Laboring in Prayer with God to Bring in His Kingdom and Carry out His Will on Earth

The work of the church is to bring in the kingdom of God on earth, and the way the church accomplishes her work is through prayer; the church should pray to bring in His kingdom on earth, and thus be an outlet of the heaven, allowing heaven’s authority to be expressed on earth.

The church, according to the Bible, is the kingdom of God in this age; today the believers should live the kingdom life in the genuine church life. The church is brought into being through the authority of the kingdom; when a group of men accept the authority of the heavens, they become the kingdom of God and a genuine church.

Whether Jewish or Gentiles, the believers are members of God’s house and citizens of God’s kingdom; as members of God’s house we enjoy His riches, and as citizens of God’s kingdom we have rights and responsibilities.

As citizens of God’s kingdom we need to live in righteousness – we should be right and proper toward others, toward things, and toward God; with us there shouldn’t be anything crooked, improper, or biased.

We need to be strict in dealing with ourselves and kind in dealing with others. The result will be that we have peace toward God and toward all men, and our living will be in the joy of the Holy Spirit. This is the church life: righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit (Rom. 14:17), and this should be our living today in the kingdom of God in the practical church life.

We need to realize that, in the church life today, we are under the kingdom’s rule, government, discipline, and exercise. We entered into the kingdom of God through regeneration, and today we should live the kingdom life in the church life.

We are daily under the divine dispensing of the Divine Trinity, and therefore we should live a kingdom life in the church, growing and developing in the divine life until we reach maturity. Our desperate need today is that we grow in life until we reach maturity.

As the church, it is our responsibility and work to bring in the kingdom of God; the work of the church is to bring in God’s kingdom on earth, and everything we do in the church and as the church should be governed by the principle of the kingdom of God.

The Church’s Responsibility is to Bring in the Kingdom of God and Carry out His Will

The Lord Jesus taught us to pray in this way, Our Father, who is in heaven, Your name be sanctified, Your kingdom come, Your will be done, as in heaven, so also on earth (Matt. 6:10).

The church is responsible for bringing heaven’s will down to earth and for carrying it out on earth (see Matt. 7:21; 12:50). We live in a very pivotal time and in a very critical place: we are at the end of this age and we live in the church life.

We need to realize that the responsibility of the church is to bring in the kingdom of God and carry out God’s will on the earth. We need to have a new understanding and appreciation of what the church life means not just to us but to God and to His kingdom. We are here to bring in the kingdom of God day after day.

The church is formed of many individual saints who are put into Christ to be the corporate Christ; it is the combination of all the small portions of Christ in the saints.

Christ is the Head and the church is the Body of Christ; the church is the continuation, reproduction, and duplication of Christ. Everything that Christ has obtained and attained, now belongs to the church, and everything that Christ has and belongs to Him, now also is to the church.

The works that Christ accomplished are enjoyed and perpetuated through the church. Christ produced the church through His death and resurrection, and now the church is one with Christ to bring in the kingdom of God on earth and to execute God’s will on earth.

The present age is for the church to realize, enter in, stand, and perpetuate the victory of Christ on earth; Christ – the Head – has overcome, and now the Body stands in His victory and must also overcome.

The Lord Jesus destroyed the devil on the cross, produced the church with His resurrection life, and now through the church the Lord wants to bring in and enlarge the kingdom of God on earth.

Therefore, the church must continue the Lord’s victorious work against Satan, and through the church the Father’s will must be carried out and accomplished on earth.

As believers in Christ we are part of the church, and we need to realize that the church’s responsibility is to bring in the will of God on earth and carry it out; it is the responsibility of the church to be one with Christ, the Head, and bring in the kingdom of God on earth and carry out God’s will on earth.

Lord Jesus, grant us to see and realize that the responsibility of the church is to bring in the kingdom of God on earth and carry out His will. Lord, may Your kingdom come and may Your will be done on earth as it is in the heavens! We stand one with You on earth as Your Body for the bringing in of Your kingdom and for the carrying out of Your will. Gain the church’s full cooperation to continue Your victorious work which You carried out against Satan. Amen, Father, may Your will be done, and may Your kingdom come!

Laboring in Prayer with God to Bring in His Kingdom and Carry out His Will on Earth

As believers in Christ we love to pray: we love to open to our Lord and to our Father, bringing Him our needs and wants, and tell Him what is on our heart; prayer is our spiritual breathing, our constant connection to our Lord.

