Lord’s Prayer: Part 3 Your Will Be Done

The next lines in the Lord’s Prayer read,

Your kingdom come
Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven

When we read the Gospels, this is the main thrust of Jesus’ message.

Matthew 4 v 17

From that time on Jesus began to preach, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”

The Kingdom of Heaven is a complex topic which I won’t cover in-depth here. But in terms of the Lord’s Prayer, there are some relevant threads to pull out.

The Lord’s Prayer is a petition of a subject to a king. This is reflected in the lines above. The structure of God’s Kingdom, is at its heart, a monarchy. Christ is the King of Kings, not President, Chairman of the Party or a Prime Minister. He is the King.

In His Kingdom, Christians do not get to vote Jesus off the throne. We don’t have a ballot every few years. Voting does occur in some traditions, like with Catholic cardinals voting for a new Pope, or even the members of a local Baptist church voting on a new minister. But as this is a kingdom, any voting stops in the temporal church. No one votes in Heaven.

As the king of an eternal kingdom, God’s reign is never ending. He does not lose His position as the ultimate ruler of Creation.

The next question is to ask then is, where is the Kingdom of Heaven? The Kingdom of Heaven is in Heaven (the Unseen Realm) and on Earth.

Luke 17 v 20-21

Once, on being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, “The coming of the kingdom of God is not something that can be observed, nor will people say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’ because the kingdom of God is in your midst.”

It transverses both the Heavens and the Earth and it transverses death too. When a subject of the Kingdom of Heaven dies, they still remain part of it.

The typical understanding of death in the Ancient World was when you died, you descended into the grave. Your body would decay and your spirit would live out the rest of its days as a shadow in the Underworld.

The Christian, as part of the Kingdom of Heaven, sees the decay of their body, but their spirit remains hidden and alive in Christ.

Colossians 3 v 3

For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.

Death cannot remove the Christian from the Kingdom of Heaven, as they are in Christ Jesus.

God’s eternal Kingdom exists in Heaven, but has come and is coming to Earth.

This is a key concept in Christianity. God’s kingdom has come, but is also coming. It arrived with the Incarnation of Christ, but is also coming through filling the hearts of Christians.

When we pray in the Lord’s Prayer for the Kingdom to come, we are asking for it to become apparent in our hearts, our minds and in our everyday lives.

The next part of the prayer asks for God’s will to be done. Since the beginning of Creation, God’s will has always ruled.

Revelation 4 v 11

You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honour and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being.

All created things exist according to God’s will. Though in the Prayer, we ask for God’s will be done on Earth, as though sometimes it is not.

The time where God’s will may appear to be disrupted is through our ungodly actions as humans and the actions of demons. Our sins are against God’s will, they are acts of rebellion. God’s will still rules Creation, but through our sins, we cause disharmony on Earth.

So in the Prayer, when we ask for God’s will to be done in our lives, we are asking that He will align us with His will, His decrees and His rule. And therefore, bring harmony where there is discord.

Below is the paid subscription section of the article. This is where I discuss more controversial topics. This time I address Christian Nationalism and the theology of democracy.