Lessons from The Lord’s Prayer by Leong Yew Lum

Week Six

Your Will Be Done on Earth As It Is in Heaven”

The Lord’s Prayer (or some would call it the Disciple’s Prayer) is a framework to teach us how we should pray. It’s not really something to recite mindlessly although there’s nothing wrong in committing it to memory and saying it aloud as a prayer as we sometimes do in our gathering.  The Lord’s prayer summarizes for us in a nutshell what our attitudes and way of life should be as we approach God in prayer.

The 3rd petition “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” once again focuses our attention on God Himself and not us per se. In heaven, where there is no sin, God’s will is perfectly done by the angels and His redeemed people.  But here on earth, God’s will is in a real sense not always done! Now wait a minute, you might ask, “ Doesn’t God’s will always prevail because of His sovereignty and because He is all powerful and all things are fore-ordained as God sees the beginning to the end?”  Well the answer is Yes, God’s “sovereign will” will always be done just as “we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” God will always accomplish His will of purpose as stated in Isaiah 14:24 “Surely, as I have planned, so it will be, and as I have purposed, so it will happen.”

But there’s also a real sense in which God’s will is not being done on earth and that’s got to do with God’ desires and His commandments or His revealed will not being obeyed. God desires that men come to Him and be saved but when Jesus was on earth, His own people rejected Him. Even as Christians, we often find ourselves struggling to obey what God has explicitly commanded in His word, which is why Paul depicts our struggle with sin in Romans 7:19, “For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do–this I keep on doing.”  Yet God in His wisdom and power will work through our wills, decisions and circumstances to always achieve His end. It’s a mystery and an apparent paradox. But it’s also the truth which is why I can always take heart that prayer changes things. Prayer is not about bending God’s will to ours but that our will may conform to His!  True prayer is dominated by His name, His kingdom and His will, not ours. Prayer changes us in how we respond to our circumstances. When we pray “Your will be done….”, we are saying that we do not passively accept how sin has invaded and pervaded every aspect of our fallen world. And so, like the widow in Luke 18:1-8, we persist to pray in order that a wrong may be made right.  And so we can pray that racial injustice be stopped, that a vaccine be found to stop the covid-19 pandemic, that healing takes place in our lives, that souls be converted by the sharing of the gospel, that we be obedient to His commandments….etc etc and ultimately for God to bring His plan to fruition with the coming of Christ so that God’s will be done to His glory.

Prayer:

Dear Heavenly Father, help us to live out Romans 12:1-2 which says, ”Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.”

(This article is adapted from a series of sharing on the subject of Prayer by Yew Lum to his Lifegroup members.)

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