Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible.
Jesus is teaching us to pray as citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven, and each phrase of this prayer is a reminder of how we interact with the King of Heaven—Our Father in Heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your Kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.
We all have a desire to feel secure—to feel our needs are going to be met. In fact, our anxiety level is usually tied directly to how insecure we may feel. The problem for many of us, however, is that we have mistaken wants for needs, and when those aren’t met as we think they should be, we again experience increasing levels of anxiety.
We see this on full display in Luke 12. First, Jesus addresses a man who is greedily desiring his share of his father’s inheritance. Jesus says, “Life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.”
To illustrate this point, Jesus tells a parable of a rich landowner who harvested more crops than he knew what to do with—a harvest which he calls “plenty.” His solution was to build bigger barns for his abundant harvest, to which God announced, “You fool” (Luke 12:13-21).
This man was not called a fool because he was successful. He was not called a fool because he had plenty. Rather, he was called a fool because his “plenty” caused him to forget his heavenly Father.
This is an invaluable lesson. Sadly, we tend to be a very forgetful people!
After God delivered His people from their bondage in Egypt, and they almost immediately start worrying and then complaining about whether their needs will be supplied. God tells them that He will supply every day exactly what they need (Exodus 16:1-35).
This provision of manna every single morning when they got up was intended to keep them reliant on God and thankful for His provision. But after a while they thought they deserved more—they wanted plenty (Numbers 11:4-6). Later on, Asaph would pinpoints the main culprit of the Israelites’ stumbled throughout their history: forgetfulness (Psalm 78:11, 22-25).
Jesus taught us to come to God in prayer as Our Father. Just as Jesus was daily dependent on His Father, so He teaches us to have that same level of daily abiding.
Jesus reminds us what the daily supply of manna really signified; namely, that He would be our Bread from Heaven for all of eternity (John 6:28-40)!
So that’s why we pray, “Give us today our daily bread.” Once again, this is an acknowledgement that no one else can provide for us, and it is a request that we would stay daily dependent on Him. It’s not, “Give us today our weekly bread.” Or, “Give us today our daily wants.” Or even, “Give us today plenty of things.”
We need our Father for daily bread so that we never, ever forget or vital, indispensable connection to Him!
Even when we don’t have plenty, we are told not to worry but instead to look to our Heavenly Father for His daily supply (Luke 12:22; Philippians 4:6-7).
Stop praying to yourself! God isn’t impressed with your “powerful” prayer! Jesus tells an interesting story about two men: one thought very highly of his spiritual status and the only could barely lift his eyes. Jesus said that the proud man’s prayer received no help from God, but only the humble man’s prayer was heard. This is a short clip from my series called Kingdom Praying. I have lots of new content every week, which you can check out on my YouTube channel.
“If the fetus gets in the way, ditch it. If the old person gets in the way, ditch it. If you get in the way…” —Francis Schaeffer
“The god of convenience, ruling capriciously in the hearts of men and women, and supported by worshipers of the god of wealth—greedy, self-interested profit-takers in the guise of abortionists and abortion-rights advocates—is the putative lord of life and death where children in the womb are concerned. …Christians must insist that all political candidates seeking their support, at whatever level of government, be firm in their commitment to resist the present abortion regime and expose the lie of the pro-choice agenda by every available means. …The Law of God is holy and righteous and good. Abortion is unholy, unrighteous, and evil. If we want a just and loving society, we will worship God and obey His Law, and we will work to dethrone the god of convenience and to expose the folly and self-interest of all its followers. And we will look to God to explain the nature, meaning, and value of all lives.” —T.M. Moore
Elihu is angry at Job “because he justified himself before God.” Better stated: “Job was more concerned about justifying himself—making himself look good—than he was about making God look good.” Elihu is angry at Job’s three friends because they acted like God and pronounced a guilty verdict against Job. Elihu is righteously provoked. After holding his tongue for 31 chapters, he cannot remain silent any longer!I conclude that Elihu is righteous in his response because God doesn’t have anything negative to say to or about Elihu (as He does with the three friends) at the end of the Book of Job.
