One day, as Jesus was in prayer, one of his disciples came over to him as he finished and said, “Would you teach us a model prayer that we can pray, just like John did for his disciples?” So Jesus taught them this prayer: 

• “Our heavenly Father, may the glory of your name be the center on which our life turns.
• May your Holy Spirit come upon us and cleanse us.
• Manifest your kingdom on earth.
• And give us our needed bread for the coming day.
• Forgive our sins as we ourselves release forgiveness to those who have wronged us.
• And rescue us every time we face tribulations.” (Luke 11.1 – 4, Passion Translation, emphasis mine)

Today’s let’s look at “Manifest your Kingdom on earth,” and let it start with me. Cleansing my sin (from yesterday’s meditation), then helping me live into the kingdom. What might that look like?

One way the Kingdom might come is when the King “drives out into his harvest fields many more workers.” Workers who do all kinds of things. For example:

• Feed the poor. (Am I giving to my brother in need? (1 John 3.17, 18)
• Enable the poor to not be poor through business loans. (Can I make another Kiva loan?)
• Set up companies in closed countries by which relationships can be established and the gospel can be lived out.

With respect to that last point, Eddie Broussard of The Navigators’ International team tells the story of an American lady working in an unnamed Muslim country in Eurasia, asking forgiveness of someone she’d offended unwittingly. It’s worth the read.

Here’s the key point – right out of the middle of the story:

Mary [the American wife of the CEO of a business], who had done nothing wrong, nevertheless saw all that was at stake. She stepped out in obedient faith to contact Ellen [a worker she had unintentionally offended], but her phone calls were ignored. So, Mary went to Ellen’s house. When Ellen opened the door, Mary literally got down on her knees and asked Ellen for forgiveness. On her knees. In Muslim Eurasia, this never happens. A CEO’s wife, a woman helping to lead a business, would never do this with an employee. Humility is not part of the cultural ethos. Positional authority in business trumps authentic, relational trust. Those at the top of the power structures almost never say they are sorry or admit error. Ellen was shocked…

Humility. We want our rights. The gospel is about giving up our rights, and the Kingdom is manifest when we live out the gospel. 

Jesus knew that the Father had put him in complete charge of everything, that he came from God and was on his way back to God. So he got up from the supper table, set aside his robe, and put on an apron. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the feet of the disciples, drying them with his apron… After he had finished washing their feet, he took his robe, put it back on, and went back to his place at the table. Then he said, “Do you understand what I have done to you? You address me as ‘Teacher’ and ‘Master,’ and rightly so. That is what I am. So if I, the Master and Teacher, washed your feet, you must now wash each other’s feet. I’ve laid down a pattern for you. What I’ve done, you do. (John 13.3 – 5, 12 – 15, MSG)

Think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself. He had equal status with God but didn’t think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn’t claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death—and the worst kind of death at that: a crucifixion. (Philippians 2.5 – 8, MSG)

And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling. (1 Corinthians 2.1 – 3, ESV)