Our series during Ordinary time will explore the revelation of God’s Kingdom through his Son. We will look specifically how the incarnation—the ministry, passion, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ—reveals the long-promised Kingdom of God breaking into human history demonstrating God’s love, destroying the powers that ravaged creation, and displaying the Messiah’s promise (to continue reading this essay, click on image above).
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YOUR KINGDOM COME
Pastoral Resources | 2025-26 Themes At-A-Glance
The Messiah in Gethsemane: The Kingdom’s Submission, Mark 14:32-42; Hebrews 5:7-10
The bloodstream of the Kingdom of God is His subjects’ submission to the Father (i.e., “Your Kingdom come, Your will be done”). It is modeled after the submission of the Messiah to the Father, who did not assert His own will but gladly surrendered Himself to God. Gethsemane is the garden/space where the King secured His Crown through His unconditional availability to God, and it sets the pattern by which everyone who follows Him enters and extends that Kingdom. In that fateful hour we see powerfully that truth embodied: the Son’s eternal submission to His Father, embracing human agony and prayer, perfecting obedience through His suffering that revealed Him as our Savior and Priest.
Our Focus Today
Obedience Learned Through Suffering, Mark 14:39–40 and Hebrews 5:8
In praying petitions of His own heartfelt surrender again and yielding Himself to the Father once more, Jesus of Nazareth, the Son who was Heir of all things, learned obedience by the things He suffered. His pattern reveals that God forges mature obedience through trial, developed in the repeated giving up of one’s own will for God’s.
Invocation
Father, I confess honestly now that I would rather submit once and be done to the trials You wish me to overcome. Yet, You call me to take my stand and confront the same trials again and again. Teach me, as You taught our Savior Jesus, to learn obedience through the things that I suffer and endure. Give me grace to return to You again and again, making the same petitions with the same prayer, that Your Spirit might employ these trials to forge in me the character that pleases You. Amen.
Gloria Patri
Glory be to the Father,
And to the Son and to the Holy Spirit:
As it was in the beginning,
Is now, and ever shall be,
World without end. Amen, amen.
Chronological Scripture Readings for Today
These Scriptures allow us to read through the entire Bible in one year in chronological order.
Friday: Mark 15.2-20; Matt. 27.11-31; Luke 23.1-25; John 18.28-19.16
Psalms and Proverb for Today
These Scriptures allow us to read through the Psalms and Proverbs each month.
Friday: Psalm 2, 32, 62, 92, 122 and Proverbs 2
Obedience Learned Through Suffering, Mark 14:39–40 and Hebrews 5:8
In praying petitions of His own heartfelt surrender again and yielding Himself to the Father once more, Jesus of Nazareth, the Son who was Heir of all things, learned obedience by the things He suffered. His pattern reveals that God forges mature obedience through trial, developed in the repeated giving up of one’s own will for God’s.
Reflection
The development of mature obedience in a disciple’s life comes from character; it cannot be assumed or created quickly or easily but the Holy Spirit forges it through repeated surrender. Even Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God, learned obedience through what He suffered; He prayed and lived the same submission again as His trial pressed on. Let us not despise the trials we endure, those struggles that require us to encounter the same challenges again and again, for it is precisely in this repeated engagement and challenge that God shapes us into people like Christ, through obedience in us.
Engaging God’s Word Today
What area of testing and surrender is God asking you to make, not once, or even twice, but again and again, over and over, the same yielding in the same struggle? How might you come to see that this repeated testing is not to be seen as futile or as failure but as the very school where the Spirit forging deeper obedience in you?
Nicene Creed
We believe in one God, The Father Almighty,
Maker of heaven and earth and of all things visible and invisible.
We believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only Begotten Son of God,
Begotten of the Father before all ages,
God from God, Light from Light, True God from True God,
Begotten not created, of the same essence as the Father,
through Whom all things were made.
Who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven
and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit and the virgin Mary and became human.
Who for us too, was crucified under Pontius Pilate, suffered and was buried.
The third day He rose again according to the Scriptures, ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,
and His kingdom will have no end.
We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and life-giver,
Who proceeds from the Father and the Son.
Who together with the Father and Son is worshiped and glorified.
Who spoke by the prophets.
We believe in one holy, catholic, and apostolic church.
