Your kingdom come,
Your will be done,
On earth as it is in heaven.
Jesus tells us that we should pray that God’s kingdom on earth would look like God’s kingdom in heaven. He tells us to pray that God’s will should be done on earth in the same way that God’s will is done in heaven. But what does the kingdom of God look like in heaven? How is God’s will accomplished in heaven?
Does heaven operate like my elementary school and high school did? Is heaven a place where someone lurks around every corner trying to catch me doing something wrong? Is it a place full of people who claim to be followers of God but who, in reality, when the opportunity comes they act as mischievous and horrible as the devil himself?
Or does heaven operate like Calvin’s experiment in Geneva or the way the more modern Moral Majority or Christian Coalition would have a state run? Does heaven have a legal system modeled as closely as possible to the laws in the Bible as one could reasonably achieve? Does heaven impose regulations upon everyone’s behavior and dole out sanctions for any sort of infraction?
Or does heavenly operate differently?
When I read the Bible I am struck with how constantly humanity does its own thing. Starting in the garden and continuing all the way through the latter portions of Revelation we see how humanity chooses to forge their own path while God beckons for us to walk the path he provides. The Bible has very few examples of people living in the way we might expect if they were filled with the kingdom of God and acting out God’s will. But there are some.
There is Abel who chose to offer the sacrifice pleasing to God. There is Enoch who walked with God, and Noah who sailed with God. There is Abram who left his homeland for a land as yet unseen and who offered his son Isaac as a sacrifice, trusting the Lord to provide. There are David and the few kings who pleased God. There are the prophets who chose to speak God’s word yet lived lives of obscurity and embarrassment. There are…well, there are a good many others, but mostly there is Jesus. (Yeah, Jesus is the answer…just like your Sunday School teacher always told you!)
When Jesus prayed to the Father in the garden, he said, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.” Jesus had a desire of his own, but he also subjected his own fleshly interests to the will of the Father. (And if you look at all the angels in the Bible, you find the same thing; their choices were always to do the will of the Father).
Most of us have probably repeated Jesus’s words to God at some point in time. But I wonder how many of us really meant it? I mean, did we really follow through? I don’t know about you, but I know I am not batting 1.000 on that one; I might not even be batting .300. Actually, come to think of it, I probably strike out most of the time. I say I want to follow God’s will, but then I craft my own.
I think it’s highly likely that Jesus’s prayer in the garden is the best example of the kingdom of God and the will of God here on earth.
First of all, his simple prayer tells us that a true citizen of God’s kingdom recognizes the true king. Our king is not a mayor, governor, president, or some other person; our king is God. We are citizens of his country not of whatever country on earth where we were born. This is very important. Many of us get caught up in the turmoil of the nations on earth and think we need to jump into the fray and start doing whatever we can to make heaven here on earth, but that isn’t what God’s kingdom is about. God’s kingdom comes when we recognize that God is our true king. We don’t build God’s kingdom on earth; God builds his kingdom within us.
Secondly, Jesus’s prayer recognizes that God, the true king, has everything under control. Imagine if Jesus said to the Father, “Hey, Dad! I’ve walked the dusty streets of this world and I know what people are like. But you’re only a spirit; you’ve never been on earth. I’ve got first-hand knowledge of what’s going on and I’m telling you, I know better about my situation than you do.” I suppose it’s possible he could have said that, but he didn’t. Why? Well, Jesus knew that even though his flesh and earthly desires railed against the trials to come, God, the Father, had everything under control. The Father knows the outcome of every situation and merely asks us to trust him.
I realize trusting and obeying God aren’t always the easiest things. But keep in mind that our prayer to God for his kingdom to come is a prayer that he would transform us into citizens of heaven, and our prayer that God’s will be done is a prayer for God to enable us to live holy lives so we can perform God’s work on earth.
Praying for God’s kingdom to come and God’s will to be done on earth as it is in heaven is not a prayer for some superstructure or government to be put in place so as to mandate holy living. No. To pray for God’s kingdom to come and God’s will to be done on earth as it is in heaven is to pray that we, you and I are transformed into citizens of heaven; it is to pray that we live holy lives so as to be pleasing to God; it is to offer our voices, hands, and feet to be instruments of God, doing his work on earth. In short, it is to become like Christ who prayed for God’s kingdom and God’s will when he prayed, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.”
Your kingdom come,
Your will be done,
On earth as it is in heaven.
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