Your ShelfYour Projects

THY KINGDOM COME

14%

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · May 12, 1898

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 24, No. 19.

Read the full edition

«THY KINGDOM COME.»

READER, you frequently hear this prayer recited, read, prayed. In many churches it is read or said every week. In many family circles it is repeated in unison once a day. Perhaps you say it. What do you mean by it? What is meant by the prayer?
Many have this idea, that it means a time of peace and good-will, that wars will cease, and the Lord will reign in the earth. Surely this would be desirable. By some it is believed that the petition means that we should pray for the everlasting kingdom of Christ, where and when there will be no more sin, no more results of sin, no misery, no death. The prayer doubtless includes this. But he alone who repeats the prayer for any of these objects apart from himself, does not really pray the prayer.
“Thy kingdom come”—where? In the world?—Yes. In the church?—Yes. In the home?—Yes. But closer than all this,—in our own heart, and life, and flesh. “Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body.” 1 Cor. 6: 19, 20. “Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin; but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.” For “know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness.”
It means all this to truly pray, “Thy kingdom come.” “Thy,” God’s, kingdom, means His reign, His rule, His holy law, in every respect, in every detail. He who rejects one commandment rejects the King. “Thy kingdom come—in my heart, in my mind, in my soul, in every member of my body.” It means, Let God rule everywhere in me.
Reader, do you pray this prayer, or only say it? Only those who truly pray it will have a part in His eternal kingdom.