“Pray like this: Our Father who art in heaven! Hallowed be thy name; Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done, as in heaven, also on earth … ”(Matthew 6: 9-10)
I always, reading this Scripture, thought: “Someday His Kingdom will come, the Millennial Kingdom will come to this earth …”
But once the Holy Spirit drew my attention to the fact that when I say that it will come sometime, and I pray about this, then I kind of relieve myself of the responsibility for the coming of this Kingdom. Prayerfully meditating on this scripture, I suddenly saw that His Kingdom should be on earth, and His will should happen. And the Holy Spirit pointed out to me my personal responsibility for this. You might say, “How can we be responsible for the coming of the Kingdom? We are little people. ” But to the extent that God gives us responsibility, we must facilitate the coming of this Kingdom.
I came here to Germany, for the first time quite by accident three years ago. A prayer trip of ministers from KEMO came here, and we joined them literally for one day. Then nothing touched my heart in terms of moving to Germany. I never thought about it or planned it. But later we came here again with my wife and Rebbe Oleg Sukhatsky from Berdichev, prayed here, and I saw a great need. There are a lot of Jews here, and Jews continue to come to Germany, and I saw that in a city like Cologne, with one million population and several thousand Jews, there is no community. I saw a need, and God gave me such a dream: to see a good ministry here, a community.
This may sound very pathetic, but when we arrived, we brought closer the possibility of God’s Kingdom coming here. Not when the Mashiach comes, but maybe a little earlier. For His will to come to this earth. Why? Because we took responsibility for moving here. Therefore, there is a community here today. Therefore, more Jews had a better chance of coming to God.
Our responsibility is our ministry
It is the same within the community. I do not believe at all that a believer can live outside the community and outside the ministry. A person cannot be saved, and at the same time do nothing for God, not contribute to the coming of His Kingdom to this earth. And our life has value for eternity when we are attached to eternity through our ministry to God. Praying: “Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done … ”, we should not send our faith to the distant future, for which we are not entirely responsible.
Wherever you are in your communities and churches, you must understand that there are many areas of responsibility. The Kingdom of God already today comes through our obedience and our responsibility over certain areas, where, unfortunately, at some time there is an abomination of desolation. When a community or church grows, it needs, for example, worship, dance ministry, home group leaders, administrative ministry … And God’s Kingdom, God’s order can come into many areas when we take responsibility for it. We must understand that God’s Kingdom cannot come where no one takes responsibility for it.
Our service to God somehow brings God’s Kingdom closer to this earth. When we invest in what is truly important for God and for the salvation of people and, in particular, Israel, we even bring closer, if I may say so, the coming of the Messiah.
Why do we need ministry?
We, people, do not even imagine how much service is needed, first of all, for us. Observing my life, I understand that if at certain difficult moments in my life I did not have the responsibility for serving God, it would be more difficult for me to remain in the faith. My responsibility always keeps me in good shape before God and before people, and this helps me in difficult times not to slip into unbelief.
We read from the prophet Malachi:
“Your words are insolent before Me, says the Lord. You say: “What are we talking against You?” You say: “It is in vain to serve God, and what is the use that we kept His ordinances and walked in sad clothes in the presence of the Lord of hosts? And now we consider the haughty ones happy: those who commit iniquity suit themselves better, and although they tempt God, they remain whole. ‘ But those who fear God say to each other: ‘The Lord hears and hears this, and before His face a memorable book is written about those who fear the Lord and honor His name.’ (Mal. 3: 13-16)
The Lord listens, that is, He sees everything that we do for Him – all the sacrifices, all the efforts. And we must encourage each other and say, “Brother, sister, this is what you are doing, it is not in vain.” Everything that a person does to serve God, all the sacrifices that he makes – God fixes everything for sure. It’s like the story of Mordecai. When Mordecai saved the king, the king wrote it down, and when a difficult moment came in the life of Mordecai and all the people, at that moment the Lord reminded the king what Mordecai had done. And it didn’t work for Mordecai until he needed real God’s help.
Another important point. Serving God helps us not to focus on ourselves. It helps age sacrifice to act in us when we do through force, through pain, because if it is connected with people, people may be ungrateful or they may do something that will offend us. But we go through all this, we grow to the fullness of the age of the Messiah within God’s community, God’s family, within our responsibility for God’s Kingdom to come at this time, in these days, in our life, in the area that God has entrusted to us personally …
Mercenaries or heirs?
“And they will be Mine, says the Lord of hosts, My property on the day that I will make, and I will have mercy on them, as a man has pity on his son who serves him.” (Mal. 3:17)We can say that God loves everyone. Yes, she loves everyone. But those who serve Him, who make certain sacrifices, who invest their lives in the Kingdom of God, will be especially merciful. We make what is important to Him, important to ourselves. Because we treat this not just as mercenaries, but as children, sons and daughters who understand that they are not investing their lives in someone else’s, but in their own. God shows that the son is the heir, he is the one who understands that by investing in God’s, father’s, he is actually investing in his own.
“And then again you will see the difference between the righteous and the wicked, between those who serve God and those who do not serve Him.” (Mal. 3:18)
Can we say that the Lord here calls those who serve righteous, and those who do not serve as wicked? I think you can assume that. And when we come to God, we will give a certain account of His service. Works are not the basis of our salvation, but our works and our lives are the indicator or result of our salvation. I cannot be saved and still not invest my life in His Kingdom.
I think you remember the parable of the talents, where the one who had one talent buried it. Sometimes we disclaim responsibility and think: “Here are pastors, rabbis …” But each person has a different responsibility. We must think of ourselves modestly, according to the measure of faith. And the God leads everyone from a small responsibility to a greater one. When He sees that He can trust you, He will increase your load in God’s Kingdom.
Let these words “Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done ”will change our lives, return us to our personal responsibility for bringing this Kingdom to where we are today.
By Rodion Samoilovich, Rabbi of the Messianic Community in Cologne, Germany / SchomerTV
Source: https://ieshua.org/rodion-samojlovich-nayomniki-nasledniki-i-tsarstvo-bozhe-na-zemle.htm
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