Father, Your name be sanctified! Your kingdom come and Your will be done!

This week we are getting into the matter of Taking the Lead to be a Man of Prayer. The Lord Jesus was a Man of Prayer – He was not just a praying person, but He was a Man of Prayer. The example of prayer given as a pattern by the Lord Jesus increases our seeking of the kingdom of the heavens as the Father’s heart’s desire.

This pattern also affords us our need of the divine supply of grace to fulfill all the supreme and strict requirements of the kingdom of the heavens for the Father’s good pleasure. In the Lord’s supreme teaching on the mount concerning prayer, He instructed us twice on how to pray. Here’s what Matt. 6:9-13 says,

Our Father who is in the heavens, Your name be sanctified; Your kingdom come; Your will be done, as in heaven, so also on earth. Give us today our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And do not bring us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen

The Lord’s supreme teaching on prayer

Many Christians call Matthew chapters 5 through 7 “the sermon on the mount”, but I like how brother Lee calls it – the Lord’s supreme teaching. In the whole human history there’s no higher teaching than this – it is the supreme teaching concerning the high living of the kingdom people.

In this supreme teaching, the Lord Jesus spoke twice concerning prayer. He never said we should “recite the Lord’s prayer”, but He gave us an example of how to pray as kingdom people, and He accompanied it with four negative charges as warnings.

As the people of the kingdom of the heavens, our living should be of the highest standard and our prayer should be according to principles taught by the Lord here.

Father, Your name be sanctified!

First of all, we as the praying ones are the children of our heavenly Father, born of God, and we pray to our Father who is in the heavens. We have the right and the authority to call God our Father, because we are begotten of God (John 1:12-13).

As the children of our heavenly Father, the first thing we pray for is that the Father’s name be sanctified (Matt. 6:9).

To be sanctified means to be separated and distinct from all that is common (Eph. 1:4). God’s name is not sanctified today – the people in the world consider God being a god among other gods, and they don’t respect Him and honor Him as the only One and True God.

For our Father’s name to be sanctified, we need to express Him in our living – we need to live a sanctified life, a life that is separated from being common and that is saturated with His holy nature (see 1 Pet. 3:15-16; Eph. 5:26; Heb. 12:10; 2 Pet. 1:4; and Ezek. 36:21).

When we pray, Father, Your name be sanctified! – we are also required to be sanctified persons, distinct and separate from those around us, holy as God is, saturated with the divine nature.

As holy children of our holy Father we pray in oneness with Him, Our Father, may Your name be sanctified! Sanctify us and make us holy just like You, that we may sanctify Your name in our living!

Father, Your kingdom come!

Today the kingdom of the world belongs to God’s enemy, Satan, who usurps the whole world with the earth and the people on it for his evil plan (see John 12:31). As the kingdom people we today pray that the Father’s heavenly kingdom come (Matt. 6:10).

Before Satan rebelled against God, he was the archangel appointed by God to rule over the world (see Ezek. 28:13-14), and that’s why today, after his fall, he is called the ruler of this world and he holds all the kingdoms of this world and their glory in his hand (Luke 4:6).

Lord, even in this evil world, we pray that Your kingdom would come on the earth!

There’s no joy today in the kingdom of Satan, because there’s no peace! No matter how much the United Nations talk about peace and try to make peace, there’s no peace in the world. Why? Because there’s no righteousness! In the kingdom of God there’s righteousness, which brings in peace and results in joy in the Holy Spirit (Rom. 14:17).

In order for God’s kingdom to come today on the earth in its manifestation, we as the kingdom people need to live in the reality of God’s kingdom today, in the church life! We need to allow Christ as the life-giving Spirit to rule within us so that we may have righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.

Father, Your will be done on the earth!

The rulers and the presidents today think it is their will that is being done, and many of them have done their best to enforce their evil will. People like Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin have done much evil, cooperating with Satan in destroying humanity. But they were also destroyed by God – eventually, all human beings die.

We as the kingdom people pray that the Father’s divine will be done on the earth as it is being done in the heavens (Matt. 6:10). This means that we pray that the heavenly ruling would be brought to the earth (see Matt. 8:9, Rom. 5:17). When the Father’s heavenly ruling is brought to the earth, His will shall be done on earth as it is in the heavens.

Lord, thank You for regenerating us with Your divine life. Oh, Father, may Your name be sanctified on earth. May You be sanctified in our life, causing us to be separated and holy unto You, saturated with You. Father, may Your kingdom come on the earth – may there be righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit among men! Father, Your will be done on the earth as it is being done in the heavens!

References and Further Reading

• This sharing is inspired very much from brother Witness Lee’s speaking in the book, The God-Man living (see msg. 11), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Taking the Lead as Elders and Responsible Ones, week 5.
• Hymns on this topic:
  # Father, let Thy kingdom come, / Let it come with living power;
  # God’s Kingdom today is a real exercise, / But when Christ comes to reign it will be a great prize;
  # Come let us speak till the kingdom of the Lord comes down.
• Picture source: the Lord’s prayer.