“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.” (Matthew 6:13). As we come to the end of the Lord's prayer, the Savior teaches us one more time that this is, in fact, the Lord's prayer. It's His kingdom, His power, His glory. He's the one calling the shots, running the show, keeping everything afloat and on course. It is one thing to say, Thy kingdom come, but it is another thing to say, the kingdom is Thine, let it come in the time and the manner of Thy choosing. It is one thing to say, deliver us from evil, but it is another thing entirely to say, the Power is Thine, I trust that Thou wilt go before my face to fight my battles, or prepare a way for my escape, or bear me up that I may have the strength and the patience to endure my suffering indefinitely. It is so strange that we are so reluctant to turn our will over to the Lord. Imagine if a billionaire told us to give him all of our money, and then he told us he was going to take all of our money and all of his money and put it in a joint checking account. God invites us to sacrifice and serve and labor in building up His Kingdom because He wants it to be nice and ready to hand it over to us when the time is right. God wants us to obey His commandments and trust in Him so that we can use His power in our lives. He wants us to store up glory in heaven so that He can hold it in safekeeping until the day that we have the constitutional fortitude to receive it in its fullness without bursting into flames. By exercising enough humility to declare without hypocrisy and without guile, “Thine is the kingdom,” we strip ourselves sufficiently of our pride to enter into that kingdom. And then it is no longer “Thine” but “Ours.” By becoming willing enough to submit to all that the Father sees fit to inflict upon us so that we may say “Thine is the power,” we invite the constant companionship of the Holy Ghost into our lives to transform us into saints, suffused with our Father's power. By focusing our service on truly helping others and not being recognized or rewarded for our efforts, we demonstrate to our Father with sufficient force that we are as committed as He is to bringing about the immortality and eternal life of His children, such that our Father can't help but crown us with His glory, forever and ever Amen.
