The Next Key to the Kingdom

The Next Key in our Series: The Keys to the Kingdom as Revealed in The Lord's Prayer -

It would be normative to proceed to the next petition in “The Lord’s Prayer,” that is, “forgive us our debts (trespasses) as we forgive our debtors (those who trespass against us), but we will hold this portion in abeyance for now and proceed to the next couplet – “Give us this day our daily bread” and “lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from (the) evil (one).

Unfortunately, some people approach these requests almost as if one has to beg or to plead for the Father’s provision. Rather, we should approach these as prayers of thanksgiving! In Philippians 4:6 Paul instructs us, “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.” Later, in v. 19, he declares, “And my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.

The Father does not begrudge us our needs; rather, according to Jesus, He gives us “good things” when we ask Him (Matt. 7:11). Just as an earthly father, as imperfect as we earthly fathers are (“evil” in comparison to God! – v. 11a) knows how to meet the needs of our children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask (11b).”
In Philippians 4:19 Paul declares his absolute faith in the Father’s gracious provision when he shares, “And my God will supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.” (NKJV)

The Father, who is pure and holy, also would never lead us into temptation or into the clutches of (the) evil (one). This is made so very clear to us by James sho instructs us, “Let no one say when he is tempted, ‘I am tempted by God,’ for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone” (James 1:13).

Further, after clarifying that our temptations that lead to our sinful behavior is rooted solely in our own desires and our willingness to be drawn into sin by those desires, James declares that what we do receive from God is of tremendous benefit and blessing: “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning. Of His own will He brought us forth by the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures” (1:17-18).

Praise You, Father! Thank You for Your chesed (loving-kindness), Your faithfulness to us in every dimension of life, Your patience with us, and You long-suffering with our fleshly weaknesses. Thank You for being a Loving Father who delights to provide for and to bless us!

Third Key to the Kingdom

The third Key to the Kingdom is understanding that our Father God wants us to come into agreement with His will, and when we do, He gives us the authority to declare His will to the universe. Our God is not a wimp. Rather, He is omnipotent (omni – all / potent – powerful)! The next to lines of “The Lord’s Prayer are declarative statements and are intended to be read as such. When you pray, and when you hear others pray corporately, the Lord’s Prayer, you normally hear, “Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven” in a soft monotone, rhythmic manner.

No, dear child of God! No! Speak these words forth with authority! When God created the world, His first words that we have recorded in Genesis 1 should properly be read, “Light! Come! And there was Light! So, too, we should pray God’s will into existence in our lives, into our world thusly, “Kingdom of God! Come! Will of God! Be Done! Hallelujah! This is our Privilege, This is our Joy! To “partner up” with the King of the universe to declare and to call forth His perfect will, His presence into the realm that He gave our father, Adam, and our mother, Eve, the privilege, the mandate, the responsibility to subdue and to have dominion over the earth.

He established them as His stewards over, His under-shepherds over all the created realm of Earth, and His is restoring all things under the Rule of King Jesus. We are Christ’s Body, His stewards, His under-Shepherds of this world, and He has placed into our hands this magnificent King to His kingdom. Understand the power of John 5:14-15, and declare God’s Will – “This is the confidence which we have before Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, H we know that we have the requests which we have asked from Him” (NASB). Hallelujah!

Second Key to the Kingdom

The Keys of the Kingdom as revealed in the Lord's Prayer

The second Key to the Kingdom is a companion to the first in that it is a part of the opening line of “The Lord’s Prayer,” and provides what for the disciples of Jesus was a radical departure from their tradition – “Our Father!”

As we have become too casual with regards to God’s awesome power and majesty, so too have we lost the wonder of the impact that these words had on those who first heard it.YHWH, the LORD God of the Jewish and Christian faiths is not Allah, the God of the Muslim faith. Yet, like the Muslims of today, the Jews of Jesus’ day approached the God of their faith in relation to His transcendence, His altogether “other than,” above and beyond anything we are and can relate to. Therefore, to approach The Almighty in an intimate, relational manner as a child addresses his/her loving father was unheard of, borderline, if not outright, blasphemy!

This, however, is exactly what Jesus does. (See Mark 14:36 wherein the Messiah of Israel, the Savior of all mankind in His moment of untold agony, wrestling with the immanence of His torture, humiliation and death on the cross, the cruel instrument of Roman execution, a slow, tortuous death, in the Garden of Gethsemane where He sweat drops of blood, He cries out, “Abba, Father . . . .”) Paul later echoes this term of endearment in Romans 8:15 and Galatians 4:6

He blends the two together. The “abba” dimension of a precious father is conjoined with “hallowed be Thy Name” (holy is Your name). This is the blessing of the Jewish opening line of prayer “Blessed art Thou, O Lord, our God, King of the universe.” There are two different words for “blessed” in Hebrew.

