Lesson Four • The Lord’s Prayer – Part One
Devotion 5: Realm of Authority

Pastor John Carter

“Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” Matthew 6:10

“On earth as it is in heaven” is where we are going to focus our attention today. As we have been walking through Jesus’ instructions on how to pray, we have spent time looking at how not to pray. This week, we started with how to pray. In the first few lines of the model prayer, Jesus has pointed us completely to the person and being of God the Father. I believe this is Jesus’ way of showing us how, in our prayers, to keep the first and greatest commandment to love God with all our heart, soul, and mind at the forefront. Yesterday, we talked about God’s authority in our life and whether He can indeed be trusted with every aspect of our life. Today, we are going to hopefully expand that trust beyond our realm of comprehension.

This simple phrase, “on earth as it is in Heaven,” has such a massive, powerful, and hopefully encouraging implication to the children of God. As we wrestle with following our own will versus the will of God, we may still be working through full submission to God. This line in the prayer Jesus gives us is so profound.

Let me ask you to write down all the things you think you control. If you are a parent, you might say you are in control of your house and family. If you are a business owner, you may say you have your business under control. Those are just two examples and if you have been in either of those positions for any length of time, you understand that control is a fleeting word in those dynamics. In a matter of seconds, things can easily spin out of control and soon you begin to question what it was you actually thought you were in control of. This is going to be a bit of a mental stretch, but expand that thought to the whole world. Jesus is still pointing us to the amazing and unfathomable control God has. He has complete control of Heaven the way it runs and operates and is structured. The sun’s rising and the setting of the stars are all prostrated by the very will of God. I think of what King Nebuchadnezzar said when his mind and reason came back to him.

Daniel 4:34-35 records, “At the end of the days I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted my eyes to heaven, and my reason returned to me, and I blessed the Most High, and praised and honored him who lives forever, for his dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom endures from generation to generation; all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, and he does according to his will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand or say to him, ‘What have you done?’”

Psalm 103:20-21 adds, “Bless the Lord, O you his angels, you mighty ones who do his word, obeying the voice of his word! Bless the Lord, all his hosts, his ministers, who do his will!”

These are just a few passages that expound on the fact that the heavenly hosts and all that is in Heaven, obey the Father and that the Father is in control. God’s authority is not limited to just a heavenly realm. He has authority in our earthly realm all the same. It is, “Your will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven.”

Maybe you are struggling to know the will of God. Maybe it is not something that you have ever even considered. The Bible is not super mysterious about God’s will. He tells us all throughout Scripture what His will is. Most of the time we just do not want to hear it. We choose our way over God’s way and so we walk our own path instead of what God has for us. Think about that for a second. If I am being honest, I can barely keep my family in control. Running a business consumed me. Yet I want to, in my pride, put up my understanding against the guy (God) who controls and operates the Heavens and the Earth. It sounds silly because it is silly! So often this is what we are saying by our actions and decisions we make every day. The Bible is full of verses that clearly tell us His will.

  • “I delight to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart.” Psalm 40:8
  • “And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.” John 6:39-40
  • “And when he had removed him, he raised up David to be their king, of whom he testified and said, ‘I have found in David the son of Jesse a man after my heart, who will do all my will.’” Acts 13:22
  • “And he said, ‘The God of our fathers appointed you to know his will, to see the Righteous One and to hear a voice from his mouth; for you will be a witness for him to everyone of what you have seen and heard. And now why do you wait? Rise and be baptized and wash away your sins, calling on his name.’” Acts 22:14-16
  • “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” Romans 12:2
  • “Bondservants, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, with a sincere heart, as you would Christ, not by the way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but as bondservants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, rendering service with a good will as to the Lord and not to man, knowing that whatever good anyone does, this he will receive back from the Lord, whether he is a bondservant or is free.” Ephesians 6:5-8
  • “For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God; that no one transgress and wrong his brother in this matter, because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as we told you beforehand and solemnly warned you. For God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness.” 1 Thessalonians 4:3-7
  • “For this is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people.” 1 Peter 2:15
  • “Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same way of thinking, for whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, so as to live for the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for human passions but for the will of God.” 1 Peter 4:1-2

I could go on and on with verses that show us the will of God for us. My point is that it is not a mystery. We need to diligently seek it and pursue it. Pray for it! “Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” is the mindset we must have when we approach God. Do we seek and desire His will to be done today?

In 2 Corinthians 6:1-2, we read, “Working together with him, then, we appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain. For he says, ‘In a favorable time I listened to you, and in a day of salvation I have helped you.’ Behold, now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.”