At last Monday evening prayer, I spoke the words, "God, we want Your will to be done." Immediately, my mind recalled the Lord's Prayer and the words, "Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." The thought that struck me was this - if the will of God was "done" in heaven, what was necessary to complete it? From there I began to ponder how there was a time when heaven was occupied with rebellion, insubordination, pride, arrogance, and even prejudice, but it was "kicked out" of heaven to make the will of God complete. Therefore, if we want the will of God "on earth" as it is in heaven, then we must "kick out" rebellion, prejudice, etc. Now before you jump ahead and crucify me, let me say I realize we are not perfect and will never achieve eliminating all bad behavior from the earth. But, as we have been told we are dust and will return to dust, we must begin cleaning house in our personal "earth" to achieve the Lord's will. I have heard many different interpretations of the Lord's Prayer, but I don't recall having heard anyone present this idea. I have often been asked how does one know when they are in the will of God? Now, I think I have an answer. You will never be wholly in His will if your life contains rebellion, insubordination, pride, arrogance, and prejudice. Truly, I want to submit to the Lord and have His will done in my life.
P.S. I will be speaking/singing in San Diego tonight and may not be able to respond to your comments until late Saturday.
What an awesome revelation. I'll be heading for our ladies' prayer meeting, and I believe I'll share this thought. Rebellion, insubordination, pride, arrogance, and prejudice are attributes that are so easy to hide and that is why we must take time to search the secret places of our heart!
ReplyDeleteI know everyone will be blessed by your message.
Great thought! Create in me a clean heart, O God.
ReplyDeleteDebbie - I like how you added to this thought by encouraging to search the secret places of our hearts. One must be willing to be honest when they search, and then willing to erase the negative attribute. Hey, we could help each other write our blogs! LOL
ReplyDeleteGene - thank you. And, thanks be to God for His forgiveness. He forgives and forgets. What an awesome God we serve!
ReplyDeleteTo me, the most powerful thing about this is the truth that God is actively "conforming us to the image of His Son" (Romans 8). My desire is to be like Him; to get ALL of the sin out of my life. That may be impossible for me, but it isn't for Him.
ReplyDeleteI wrote a book on the Lord's Prayer, and this is from the "Thy Will" chapter:
"I have a destiny (so do you), and I'm living it out every day. Every day, every moment, every interaction, every circumstance, is another step down a path. I will someday reach the end, and the end is that I will be like Christ. Mark you, I will not become Christ. I'm not looking for a nirvana-like experience that will merge me with the Universe. I won't wake up and discover that I've always existed or that I speak Hebrew or that I've grown a beard. I will still be me, but I will be a new me; I will be like Christ.
"I will be a child of God in every sense of the word. I'll be perfect like Christ—my inside and my outside will match up. I will have joy like Christ, I will love like Christ. I will delight fully in God, my All in All. I will have become a true human being with no more temptation to be a human doing. Everything I do will flow naturally from who I am, and everything I am will flow naturally from who God is. I can't really express the incredible freedom contained in this; really, I can't even look it in the face yet. But I'll get there. It's my destiny."
Rachel - thanks for dropping by my blog. Isn't it wonderful when the Lord inspires us? Your book sounds quite interesting.
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