Question 192. What do we pray for in the third petition?

 

Question 192. What do we pray for in the third petition?

Answer. The third petition is, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. This petition first acknowledges that all of us are utterly unable and unwilling to do God's will, and that we are all rebellious against His Word, murmuring and complaining against His providence, and wholly disposed to follow the will of the flesh and the devil. We pray that God, by His Holy Spirit, would remove from us all our folly, weakness, wickedness, and wickedness, and that by His grace we might know, do, and submit to His will in all things, with humility, joy, fidelity, diligence, zeal, sincerity, and steadfastness, as the angels do in heaven.

"Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven." What Jesus tells us through the Lord's Prayer is not about what to pray for in the world. Although we are on this earth now, what we should pray for from our Father in heaven is to "pray that God will fulfill what he has planned from the beginning of the world."

Many people speak about God according to their own ideas. Believers should not think of God as a simple god as the world speaks of him. Believers say, “God is omnipotent and omniscient,” but humans think of God as their own kind of omnipotent and omniscient. For example, when God created the world and said, “It was very good,” if you believe that “God is omnipotent and omniscient,” but understand that God intended to create the world perfectly, but Satan intervened and the world was destroyed because of human mistakes, then you do not consider God as “omnipotent and omniscient.”

It is the same as thinking that God's omnipotence can be changed by some external factor. This is speaking of God as omnipotent in one's own way. Such believers really do not know about 'God's omnipotence.' While believers believe that 'all things in this world that God created were created perfect and blessed,' God inevitably becomes the God who thinks, 'I must destroy this world,' without any feeling.

Therefore, believers must know well about God's omniscience and omnipotence and God's absolute goodness. If believers truly believe in God's omniscience and omnipotence, they must believe that the creation of heaven and earth was "made as one plan and providence from creation to the end." This means that God's creation was not changed by Satan's intervention or human error.

The will that was accomplished in heaven is God's will. God's will is stated in John 6:40 as, "That everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him may have eternal life, and that he will raise him up on the last day."

Ephesians 1:4-5 says, "Just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him in love, having predestined us for adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will."

God’s will is that “all who believe in Jesus Christ will be saved,” and this will was “established before the creation of the world.” God did not establish this will for the holy and blameless, but for the “flawed and unholy.” “Flawed and unholy” refers to those who have left God. Since nothing happened before the creation of the world, why would He establish this will? If we say that “He knew everything and established this will” regarding what would happen after the creation of the world, it is the same as saying that “God’s creation would be incomplete and would be distorted.” This would result in using the name of the omnipotent and all-good God in vain.

When did God predestinate Christ and establish His will to save all who believe in Him? The word “before the creation” means “eternity.” Humans interpret the meaning of “eternity” to mean “endless time.” Human thinking cannot escape this. Eternity cannot be understood within the concepts of time and space. This is because it is not in the spiritual world. The world of time and space is different from the world of eternity. However, people try to understand the world of eternity based on the world of time and space.

The material world exists to express the spiritual world. God created the material world for this purpose. Jesus said, "I came to the world to save those who are in darkness." Those who are in darkness are the members of Christ. Why are their members in darkness?

In John 1:9, it says, "The true Light which gives light to every man was coming into the world." In 1:5, it says, "The Light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it." The darkness mentioned here and in Genesis 1:2 have the same meaning. "The earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, 'Let there be light,' and there was light."

Because there was no light, light shone in the darkness. Just as light shone in the darkness, Jesus Christ, the light of life, shone in the darkness for people in the darkness, which means that Jesus came in the darkness. The darkness mentioned in Genesis refers to the darkness of the world. The world without God is darkness.

Jesus said in John 6:63, "It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life."

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