Love is the ingredient working in our lives to conspire with God for the good of the world and its cities. Do you have a heart throbbing with love for your city? Is it a colossal, ginormous, gargantuan heart like your Father’s heart? Jesus, most compassionately, taught us to pray the Father’s desire for our cities- for the world.
Jesus said, “This then is how you should pray:
‘Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.'"
(Matt. 6:9-10)
The Father’s desire for the earth is his desire for your city because your city is a part of the earth. Don’t you just love the logic of Jesus! Jesus taught that the Father’s heart is for his name to be held in high regard in our cities, for his governance to come to our cities the way it is in heaven. Jesus taught us to pray for the Father to be obeyed on earth (in our cities) the way he is obeyed in heaven. Implication: In this prayer I am asking God to cause me to do his will on earth the way his will is done in heaven. We are under no delusion; we know we will not experience the consummation of these things until the Return of our King. However, how much gospel saturation will he allow us to experience in our lifetime? Can we dream with God? Co-labor with him? God’s dream, according to the passage above, is there will be no place left on earth where his government has not come. His dream is there will be no place left where his will is not being obeyed, which reflects the obedience of heaven. This includes all cities like Memphis, San Francisco, Chicago, Seattle, or ______________. No… Place… Left unsaturated.
As we look across the geographic and social segments of our city, Memphis, we envision the Kingdom expressing itself via disciples and churches reproducing and multiplying to the 4th generation and beyond (2 Timothy 2:2) filling the cracks and crevices of our city. Think Zika virus!
Furthermore, we want to be the kind of people through whom God delights to express his power. Do you want that as well? What kind of people does the Lord delight to use? He takes great pleasure in multiplying his life through those that abide in him (John 15:5). He takes joy in lavishing the resources of heaven on his praying people (Luke 18:1-8). Therefore lets abide, captivated by the Father’s heart, and pray. Pray, conspire with God, for the rapid expansion of the gospel until no place is left (2 Thess. 3:1).