The prayer that Jesus gave His disciples to pray, which has been prayed by His disciples for nearly two thousand years, is for His kingdom to come, and His will to be done, on earth as it is in heaven. We can be sure this prayer is going to be answered, and it is being answered in our time.

      This we can be sure about God’s kingdom—it will never shrink, and never stop growing. We are assured this in Isaiah 9:7: “There will be no end to the increase of His government or of peace, on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness from then on and forevermore. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will accomplish this.”

      The government of the Lord is His kingdom, but it is more than a government. His kingdom is His domain, where His authority is recognized and obeyed—where His will is done. If we are His disciples, His kingdom is growing in us as we learn of Him and behold His glory to become like Him. Wherever we go, we should be revealing His kingdom and extending His domain. Of this we can be sure: man’s governments will all shake and ultimately descend back into the dust from which they came, but God’s kingdom will never stop growing.

      His kingdom is in our midst right now, and growing. Do we see it? If we do, we must give far more of our attention to what God is doing than what the devil, or men, are doing. It is all right to spend a little of our time learning what is happening in the world so we can be used to carry the light to those whose lives are getting darker. But if we have our eyes on the Lord, our lives should be getting ever brighter, and our hope more infectious.

      This is the time of His greatest works. Do not miss them! Go up to His mountain and grow with it. If He is not growing in us, we have somehow departed from the path of life. Go back to where you missed the turn, find Him, and never lose sight of Him again.  

      Biology teaches that when any living thing stops growing, it starts dying. A true disciple of Christ will not stop growing in Him. There were multitudes of followers of Christ, who believed in Him, and by this their life was enriched and blessed. But there were not many disciples. A disciple was much more than a follower. Their lives revolved around one focus—learning from their Master, becoming like Him, and doing the works that He did.

      There is great benefit to being a follower of Jesus if we believe in His atonement for our salvation. This has an eternal benefit. However, there is much more to being a disciple. These are the ones who are running the race to be much more than His subjects—these are seeking the “high calling of God in Christ Jesus” that the Apostle Paul wrote about in Philippians 3. This is a calling so high that this great apostle, who has to be among the greatest Christian missionaries of all time, was not assuming he had attained that at the end of his life!

      I think it is likely Paul did attain this high calling in Christ, but I also think he was being honest in not assuming so yet. I do not think this is revealed to us in this life, because the race is not over until we have endured to the end. I also think this is not revealed to us in this life because we will not be focused on this if we have grown up “in all things into Christ” as we’re called to do. Our focus will be on the Lord attaining the reward He deserves for His sacrifice. When we have fully matured in Christ, it will no longer be about us, but Him.

      In short, when we truly attain to the high calling, we are no longer so self-centered as to even be looking for what we get—but we have become totally focused on the Lord receiving the glory He deserves. This is when we can truly say like Paul did in Galatians 2:20, “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.”

© 2024 Rick Joyner. All Rights Reserved.