Long before the term “fake news” made it into our lexicon, Charles E. Robinson wrote an article in 1934 “as a solemn warning to all Christians” about the rising tide of anti-Semitism. He was especially upset about a book that made an erroneous case blaming Jews for global economic and political turmoil. I am thrilled with the strong spiritual and intellectual legacy in the Assembly of God fellowship!
“There’s a lot of blood, sweat and guts between dreams and success.” —Paul Bear Bryant
Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible.
Pastors are called to be shepherd leaders. Karl Vaters points out that some pastors get caught up in “the green room syndrome” that disconnects them from their sheep.
Here is another clip from The Church Lobby Podcast where Karl and I talk about this.
The biblical passage I reference in this interview is John 10:1-16.
Check out other parts of my interview on The Church Lobby podcast here. Or check out the full conversation Karl and I had on The Church Lobby podcast here.
Get more information on Shepherd Leadershiphere. And pre-order my newest book When Sheep Bitehere.
Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible.
I hope you’ve noticed so far that the parts of Christ’s model prayer that we’ve looked at so far are both an acknowledgement of the holiness of God and the greatness of His Kingdom, and also a request for us to be empowered to live in a way that makes those things known to Earthlings.
One of the ways we live to make these things seen is found in the next phrase: Your will be done on earth as it is in Heaven (Matthew 6:10).
In A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens shows us a scene where the Ghost of Christmas Present has taken Scrooge to his nephew’s home. After dinner, these young adults begin playing games. Dickens says, “For it is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when its mighty Founder was a child Himself.”
Jesus loved children! Being around “the littles” lately at on our school campus, I have a whole new appreciation for this. Because Jesus loved children, their parents wanted them around Him, and He wanted them around too (see Matthew 19:13-15; Mark 10:14-16; Luke 18:15-17).
Children are loud, busy, adventurous, and easily distracted. But they are also loving, trusting, curious, innocent, and easily comforted. And Jesus loved to bless them!
What does this have to do with “Your will be done on earth as it is in Heaven”? Jesus taught us to address our praying to “Our Father.” That means we are to interact with Him as His children.
Children love to do the will of their parents. They’re not trying to earn their approval, but joyfully obeying out of innocence. When we obey God as loving children, we are doing His will on earth as it is done in Heaven!
So once again, this is both an acknowledgement and a request.
In Psalm 131, David uses this same picture of a contented child for us.
Childlike is lovingly dependent. Childish is selfishly independent. Childlike is trusting someone wiser. Childish is believing I know best.
Our prayer request should always be, “Father, may I trust You and obey You as an innocent child.”
Peter described the ministry of Jesus as “doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil.” Historical records tell us the first Christians lived this exact same way! This clip is from our current series of sermons on prayer. I have lots of new content every week, which you can check out on my YouTube channel.
Belshazzar was unknown outside the Bible for quite awhile, prompting one biblical skeptic to say, “the whole story [in the Book of Daniel] is disfigured and falsified by the author, who was neither an eye-witness of the occurrences, nor accurately acquainted with the history of them.” Once again, archeology has confirmed the historicity of both Belshazzar and Daniel.
On YouVersion I shared this on Job 1:20-22. The Old English spelling of worship is “worthship.” We worship God because He has infinitely greater worth than any other person or thing. It’s not that Job wasn’t sad about his losses, but He saw Jehovah as the One of greatest worth in spite of his earthly losses.
“Leaders are responsible for building organizations where people continually expand their capabilities to understand complexity, clarify vision, and improve shared mental models—that is, they are responsible for learning.” —Peter M. Senge, in The Fifth Discipline
Never stopping praying for your loved ones. It could be that with their very last breath they will call on Jesus as their Savior!
Listen to the audio-only version of this podcast by clicking on the player below, or scroll down to watch the video.
Goal-setting and change-making are integral parts of a leader’s job. However, it can often feel like actually accomplishing these tasks is one of the hardest parts of the job! In this episode, Greg and I dive into how to successfully set and accomplish goals, and how to strategically create change in a way that doesn’t disenfranchise your team.
[1:30] Focusing on too many things can paralyze a leader.
