Tuesday, March 24, 2020

Kingdom, Power, Glory. Forever!


Meditations on the Sermon on the Mount



March 24, 2020

Kingdom, Power, Glory. Forever!



“For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.”

Matthew 6:13



Early on, the New Testament church took the words of Jesus’ prayer in Matthew 6:9-13 and incorporated them into the liturgy of worship services. The phrase, “For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen” was added to the liturgy and eventually those words were inserted in some later manuscripts of Matthew’s Gospel. The Old Testament prophet Jeremiah truly waxed eloquent when he affirmed this same nature of God: “Surely Yahweh's mercies are not over, his deeds of faithful love not exhausted; every morning they are renewed; great is his faithfulness!” (Lamentations 3:22-23 NJB). I find much comfort in these affirmations of the eternal nature of God.



I was born into the Baby Boom era, and I have lived through the post WWII era, the Korean and Viet Nam war era, Camelot, Watergate, recessions and periods of inflation and the post 9-11 eras. There have been periods of history when we sang “happy days are here again” and hoped they would never end; but they did. There have been periods of history that seemed intolerable; but they too passed. The truest proverb of all time is this too shall pass. Everything has its season; everything will pass away except the Kingdom of God. Jesus’ life, death, resurrection and ascension ushered in the eternal new era of God’s Kingdom. Just as God’s mercies are renewed every morning, so also His Kingdom is born anew with each new birth of a follower of Jesus. “For yours is the kingdom forever.” Hallelujah.



My Takeaway: God’s power is eternal; therefore “I am certain that God, who began the good work within (me), will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns” (Philippians 1:6).



“For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.”



Hallelujah!



Sē’lah

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(Selah is a word that appears in the Book of Psalms that I often use as the Complimentary Closing in my correspondence. Its meaning, as I use the word, is to pause and think about these things.)



These meditations are written by Alex M. Knight as he seeks the life in Christ as his way of life.  The meditations are published on the BLOG, http://seekingthelifeinchrist.blogspot.com/ and they are also distributed on the Constant Contact email server. You may subscribe to this email service by sending an email to: amkrom812@gmail.com. The BLOG is also available on Amazon Kindle, by subscription.



Copyright © 2020 by Alex M. Knight



Publications by Alex M. Knight:



  • Seeking the Life in Christ, Meditations on the New Testament and Psalms has been published and is now available at Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle.



  • The second edition of  First Think – Then Pray is available on Amazon Kindle.



Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

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