“Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and your dominion endures through all generations. The LORD is trustworthy in all he promises and faithful in all he does.”

The Lord’s Prayer starts out “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:9-10).  Jesus, first and foremost, recognizes the Father as a king, with a kingdom that eventually rules both heaven and earth. This kingdom does not rise and fall like so many ancient kingdoms where the rulers even made themselves deities (e.g., Caesar). Our verse today, Psalm 145:13 declares that His “dominion endures through all generations” and lasts forever.  

Jesus’ arrival some 2,000 years ago brings the taste of eternity to a world shattered by sin without hope beyond what happens after the individual dies. His parables speak of this kingdom that will reign forever and have dominion over all creation. Jesus comes to establish this kingdom, interjecting hope because it endures beyond the grave. It endures because the Creator of the world sits on its throne and invites the desperate and hopeless into it.  

As believers we can lose sight of the reality that we belong to a realm that is not of this earth. We are travelers through this temporary reality. Our citizenship is elsewhere, with loyalty and service to our King Jesus. His death and resurrection have made the way to give us a new identity. In John, Jesus prays for His followers: “I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.”

From our temporary earthly perspective, we can grasp eternity going forward. We, as the created, have a set point in time when we arrived on this round globe in a massive cosmic array. The future is ahead of us because we can be a part of it. But God reigned before the physical existence we know as the universe ever began. We should pause and reflect on the fact that God is self-existent and has always been. His eternity works in both directions. “Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God” (Psalm 90:2).

Theologians have a name for this truth about God – aseity, which comes from the Latin a se, meaning “from himself.” God has life in himself and draws unending sustenance from himself. God needs nothing to complete himself. Our finite existence is limited, but God is not. Our limitations and boundaries do not, even in the smallest sense, apply to God.

We can easily make the mistake of limiting God because we don’t fully comprehend how God could be “from everlasting to everlasting.” In doing so, we think of Him as small, easily placed into a box that we can grasp.  

But what if we thought of God as someone who cannot be fully grasped? Now hang with me for a second, as that might offend some. What if eternity is all about continually learning about God without end? Our God is infinite, His ways are beyond our understanding, but heaven gives us the opportunity to enjoy Him forever as He reveals himself more and more.  

In this earthly existence, many crave and yearn for knowledge and understanding, but in the eternal realm that is to come for the believer, this yearning will be satisfied without end. The good news is that the journey can start now when we study and mediate on His Word and step out in faith through the power of Holy Spirit. God has so much to show us!

Dear Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, now and forever. Amen.