One is transliterated “asher” which is the word used by Jesus in the Beatitudes of Matthew 5 at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” et.al. This word literally means “to make straight.” The implication is that if one makes all of his/her ways “straight,” correct, right, when walking with the Lord, that person will be happy in life – blessed.
The other is the work “barak.” This is “to knee as an act of adoration.” You see this in the depiction in the of the shepherds and the Magi in the paintings or models of the Nativity scene when they to worship, to adore the newborn King! To declare that the King of the universe is blessed (baruch, in the imperative used in prayer) is now equated with declaring that the Father is truly “hallowed” (Holy) – the Transcendent, Other-than Reality – God Almighty!

And so we see in Jesus’ instruction to His disciples in how to approach their God in prayer as their Father, He hands them two powerful Keys to the Kingdom. If we do not approach God our Father in the correct way, every other door is barred to us. Conversely, if we approach Him in prayer in an appropriate manner of worship, love, humility and honor, He will open for us every door of the Kingdom for a blessed (happy, fulfilled) life!

KEYS TO THE KINGDOM as found in The Lord's Praeyer

The first “Key to the Kingdom” is the beautiful balance when we orient ourselves to God as both “King of the Universe” and “Our Father.” Many Jewish prayers begin with, “Blessed art Thou, O LORD, King of the universe . . .” Abraham Joshua Heschel in his classic work, God In Search of Man, contrasts the reasons people have for seeking after knowledge. He says the Greeks sought knowledge to understand the world around them, to organize their thoughts and to ponder truth through their various philosophies. We are indebted to the Greeks, for it is this system of knowledge and their methodologies that are the foundations for our modern system of science.

Heschel laments that modern man seeks knowledge mainly for pragmatic reasons with an end toward utilitarianism. Our main focus is how we can use knowledge for the development of more “things” whether they be for the good of medical technology, the pursuit of comfort and convenience or the horror of ever greater weapons of death and destruction.

The Jewish mindset, on the other hand, avers Heschel, is to seek knowledge in order that such knowledge may draw us ever closer to the Eternal One and to do so draws us ever more deeply into a state of Awe. I capitalize the word “Awe” in order to capture Heschel’s sense that we are interacting with the Living God, the Creator, the King of the universe in such a way as to leave us breathless in His presence, on our faces before His Magnificence.

As in any other culture, any other ritual, any other thing that becomes familiar, there is a difference between the ideal and that which the average person actually experiences over time. I ask people to recite the Lord’s Prayer with me, and those who know it “by heart” recite it, almost without exception, in a monotone voice often slipping and eliding (slurring over) the words, quickly and seamlessly but without true, deep thought and passion.

Here we have before us a prayer to our King, our LORD God, the Creator and Sustainer of all things, and I simply ask you to honestly reflect upon this: “Do you speak these words with a sense of Awe? Is there a sense of true Wonder, of deep-felt humility and honor to be in the very Presence of the Almighty God? If not, then here is where we must begin in order to hold in our hands the first Key to the Kingdom.

May we humble ourselves before Him and ask His help in restoring to us a true sense of Awe, of Holy Reverence, Wonder and deep Love and Appreciation for Him, our God.

keys to the Kingdom - Introduction

We begin a new series today on "The Keys to the Kingdom of God (as Revealed in "The Lord's Prayer"). I pray that you will be edified as we unfold the beautiful teaching for you, day-by-day.

THE KEYS TO THE KINGDOM
(As Revealed in the Lord’s Prayer)

We find “the Lord’s Prayer” in Matthew 6:9 ff as a part of “The Sermon on the Mount.” The parallel passage in Luke 11, however, provides us with some additional information not found in Matthew’s account. Luke 11:1 reads as follows: “It happened that while Jesus was praying in a certain place, when He had finished, one of His disciples said to Him, ‘Lord, teach us to pray just as John also taught his disciples.’” (referring to ‘John the Baptist’ – NASB)

Why would Jesus’ disciples make such a request? In the first century culture of Biblical Judaism, prayer was a regular part of one’s daily routine. Even as the Muslims today pray ritually 5 times a day facing Mecca, so, too, the Jews prayed the “Amida” (the “standing prayer” every day, three times a day. This was a recitation of “blessings.”)

Like so many of us today, Jesus’ disciples were seeking that “something more” that they saw in their Rabbi – that “something” that He had, that connection with their God that they lacked. Jesus moved in a realm of peace, power and passion that they wanted but did not know how to access and could not sustain whenever they did get a “touch” of it. They had heard that John the Baptist’s disciples had been instructed by him to pray something “new,” something “different” that set them apart. The disciples of Jesus saw in these fellow seekers something that had been imparted to John’s disciples by this passionate prophet that was significant enough to provoke in them a desire for a “deeper walk.” Have you ever felt that way?

If so, “Good!” – because that desire, that thirst, for something “more” is what we need in order to have our minds and hearts open to the Lord in order to receive from Him that which only He can give to us – The Keys to the Kingdom of God!

We will begin a study of “The Lord’s Prayer” and see what these “Keys” are!