The final words of the Lord's Prayer sound similar to those words near the start of the prayer:  "Thy kingdom come."  But really the thought is quite a different one, and like everything mentioned in that great prayer, the point is of eternal significance to each of us as followers of Jesus.

The whole phrase goes:  "Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory."  How often we get side tracked into building our own kingdoms and seeking our own glory, assuming that all it takes is more human power to get the job done.  Yet these deceptions mark the difference between building the kingdom of heaven that Jesus was building and building a counterfeit of that kingdom.

So much of 'religion' is just empire building in the name of God.  People turn to political and materialistic plans to promote themselves and their organisations, assuming that if the organisation can be advanced God will be pleased with them.  But the real kingdom of heaven doesn't belong to any of us.  And the means of promoting that kingdom does not belong to any of us either.

We need to be constantly reminded of our total inability to build God's kingdom without God's guidance and help, and I believe that is why Jesus has included those words in his model prayer for all believers.  God WILL lead us into action if we wait on his guidance, but we need to be eternally vigilant lest the action he told us to take yesterday becomes an institution today... an institution that causes us to lose sight of what our actions should really be building every day.

I must confess that those times when I have felt that I was purely and simply building God's kingdom and not some scheme or organisation of my own have been few and far between.  I believe that many of the schemes were inspired by God to begin with, but unless I keep putting those plans back into the hands of the one who alone has the bigger picture, who alone has the power and who alone deserves the credit, then most of my efforts are going to be lost for eternity.

"Thine is the kingdom, thine is the power, and thine is the glory."  May God never let us forget that.

And one final thought:

The very last words to the Lord's Prayer are:  "Forever and ever, Amen."

This may be a closing which relates to the entire prayer, or it may be primarily referring to the passage being discussed in this article.  Either way, the message is to stay ever mindful of the importance of eternal things by comparison to our mostly temporal obsessions from day to day. If we can keep eternal values in mind, they will keep bringing us back to the right path.

Only God's kingdom is forever and ever.  Only God's glory is forever and ever.  And only God's power is forever and ever.

May he ever keep our eyes focused on these eternal truths.  Amen?

Amen!