do we say that the way is narrow, so who cares that nobody can make it?
Is this Good News?
Does that sound like good news, aka the Gospel? No!! That’s bad news. Let’s not preach bad news. Let’s preach the good news of the Gospel, that God so loved all the world that He gave Jesus, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life!
You know, the Pharisees studied the Hebrew Torah as well as the rabbinical teachings in great detail. They were confident in their view of the Messiah, one who would conquer Rome and liberate Israel. There even existed a group of people called the Zealots who were training as warriors to join with the Messiah for the overthrow of Roman rule.
And yet they all missed it. They didn’t realize who Jesus was when He was standing in front of them! They were confident in their knowledge of the arrival of the Messiah, having developed doctrines and written books about it. But when Jesus came, it looked very different than they had predicted. Some caught it while others didn’t.
Confidence in Who’s Future?
I believe we are entering into an age that will be like that. We think we know exactly what’s going to happen. We are so confident in our predictions of a bleak future of horrors and torture. But should we rather be more confident in God? Shouldn’t we trust in the goodness of God?
What about the verses that talk about the knowledge of the glory of the Lord filling the whole earth? Or that in the last days God is pouring out His Spirit on all mankind, and our sons and daughters will prophesy, our young men will see visions and our old men will dream dreams? (Joel 2:28) It says, “Everyone who calls on the Name of the Lord will be saved.” (Joel 2:29a)
I’ll step down off my soapbox now and reference the Lord’s prayer again.
The Aorist Tense
Something interesting throughout the whole prayer is that the Greek verb tense used is called aorist. It’s one of the past tenses in Greek, which denotes a completed action, something that already occurred, without giving you the timeframe in which it occurred.
So it’s like we’re declaring this:
Your Kingdom came already, and I agree! Your will was already done, and I agree! On earth as it is in Heaven!
If we see His Kingdom as already here and already come, then we start operating differently.
Remember what Jesus said, “Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is near” (Matt 4:17). And “the Kingdom of God is in the midst of you (or within you)” (Luke 17:21).
Jesus Brought the Spiritual Kingdom
His spiritual kingdom came with Him. Jesus came and brought the spiritual kingdom with Him. He set it up, and it has been expanding since He showed up on the earth 2000 years ago!
This Kingdom is from another dimension, the Heavenly dimension, or the spiritual dimension. You can’t see it, but you can see the effects of it.
Romans 14:17 tells us that the Kingdom of God is demonstrated by the evidence of “righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” (Romans 14:17 ESV)
How does His kingdom come and His will get done on earth as it’s done in Heaven? Through us! We are the gateways of Him and His will coming to earth. Jesus demonstrated this in the story of Jacob’s ladder. Jesus showed up to Jacob as a giant ladder to Heaven, with angels ascending and descending on the ladder (Genesis 28:10-22). Later, Jesus shows up to Nathanael and says that the angels were going up and down on the Son of Man (John 1:43-51). The angels were using Jesus as an interdimensional gateway to go from Heaven to earth and back again.
Mini Ladders
And guess what!? We are in Christ, so we are mini ladders, mini gateways, for the Spirit of the Living God to usher in Heaven onto earth.
Speaking of Heaven, how do we know what is supposed to come to earth if we don’t know what Heaven is like? Did you know that you can visit Heaven like Paul the Apostle and John the Apostle? Like Isaiah and many of the other prophets in the Old Testament? Like Jesus Himself and countless other people, who’s testimonies have been recorded for all to read?
Heaven’s not closed! It’s open! And it’s not just a place you go to when you die. Heaven is a dimension, a person, and the realm of Jesus. When you figure out that being “in Christ” means that you are “in Heaven,” your whole paradigm changes.
We are going to pause here and finish up this series next week. We will dig into the rest of this prayer to see what we can learn about forgiveness and temptations. I hope you will join me!
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