Roger and Karen Roth
I look forward to surveying the deeper things of God. I don’t want to lose focus of the re-creation and the entirety of that whole process, for it is the framework into which all other spiritual endeavors fit at the present time. Otherwise we become as those who are carried away “by every wind and wave of doctrine.” WIND of teaching, because they are spiritual things with no apparent source or direction, WAVE of teaching, because they come along and wash over the Christian community with regularity, but leave no lasting mark.
The topic of prayer, in general, can be one of these winds and waves of teaching. Important, indeed vital but if not focused with purpose and direction, leads us only in a land of wandering. This is why I choose the designation “Kingdom Prayer” because it is prayer that manifests the kingdom and can only be birthed in the Kingdom. It is prayer that leads us down the course of the re-creation with purpose. If we don’t understand this, then we may not understand that almost any prayer can be a kingdom prayer and almost any kingdom prayer can be reduced to, for the lack of a better phrase, “customary or traditional prayer”.
One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.” He said to them, “When you pray, say: ” ‘Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come.Give us each day our daily bread. Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us. And lead us not into temptation.’ “Then he said to them, “Suppose one of you has a friend, and he goes to him at midnight and says, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread, because a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I have nothing to set before him.’ “Then the one inside answers, ‘Don’t bother me. The door is already locked, and my children are with me in bed. I can’t get up and give you anything.’ I tell you, though he will not get up and give him the bread because he is his friend, yet because of the man’s boldness he will get up and give him as much as he needs.
“So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened. “Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” LUKE 11:1-13
The Scripture from Luke gives us a preparatory insight into our discussion. The question is prayer. The disciples ‘observed’ Jesus pray and said, within themselves, ‘there must be more, this is different than we’ve been taught and it produces something ours does not.” To listen you only get the audible part of prayer, but when you observe, you broaden your prayer into the inaudible areas of the sound spectrum. So the disciples ask Jesus, “Hey, John taught his disciples to pray, how about doing this for us also?”
Now we know John’s focus was the kingdom and the “one who should come after,” that is Jesus. So Jesus speaks the “Our Father” not as a prayer but as a pattern of prayer, “when you pray say” or in Mathew 6, “after this manner pray ye.” There are principles in prayer that take us through the stages or levels of prayer and this is the pattern Jesus was teaching them. In other words when they asked Him to teach them to pray he didn’t teach them prayers but gave them a template to bring them into a prayer progression with the central purpose being, that His Kingdom would come and His will would be done in earth as in heaven. This, to me, is what Kingdom prayer is all about.
It is not about commanding and demanding, it is not about controlling my material world. It is not about unleashing our great spiritual power, it is not about changing the political and religious structures into our vision or what the world should be. Kingdom prayer at its heart is about understanding and doing the will of God and how in doing that the Kingdom that is in heaven also becomes the Kingdom of this earth. Kingdom prayer is about the Kingdom. That is why Jesus got beyond the place where we pray for things. Notice He isn’t pre-occupied with the types of prayer the disciples learned in Judaism or that we often pray, not that our praying these things is wrong or contrary. Prayers like, “give me this job, “help my sister in her struggle”, “heal my father”, “increase my bank account”, “sell my car”, “give us good leaders”, bless our economy”, ‘give us good weather”, “provide us with a vacation”, “rid the world of evil”, “have them like me”, help me get a retirement condo in Florida” and so on. Understand there is nothing wrong with this type of prayer and I’m not saying we shouldn’t pray these things but it is not what I would call kingdom prayer.
Kingdom prayer is prayer that is elevated. Jesus speaks of this progression when He says, ask and it shall be given (first dimension prayer, most of what modern prayer has limited itself to; seek and you shall find (second dimension prayer, it requires more than putting forth something to God and making it His responsibility to respond, it requires the prayer of the word) knock and it shall be opened (third dimension, this is Kingdom prayer for so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ) Peter, in essence, lays out a format in the first chapter of his book on becoming prayer. In Kingdom prayer you don’t pray a prayer as much as you become the prayer.
It is like Jesus saying, I only do that which I see my Father do. His understanding the will of his Father and then manifesting it on earth is how Jesus brought the Father’s kingdom that was in heaven to earth. He didn’t speak the /word only He was the Word. In Kingdom prayer we become the Word. This is prayer that molds us and changes us so that we don’t have to continually pray for God’s blessing or finances or good health etc. because, to paraphrase Jesus, all these things are added unto us. When we only pray from our earthly need and earthly understanding we don’t allow God to raise us to the height of our purpose. Earthly prayers (again nothing wrong with this) are born out of our earthly circumstances but Kingdom prayers are birthed above out of the will of God.
That I think is why people who take prayer seriously and seek the Kingdom (meaning they have to be seeking the Body) have come to the understanding that the whole of prayer involves three basic things. First, knowing and doing the will of God and Second, using and being the authority and presence of God in the earth and Third, growing in love with God so you can grow in love with the Body and growing in love with the Body so you can grow in love with God.
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