On 25 August 2024, the UK Summer retreat came to an end with a powerful message taken from Matthew 6:10 in which Jesus teaches his disciples to pray “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” 

Our salvation does not end there. The Lord does not just call us and then leave us. We are called to be sent and we see this pattern through both the Old and New Testaments, with Abraham, Noah, Moses and all the disciples and apostles.

Many believers neglect this part, thinking it is enough to simply attend church on Sunday and live their own lives the rest of the week. But the Lord did not call us like that. He wants us to co-work with Him in building the Kingdom of God and He is teaching us that when we pray, this should be our number one prayer topic.

Jesus is the one who lived this out with His whole life. He lived fully for the Kingdom of God, even going all the way to the cross. Even when it was painful and meant a lot of suffering, He still prayed “Your will be done, not mine”. He never doubted, He never fell away. He always trusted God’s plan and God’s leading.

His life was the life of responding to the love of God. God poured out so much love into the whole of His creation and then again into this world through His Son Jesus Christ. After receiving that love and believing in Christ, we need to respond to that love.

This is how the Kingdom of God grows. Adam fell into unbelief and disobedience, but Jesus obeyed and became the new Adam and the true Son and through Him, the love of God came to the whole world. Even though we were sinners, we have been grafted into that same tree unconditionally and now God wants to use us to spread His love to the whole world.

The Kingdom of God is between already and not yet. Christ already came, salvation is here. But the Kingdom of God has not yet been completed. There is the history that is yet to be written and the Kingdom that is yet to be built. May we be the ones who respond to the great love of the Lord and follow His example, giving our whole lives to build the Kingdom of God and save one more soul.