… Your Will Be Done on Earth as it is in Heaven

We learn the Lord’s Prayer as a series of short phrases, chanted like a nursery rhyme.  The rhythm helps us remember the words, but it sometimes makes it harder to hear the meaning.

We chant these 3 lines, pausing in between: Thy will be done………... On Earth ………...As it is in Heaven.

But we should say this one sentence all in one breath: Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven.

Jesus made His disciples look at the world around them and compare it to Heaven.  Obviously then we see some room for improvement. 

But, in that lop-sided comparison we also see the promise of improvement because God’s will wasn’t always done so perfectly in Heaven.

The archangel Lucifer rebelled against God’s authority and 1/3 of the angels joined His uprising against God’s will in Heaven.   They were defeated, convicted, and sentenced to exile until their final sentence was carried out in the lake of fire.

(Isaiah 14: 12-21; Revelations 12: 3-9; Matthew 25: 41)

But somehow Heaven went from 33% rebellion to 100% of God’s will being done.

How?  God cast all sin out of Heaven.*

That meant expelling all of the angels who sinned.

For if God did not spare the angels who sinned, but cast them down to hell and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved for judgment (2 Peter 2: 4)

God cast sin out of Heaven by wholesale eviction of the sinners.

And the angels who rebelled are doomed.  There is no plan for their redemption.  They have no Savior. 

For indeed He does not give aid to angels (Hebrews 2: 16)

Looking at Heaven as the example, God’s will is done on Earth when and where sin is cast out.

But we human beings have an advantage the angels don’t.   We have a Savior in Jesus Christ so we can choose redemption from our sins.

For indeed He does not give aid to angels, but He does give aid to the seed of Abraham.  (Hebrews 2: 16)

When God casts sin from His presence we can choose to be cast out with our sins, or we can choose to let the sins go and stay in the presence of God.   That choice is possible through, in, and because of Jesus.

And we can make that choice daily.  We can choose every day to confess and renounce our sins, to let God expel our corruption while we remain in His transforming presence.

Heaven so defines the angels that when they violated the sanctity of that place, they could no longer stay there.  Where the corrupt angels are is their hell.

But you need not be defined by the corruption of our world.  You don’t have to be confined to the moral environment.

In Christ, you can be transformed by the renewing of your mind. And when you choose to be changed you can show and prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. (Romans 12: 2)

And so God’s will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven.

*The word Heaven has multiple meaning.  For this post, I’m talking about the throneroom of God and the immediate surrounding area; in other words, the place where the good angels live.

  

---Anderson T. Graves II   is a writer, community organizer and consultant for education, ministry, and rural leadership development.

Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Hall Memorial CME Church in Montgomery, Alabama, executive director of the Substance Abuse Youth Networking Organization (SAYNO) and director of rural leadership development for the National Institute for Human Development (NIHD).

Email atgravestwo2@aol.com

Friend me at www.facebook.com/rev.a.t.graves

To hear sermons, read devotions, and learn more about the ministry at Hall Memorial CME Church, visit www.hallmemorialcme.blogspot.com .

You can read more on Pastor Graves's personal blog at www.andersontgraves.blogspot.com  .

If this message helps or touches you, please help support this ministry. Send a donation of any amount by check or money order.

Mail all contributions to :

Hall Memorial CME Church

541 Seibles Road

Montgomery, AL 36116