Prayer
and the Will of God
“Your
kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is heaven.” Matthew 6:10
“Father,
if You are willing, remove this cup from Me; yet not My will, but Yours be
done.” Luke 22:42
We
have been looking at the subject of prayer in the last few blogs, and that
continues in today’s as well. Many
people say they do not know how to pray, and so it’s important to look at what
the Bible says about it. Jesus taught
his Apostles to pray, in Matthew 6:9-13, with an example of prayer. This week let’s look at the meaning of, “your
kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”
Selfishness
and our own desire for control, dominates a lot of our lives. The world tells us to look out for number one
We have big sections in books stores on
self-help and self-esteem, and most teach that you are number one. There are some good things in those books too,
but we need look to the scripture for direction on how to live. God’s will might not line up with our will,
and that can make our walk with God difficult. Following our will can cause us
to sin. We will battle self and flesh
our whole life (Romans 7:21-25) and that should be present in your prayers.
This
scripture is deeper than praying for the future kingdom of Christ to come here
on earth, though we should pray for that too.
We need to ready our lives for the kingdom of Christ by seeking the will
of God. It starts by us aligning our
lives to that of Christ. Then we must
seek the will of Christ to be done in our lives. Jesus gave us an example of aligning to the
will of God, even when it was hard. In
Luke 22:42, Jesus was facing the cross and a horrible death. He was also facing, for the first time, a
separation from The Father. The flesh
was weak, but Jesus still submitted to the will of God and used prayer to seek
it. Prayer is where we can find help to
seek and align our self with God’s will.
Obedience
is the outcome of us seeking the will of God for our life. We are to be obedient to God. He desires it more than sacrifice (1 Sam.
15:22). Did you know that it is even a
sin to not do the good you know you should do?
That means that if it’s the right thing to do and don’t do it, you sin
(James 4:17). Sometimes doing God’s will
does not come easy, and it does come in conflict with what we want to do. That means we need to go to God in prayer
about it.
Remember
that Gods will is, “good, pleasing, and perfect” (Romans 12:2). The devil will want you to hate God’s
will. He will want you to think there are
problems with it, and it is intrusive.
Yet, we know that it’s anything but that, once we are aligned with
it. Romans 12:1, tells us to go as far
as offering our lives as living sacrifices to God, and not to conform to the
patterns of this world. In doing so, we can be transformed to the will of God,
as our minds are renewed. We need to
have our minds renewed, and that will begin by seeking it through prayer.
Jesus,
in the prayer, says the will of God be done on earth as it is in heaven. We need to pray that what is done here on
earth to be like that in heaven. Heaven
on earth will truly happen when Christ comes back to earth, but we can always
seek revival to take place in our lives, and in Christ’s Church. We could see a glimpse of heaven on earth
through a church that is walking in the will of God. It is hard, even for a church like it is for
people at times, to align with God’s will.
Church is made up of people and so, if the people aren’t aligned to
God’s will, then the church will not be too.
This
prayer may be simply written, but it has powerful and deep meaning. I have only covered the surface of what it
says. There are books written on this
subject. I hope that we all truly take
time daily to seek God’s will for our lives, our church, our families, our
nation and we start that in prayer. The
Holy Spirit will guide us, help us pray and help us to find the answers in
God’s word. Seek God’s will today!
All scripture is from The New American Standard Bible, copyright 1995 by The Lockman Foundation, La Habra, CA
Photo by Thomas G Carter
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