We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sin,
and we look for the resurrection of the dead
and the life of the age to come. Amen.
The Lord’s Prayer
Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the Kingdom, and the power, and the glory for ever. Amen.
Doxology
Praise God from whom all blessings flow;
Praise Him all creatures here below;
Praise Him above ye heavenly host;
Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Amen.
Benediction
Thank You, Father of goodness and truth, that You intend to conform me to the image and pattern of Your Son and my Savior, Jesus Christ. You formed Him on the path of trials He endured, so help me now not to despise the trials that ask surrender from me each day. May Your Son who learned obedience through suffering be my pattern and my strength; let each repeated yielding forge a deeper faithfulness and strength in me. As You shaped Your Son through trial, so complete Your good work in me, for Your glory. Amen.
Scripture Memory for this season
Rev. 21:1-5, Creation’s Groaning: The Kingdom’s Cosmic Scope
1 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. 2 And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. 4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” 5 And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”
Scripture Engagement
As disciples of Jesus, the Churches of Christ the King strongly seek to engage the Scriptures to discover the centrality of Christ and his Kingdom in the prophetic and apostolic writings. You will find a rich treasure of resources on engaging Scripture at the Center for Scripture Engagement of Taylor University.
Books We Are Reading this Church Year, and When
• The Most Amazing Story Ever Told, Dr. Don Davis (during season of Advent)
• Get Your Pretense On, Dr. Don Davis (during season of Christmas)
• Destined for the Throne, Paul Billheimer (during season of Epiphany)
• The Presence of the Future, George Eldon Ladd (during seasons of Lent, Holy Week, Easter and Ascension)
• Who Gets to Narrate the World?, Robert E. Webber (during seasons of the Coming of the Holy Spirit, and Headship)
• Kingdom, Church and World: Biblical Themes for Today, Howard Snyder (during season of Harvest)
• The Gospel of the Kingdom, George Eldon Ladd (during the seasons of Hope and Remembering the Saints, Exalting the King)
Book Reading Reflection: The Gospel of the Kingdom
“When the word refers to God’s Kingdom, it always refers to His reign, His rule, His sovereignty, and not to the realm in which it is exercised. Psalm 103: 19, “The Lord has established his throne in the heavens, and his kingdom rules over all.” God’s kingdom, His malkuth, is His universal rule, His sovereignty over all the earth. Psalm 145: 11, “They shall speak of the glory of thy kingdom, and tell of thy power.” In the parallelism of Hebrew poetry, the two lines express the same truth. God’s Kingdom is His power. Psalm 145: 13, “Thy kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and thy dominion endures throughout all generations.” The realm of God’s is the heaven and earth, but this verse has no reference to the permanence of this realm. It is God’s rule which is everlasting. Daniel 2:37, “You, O king, the king of kings, to whom the God of heaven has given the kingdom, the power, and the might, and the glory.” Notice the synonyms for kingdom: power, might, glory—all expressions of authority.
These terms identify the Kingdom as the “rule” which God has given to the king. Of Belshazzar, it was written, “God has numbered the days of your kingdom and brought it to an end” (Dan. 5: 26). It is clear that the realm over which Belshazzar ruled was not destroyed. The Babylonian realm and people were not brought to an end; they were transferred to another ruler. It was the rule of the king which was terminated, and it was the rule which was given to Darius the Mede (Dan. 5: 31). . . .
The Kingdom of God is His kingship, His rule, His authority. When this is once realized, we can go through the New Testament and find passage after passage where this meaning is evident, where the Kingdom is not a realm or a people but God’s reign. Jesus said that we must “receive the kingdom of God” as little children (Mark 10:15). What is received? The Church? Heaven? What is received is God’s rule. In order to enter the future realm of the Kingdom, one must submit himself in perfect trust to God’s rule here and now.”
~ Ladd, George Eldon. The Gospel of the Kingdom. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, Grand Rapids, MI: 2000. Electronic Edition (copyright © 1959, The Paternoster Press), Location180, 185, 200.
On Eagles Wings Prayer Focus: A Long Time Comin‘
The Ascension and the Day of Pentecost: The Kingdom’s Cosmic Authority, Acts 1:6-11; 2:32-36, Eph. 1:20-23
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