It is necessary that we open to the Lord in all things and converse with Him about everything. It is necessary that we bring our needs before Him, for it matters to Him concerning us.

However, as the Lord reveals in Matt. 18, there is yet another kind of prayer, the prayer of the church which cooperates with the heavens to release on earth what has been released in the heaven and bind on earth what has been bound in the heaven.

We need to labor in prayer with God to bring in His kingdom and carry out His will on the earth.

We do need to pay attention to personal prayers and be before the Lord in prayer concerning our need, but we also need to learn to pray, as the church, prayers that cooperate with the Lord to bring in the kingdom of God and carry out His will on earth.

The ministry of the church is the ministry of the Body of Christ, and the ministry of the Body of Christ is prayer….God has many things stacked up in heaven. He cannot accomplish any of them because there is no outlet for Him on earth. There are numerous things stacked up in heaven. Yet God cannot resolve them because the church has not exercised its free will to stand on God’s side and fulfill God’s goal. Brothers and sisters, you have to remember that the highest and greatest work of the church is to be the outlet of God’s will. The church becomes the outlet of God’s will through prayer. This prayer is not a fragmentary prayer but a prayer that is in the nature of a ministry, a prayer that is in the nature of a work. God gives man vision and opens man’s eyes to see His will. When this happens, man takes his place to pray. (Collected Works of Watchman Nee, vol. 22, “The Prayer Ministry of the Church,” pp. 149-151)

God wants to do something: He wants to bring in His kingdom on earth; if we are open to Him and listen to His word, He will impart into us His heart’s desire, and we as the church will respond in prayer concerning this, so that His will may be done on earth and His kingdom would come. God has many things He wants to do, but He is limited to the cooperation of the church in prayer.

He wants the church to become an outlet of God’s will through prayer so that His kingdom would come in and His will may be done. Genuine prayer is a joint labor with God to bring in His kingdom on earth and carry out His will on earth.

Such a prayer is a spiritual battle, for it overturns the power of darkness and opens the way for God to execute His will on earth (2 Cor. 10:2, 4; Matt. 6:10; Eph. 6:12). The church should pray to bring in the kingdom of God; if there’s no prayer, the kingdom cannot come.

After the rebellion of Satan, the earth fell into his usurping hand; therefore, the will of God cannot be done on earth as it is in heaven. So God created man with the intention to rule the earth so that the earth could be recovered for God’s interest, so that the will of God could be done on earth as in heaven.

We as kingdom people and as part of the church must pray until the earth is fully recovered for God’s will. In all the local churches we need not only more prayer but more kingdom prayer, more prayers in oneness with the Lord for the bringing in of His kingdom and the carrying out of His will.

We need to pray not only for our need but for God’s need to bring in His kingdom today on earth in this age and in the heavens in the next age. We need to enter into this labor of prayer every day and every time we meet to pray together, and we need to labor with the Lord in prayer.

Lord Jesus, gain the prayer ministry of the church so that Your kingdom would come in and Your will may be done on earth. We want to labor with You in prayer by offering You kingdom prayers, prayers on oneness with the heavens to release what has been released in the heavens and bind on earth what the heavens has already bound. Lord, we want to enter into this joint labor with God to bring His kingdom to the earth and to carry out His will on earth! Amen, Lord, may Your kingdom come and may Your will be done on earth as it is in the heavens!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by brother Minoru C. for this week, and portions from, The Prayer Ministry of the Church, pp. 149-151 (by Watchman Nee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Direction of the Lord’s Move (2016 Thanksgiving Conference), msg. 5 (week 5), To Bring In the Kingdom of God (1) – The Kingdom of God as the Spreading of the Divine Life for God’s Eternal Administration.
• Hymns on this topic:
  # God needs men who pray; / Those who lay the tracks for Him; / God’s economy is carried out through men of prayer. / They love not themselves; / But a willing sacrifice. / What they fear—offending God, losing His presence dear. (Song on God’s need for men who pray)
  # Pray to labor with the Lord, / Pray to pave the way for Him; / Pray to move Him and be moved / From the center to the rim. / Pray to labor with the Lord, / Be identified with Him / In His purpose and His aim / Till His blessing floodeth in. (Hymns #786)
  # Teach us to pray that we may cause / The enemy to flee, / That we his evil pow’r may bind, / His prisoners to free. / Teach us to pray and firmly stand / Upon the battleground, / To fight and break the stronghold down, / The enemy confound. (Hymns #767)