[3:48] Leaders—by definition—have a lot of things on their plates. How do we find the areas that are the most strategic for us to change?
[5:28] Leaders need to set a place of change that the entire team can stick to.
[7:02] Leaders must learn to trust their teammates to get tasks done.
[9:01] Changes are vital for us personally and organizationally, but we must choose those changes strategically and carefully.
[10:02] Celebrating accomplishments in meeting our goals is very important.
[12:08] How do leaders find the speed of change?
[13:39] Enlisting and energizing change agents in the organization will extend a leader’s influence.
[15:57] Leader’s shouldn’t make key decision when they are exhausted or distracted.
[19:12] Greg shares a helpful acrostic for F.O.C.U.S.
[21:29] A coach can be invaluable in helping you be successful in all of your change initiatives. This is where we can help you.
Check out this episode and subscribe on YouTube so you can watch all of the upcoming episodes. You can also listen to our podcast on Spotify and Apple.
Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible.
Last week I shared a quote about this Kingdom Prayer from the YouVersion reading plan The Prayer That Turns The World Upside Down. Let me remind you of one phrase: “This prayer is dangerous, overturning the kingdom of the principalities and powers of this world.”
We live on Earth but we are citizens of the Kingdom of God. This prayer is a desire for that eternal Kingdom to be seen by Earthlings so that they will also obtain citizenship. So we saw last week that the phrase “Hallowed be Your name” is both an acknowledgement of God’s greatness and a request that we would display His greatness in our lives. The next phrase—Your Kingdom come (Matthew 6:10)—has that same two-part motivation: acknowledgment and request.
I wrote Shepherd Leadership to address the non-biblical practices in our churches that had taken on biblical weight. I think this is something that invades many Christian’s thinking about what “the Kingdom of God” actually is.
Here’s two things I know for sure: (1) Kingdom power ≠ political power, and (2) Kingdom power ≠ religious power.
A.W. Tozer wrote—
“In Christian circles today, the church that can show an impressive quantitative growth is frankly envied and imitated by other ambitious churches. Numbers, size and amounts seem to be very nearly all that matters…. The great goddess, Numbers, is worshiped with fervent devotion, and all things religious are brought before her for examination. Her Old Testament is the financial report, and her New Testament is the membership roll. To these she appeals as the test of spiritual growth and the proof of success or failure in most Christian endeavors. A little acquaintance with the Bible should show this up for the heresy it is.”
Jesus was clearly focused on His Father’s Kingdom. The phrase “Kingdom of God” is used over 50 times in the Gospels, and Jesus uses words like “Heaven,” “Hell,” and “eternal life” over 120 times.
In teaching us to pray, Jesus called us to focus on the eternal. We want people to see “Our Father in Heaven”—in all His hallowed majesty and glory—not merely in the ways we attempt to “Christianize” life on Earth.
Alan Redpath said, “Before we can pray, ‘Lord, Thy Kingdom come,’ we must be willing to pray, ‘My Kingdom go.’”
Jesus constantly taught like this, “The Kingdom of Heaven is like….” He said, “The coming of the Kingdom of God is not something that can be observed” (Luke 17:20). Or better stated: The Kingdom of God doesn’t arrive because I oversee something and announce it.
Peter summed up the ministry of Jesus like this, “How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and how He went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with him” (Acts 10:38).
Jesus told us to live the same way—“When Jesus had called the Twelve together, He gave them power and authority to drive out all demons and to cure diseases, and He sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal the sick” (Luke 9:2).
Our living Kingdom-focused is the answer to our prayer for God’s Kingdom to come.
For the kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power. (1 Corinthians 4:20)
We hallow God’s name and we make His Kingdom visible when we seek Him as our only priority. Both of these phrases are acknowledgments of His absolute sovereignty and our desire to be empowered to be anointed by the Holy Spirit to go around doing good and delivering all who are under the power of the devil.
I love this short verse from A.B. Simpson—
Help me to work and pray,
help me to live each day,
that all I do may say,
‘Thy kingdom come.’
Check out the other messages in our series Kingdom Prayingby clicking here.
Craig T. Owens 