The Lord’s Prayer tells us that, when we ask God’s kingdom to come, we pledge to follow His Will. This devotional reading looks at how God’s Will is done on earth.
Nuggets
- We are to use God’s Will as our guide.
- God’s will is being done in Heaven right now, and He wants us to be doing the same right now on earth.
We tend to think that God’s kingdom will only come at Jesus’ second coming. That is not correct.
We can – and do – take part of God’s kingdom here on earth. Let’s dig in and see how.
Let's Put It into Context
To read devotions in the Habitual Holiness of Heart and Life theme, click the button below.
Here is a running list of nuggets for the theme.
Devotions in the Commit to Grow Our Habits study
Here is a running list of nuggets for the study.
“Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Mt. 6: 10 NIV)
Thy Will be Done
“… your will be done…” (Mt. 6: 10 NIV)
We are to use God’s Will as our guide.
As children of God, we are to be like Him. “For the Scriptures say, ‘You must be holy because I am holy’” (I Pet. 1: 16 NLT).
We like to think God’s Will is who we marry and what job we have. God is concerned about that.
But remember, God is more interested in our spiritual condition than our physical condition.
God’s Will is that we follow His laws and commandments. They are to help us transform to have His character.
Mangey felt that we understand God’s Will through reason and revelation. We have to think things through to understand what God is asking of us and what we need to do to follow His laws and commandments.
The intent of the laws and commandments is to make us pure and holy. This mortified our sin. Mortify means to place a death penalty on our sins.
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Glossary
I don’t know if I agree with Hambleton. He said that there are three wills of God.
- Secret will
- Providential will
- Revealed will
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I agree with the providential or divine will. God wants all to gain salvation (I Tim. 2: 4). Salvation is the gift of life through the deliverance from condemnation and sin to acceptance and holiness and changes us from being spiritually dead to spiritually alive.
- Sin is not believing that Jesus is our Savior to save us from our actions by humans that disobey God and break one of His reasonable, holy, and righteous laws and commandments, goes against a purpose He has for us, or follows Satan’s promptings.
- Holy means to be set apart — because of our devotion to God — to become perfect, and morally pure while possessing all virtues and to serve and worship God.
- Perfection means we reach a state of maturity because the combination of the spiritual graces form, when all are present, spiritual wholeness or completeness — holy, sanctified, and righteous.
- Spiritual graces are worldly morals that have been submitted to God to further His kingdom instead of enhancing this world.
- Sanctified means to be set free from sin.
- Righteous means we are free from sin because we are following God’s moral laws.
- Pure means not being sinful or having the stain of sin.
- Virtues are standards of moral excellence.
- Perfection means we reach a state of maturity because the combination of the spiritual graces form, when all are present, spiritual wholeness or completeness — holy, sanctified, and righteous.
- Holy means to be set apart — because of our devotion to God — to become perfect, and morally pure while possessing all virtues and to serve and worship God.
- Holiness is the transcendent excellence of His nature that includes elements of purity, dedication, and commitment that lead to being set apart.
- Purity means possessing God’s moral character, having eliminated the stain of sin.
- Spiritual death is the spiritual separation from God that occurred as a consequence of Adam and Eve’s original sin.
- The spiritually alive are those who have ABCDed, so they are no longer separated from God.
Glossary
The ABCDs of Salvation
If you have not become a believer in Christ, please read through the
Plan of Salvation and prayerfully consider what God is asking you to do.
A – admit our sins
B – believe His Son Jesus is our Redeemer
C – confess God as Sovereign Lord
D – demonstrate that commitment by making any changes needed in our lives to live the way in which God has called us
The Disciple’s Job Description
Moore described God’s revealed will. He wrote, “The revealed will of God is to be the paramount, exclusive, all-determining law of human conduct.” God tells us how He wants us to live.
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These laws and commandments tell us that as they reveal God’s character to us. He also reveals Himself to us through promptings by the Holy Spirit. Other ways are through His Word and His children.
I don’t think God has a secret will. Yeah, He may not have revealed everything to us yet — and may not ever — but that doesn’t mean it is a secret.
If God has a certain way of life that He wants us to live but doesn’t reveal it to us, He is setting us up for failure. God would never do that.
Instead, God tests us and allows trials that draw us closer to Him. Yes, the difficulties in life are also God’s Will.
