We pray as taught by Jesus: "Your Kingdom come your will be done on earth as it is in heaven." We are grateful that we experience something of His rule now in our lives and see it in the lives of other believers. We look forward to the day when every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord. We live by faith, and I love to see faith in others. There is an example of faith that causes me to pause and wonder even though it is so familiar.
An early believer prayed "Remember me when you come into your Kingdom." By itself there is nothing unusual or special about such a prayer. Yet this reference to the future rule and reign of Christ was and is a most startling, dramatic statement of faith, as much as it is a request.
Bloody, beaten, helpless, vulnerable, defeated, near death. Descriptives like these seem to best picture how Jesus appeared as he hung on the cross. Beside him were two other men sharing the same torturous Roman method of execution. The crowd and the one thief curse and mock Jesus. They take our Lord to be exactly as he appears at that moment.
But the other thief! I continue to marvel at his cry of faith; I remain amazed that he sees the King even at his most sacrificial, humiliated moment. The dying thief is convinced that the future belongs to the One who hangs beside him; the One who appears helpless and defeated.
"When you come into your Kingdom." Not a statement made after Jesus calms the raging wind and water. Not a request after Jesus has cast out powerful demons or raised a man back to life. No, this hopeful expectation comes from one cross to another; from one dying man to another. But somehow
the dying thief recognized that the One beside Him was the Lord of life.
May we live and die with the faith of this dying man who is with his Lord in Paradise.
An early believer prayed "Remember me when you come into your Kingdom." By itself there is nothing unusual or special about such a prayer. Yet this reference to the future rule and reign of Christ was and is a most startling, dramatic statement of faith, as much as it is a request.
Bloody, beaten, helpless, vulnerable, defeated, near death. Descriptives like these seem to best picture how Jesus appeared as he hung on the cross. Beside him were two other men sharing the same torturous Roman method of execution. The crowd and the one thief curse and mock Jesus. They take our Lord to be exactly as he appears at that moment.
But the other thief! I continue to marvel at his cry of faith; I remain amazed that he sees the King even at his most sacrificial, humiliated moment. The dying thief is convinced that the future belongs to the One who hangs beside him; the One who appears helpless and defeated.
"When you come into your Kingdom." Not a statement made after Jesus calms the raging wind and water. Not a request after Jesus has cast out powerful demons or raised a man back to life. No, this hopeful expectation comes from one cross to another; from one dying man to another. But somehow
the dying thief recognized that the One beside Him was the Lord of life.
May we live and die with the faith of this dying man who is with his Lord in Paradise.
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