Your Will Be Done

YOUR WILL BE DONE ON EARTH AS IT IS IN HEAVEN. MATTHEW 6.10.

You look around and what you see everywhere in the world is that people are doing whatever they ‘will’. No one is concerned whether what they do is right or wrong, good or bad for themselves or others! Do you know that all this started with the first man, Adam and his wife Eve, in the garden of Eden? God had told them clearly what was His will for them and that it was good for them. “The LORD God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die” (Gen 2.16,17). The Lord gave them a beautiful and bountiful garden full of trees with all kinds of fruits which they could freely eat. But He did not allow them to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil because He knew that knowledge would only destroy them!

But Adam and Eve decided to carry out their own will through the deception and encouragement of Satan. They disobeyed God’s will. It brought pain, sorrow and death for them and for all their progeny! For from that day, people began to follow their own will in defiance of God. The outcome is the destruction we are bringing on ourselves through our individual and collective pursuit of self-will and disobedience to God’s will!

But from the day man fell in sin through self-will, God has been making provision to save us from self-destruction. By the sacrifices of animals through the centuries, and ultimately the One Eternal Sacrifice on the cross by Jesus Christ God’s Son, He put away sin and death for all those who were and are willing to believe in Him and obey His will.

Dear believer, let us be honest. You who pray, “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” can expect it to be happen only if you increasingly allow the will of God be done in your life. The more you pursue your own ways and the less you follow after the will and ways of God, you will not see God’s kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven. But when you increasingly submit to God’s will and help others too to do it, His kingdom will advance on earth.

Remember Jesus. Not in Eden but in another garden, Gethsemane, Jesus was faced with the greatest trial and struggle of His life. There, He set us an example to follow. He prayed, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done” (Lk 22.42).

Dear believer, be willing to pray like Jesus everyday. With His help, begin to obey God’s will and do the things that please Him and not yourself.
Pray and practise with me: Dear Lord, forgive me for doing things my way and not according to Your will or even against Your will. Help me to want to do Your will and not mine and give me the strength to do it! Amen.