Why? God isn’t only interested in us checking off the do’s and don’ts. Perfection — growing mature — is all about being like God. It is our moral duty to follow God’s Will — regardless of our circumstances.
On Earth as Heaven
“… on earth as it is in heaven” (Mt. 6: 10 NIV)
God’s will is being done in Heaven right now, and He wants us to be doing the same right now on earth.
Those doing God’s will right now in heaven are the angels. We’ve already talked about who they are.
What we have to figure out is the how and what they are doing.
Winslow and Blythe said that, whatever God asked the angels to do, they do it, harmoniously, cheerfully, promptly, perfectly, constantly, enthusiastically, and orderly. They don’t kick back at what He says. They submit to His Will.
Resources
We know that God wants us to be unified with Him and with other disciples. He wants us all to be working together on His plan.
That common goal should bring us happiness. All doing our part to expand God’s kingdom should bring us solidarity.
We should do this work promptly. Through our prayer life, we should know what God is asking us to do. He doesn’t force us to do it but rather allows us to choose.
We have to choose to do God’s Will God’s way in everything we do. He is looking for perfect — total — commitment. He won’t accept a partial commitment or a lip service commitment.
In other words, we have to be enthusiastic about doing God’s Will. We have to have the right attitude.
The angels follow God’s Will in an orderly fashion. God has plans (Jer. 29: 11), and He works those plans. Nothing is out of step or off road.
Vaughan said something that jiggled my thought process. He said that, whenever God looks out in Heaven, He sees Himself.
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No, God isn’t like ego on guardians of the Galaxy part two. He isn’t wiping out the universe.
We know there is individuality among the angels. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be a Gabriel nor a Michael. For that matter, there wouldn’t be a God, Jesus, and Holy Spirit.
Vaughan said that God sees a reflection of Himself. To me, that makes sense.
God is asking us to imitate Him here on earth (Eph. 5: 1). If Scriptures, tell us how it will be like throughout eternity, then we should expect to imitate Him from here on out.
I see it, like God is looking in a mirror. We are to reflect His glory.
But we realize what this means — or more importantly what it doesn’t mean. We can’t be converted and sit around to wait on Heaven to get busy.
It means we are to be worshiping and working to expand God’s kingdom now. We aren’t supposed to be waiting on Jesus.
Making the Connections #1
Prayer helps us to become who God wants us to be because prayer helps us to transform based on His laws and commandments. Edwards wrote, “That God’s will may become the regulator of our wishes and pleasures.”
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It is only through God’s Will becoming ours that we are saved. We have to submit to constantly doing His Will.
Making the Connections #2
Edwards reminded us that God’s kingdom coming within us is a slow process. He doesn’t just flip a switch and download it into us.
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Sanctification is a process that will take the remainder of our lives. That means it is going to be a slow and timely process.
But that gives us hope, doesn’t it? God knows what the end is going to be — we will be like Him.
What can be more hopeful than that?
Making the Connections #3
Unfortunately, we don’t have uninterrupted service to God. We pray a while, then forget. We read His Word, then we hit the snooze button.
Part of the reason is that we take our focus off God. We become like Peter walking on the water. We take our eyes off Jesus and look at the waves.
Moral of the story, never take our eyes odd Jesus so that we will always be doing His Will.
How Do We Apply This?
- Love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength.
- Eagerly and cheerfully obey God.
- Serve God with passion.
- Approach God in humility and reverence.
- Persevere through all of the trials we face.
- Cheerfully submit to God’s plan when we face trials.
- Endure whatever trials we face.
- Submit to God’s authority.
- Trust in God’s goodness, righteousness, wisdom, and promises.
- Have an attitude of submission.
- Realize our present submission to God Will is more important than our past or future submission.
- Be obedient through constant integrity.
- Submit our intellect.
- Let our will be assimilated into His.
- Be flexible to accept His Will another rigidly demand our own be done.
- Do God’s Will God’s way.
- Grow a missionary spirit within us.
- Recognize the privilege of being allowed to do God’s Will on earth.
- Never take our eyes odd Jesus so that we will always be doing His Will.
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Our Father. Lord, we always want to be doing Your Will. We want to be imitating You. Thank You for the examples of Jesus and the angels to show us how to do that. May we always keep our eyes on You. Amen.
What do you think?
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