Your Kingdom Come, Your Will Be Done

Many of us know the Lord’s prayer by Heart (I call it the model prayer, but we’ll get in to that in a little while!). We grew up reciting it, or chanting it, we can say it in both King James, and Modern English, but in all the recitation, have we thought about what we’re saying? Do we mean what we say, or is it mere memory work? Consider the words, deeply, now:

“Our Father in heaven,

hallowed be your name.

Your kingdom come,

your will be done,

on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread,

and forgive us our debts,

as we also have forgiven our debtors.

And lead us not into temptation,

but deliver us from evil. (Matthew 6:9-13)

The line that sticks out most to me, right now, anyway, is “Your Kingdom Come, Your Will be Done, on earth as it is in heaven.” How often do we say “God’s will be done,” and yet go off and do our own thing? I know I am as guilty as anyone! Part of the reason we’re in the messes we find ourselves is because, from the beginning, we have not regarded God as Holy, and we seek our will above His! In modeling prayer (see? I told you I would bring it up), Jesus taught us to always begin with regarding God as Holy, and higher than anything else, and to seek His will first and foremost. All too often, we’re more like the fellows who Jesus rebuked after claiming they’d follow Him:

As they were going along the road, someone said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” To another he said, “Follow me.” But he said, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” And Jesus said to him, “Leave the dead to bury their own dead. But as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” Yet another said, “I will follow you, Lord, but let me first say farewell to those at my home.” Jesus said to him, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”(Luke 9:57-62)

Following Jesus won’t be easy, and it will more than likely cost everything you have, so be prepared! Don’t say “I’ll follow you, but first!” Say, as Isaiah did, “Here I am, Lord, send me!” Since answering that call, the Lord has moved me 1,700 Miles from my home, and back and forth through different states, to disciple many, and teach others. It hasn’t been easy, and my wife and I have left a lot behind, but it has ALWAYS been worth it. There is nothing like being in God’s will. We have to accept what He says, and seek His face and His will always. He will always lead us where He needs us to go.

Romans 6

What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.

For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self^[a] was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.

What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.

 For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.