PT-4 "The Right Understanding of God's Will" (Matt. 6:10b)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 11/22/2020 9:55 AM

 

My Worship Time                                    Focus:  PT-4 “The Right Understanding of God’s Will”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Matthew 6:10b

 

            Message of the verse: “Your will be done, On earth as it is in heaven.”

 

            In today’s SD we will begin to look at the third distinct aspect of God’s will, and Lord willing, we will finish this up in our next SD as we again look at MacArthur’s book “Jesus ’Pattern of Prayer,” as this has much more detail in it and will better help us understand this third point.

 

            This third distinct aspect of God’s will can be called God’s will of command, and this is only for those who are His children, for they are the only ones who can obey Him completely and immediately with a willing heart.  Paul writes in Romans 6:16-18 the following “16  Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness? 17 But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed, 18 and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.”

 

            MacArthur writes “God’s will of purpose embraces the ultimate end of this world, Christ’s second coming and the setting up of His eternal kingdom.  His will of desire embraces conversion; and His will of command embraces the commitment and obedience of His children.”

 

            We will look more at this in our next SD, but the question here is what is the great enemy of God’s will?  Of course that has to be pride, for it was pride that caused Lucifer to fall as described in the 14^th chapter of Isaiah.  Pride causes unbelievers to reject God and believers to disobey Him.  “For God’s will to be accepted and to be prayed for in sincerity and with faith, self-will must be forsaken in the power of the Holy Spirit.”  “1 Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. 2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect” (Romans 12:1-2). 

 

            MacArthur continues “When we pray in faith and in conformity to God’s will, our prayer is a sanctifying grace that changes our lives dramatically.  Prayer is a means of progressive sanctification.  John Hannah said, ‘The end of prayer is not so much tangible answers as a deepening life of dependence…The call to prayer is a call to love, submission, and obedience…the avenue of sweet, intimate, and intense fellowship of the soul with the infinite Creator.’

 

            “In verses 11-13a Jesus gives three petitions.  The first relates to our physical life and the present (daily bread), the second to our mental and emotional life and the past (debts), and the third to our spiritual life and the future (temptation and evil).”   11/22/2020 10:17 AM

PT-3 "Right Understanding of God's Will" (Matt.6:10a)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 11/21/2020 11:01 AM

 

My Worship Time                                          Focus:  PT-3 “Right Understanding of God’s Will”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Matthew 6:10b

 

            Message of the verse:  “Your will be done, On earth as it is in heaven.”

 

            In our last SD we were talking about giving out three distinct aspects of God’s will as He reveals it to us in His Word, and I said that we would look at them in this SD.

 

            John MacArthur describes these as he writes “First, it is what may be called His will or purpose—the vast, comprehensive, and tolerating will of God expressed in the unfolding of His sovereign plan that embodies all of the universe, including heaven, hell and the earth.  This is God’s ultimate will, of which Isaiah wrote, ‘The Lord of hosts has sworn saying ‘Surely, just as I have intended so it has happened, and just as I have planned so it will stand’’ (Isa. 14:24; cf. Jer. 51:29; Rom. 8:28; Eph. 1:9-11; etc.).  This is the will of God that allows sin to run its course and Satan to have his way for a season.  But in God’s appointed time sin’s course and Satan’s way will end exactly according to God’s plan and foreknowledge.”  I will at this time quote these verses that are in the parentheses. 1) Jer. 51:29 “So the land quakes and writhes, For the purposes of the LORD against Babylon stand, To make the land of Babylon A desolation without inhabitants.”  2) Romans 8:28 “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.”  3) Ephesians 1:9-11 “9 He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His kind intention which He purposed in Him 10 with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of the times, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth. In Him 11 also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will.”

 

            Now I will quote from “Jesus’ Pattern of Prayer” “How do we pray in accord with His will of purpose?  By joyously getting involved in the anticipation of the accomplishment of His divine ends.”  That’s a great way to pray; ‘Lord, I know someday You’re going to call out Your church, and You’re going to bring back Jesus Christ to take us to be with Him.  May it be, Lord, may it be.

            “It’s going to happen—it’s inevitable.  He thought it, He purposed it, it’s in the plan.

            “Do you ever get tired of the anxiety of this world?  Do you ever long for the day when you know the freedom of the sons of God, when you are like Christ, and you can dwell in the eternal glory with Him?  I do.  And so sometimes I will pray, ‘Lord, I know You’re going to do it, and I just want to let You know You’ve got my vote.  God ahead, do it.  The sooner the better.’  That’s praying according to God’s comprehensive will.”

 

            Now we want to move onto the second distinct aspect of God’s will as we again quote from MacArthur’s commentary.  “Second, is what may be called God’s will of desire.  This is within His will of purpose and completely consistent with it.  But it is more specific and focused.  Unlike God’s will of purpose, His will of desire is not always fulfilled; in fact, it is very unfulfilled in comparison to Satan’s will in this present age.”  In his book we have been quoting he entitles this “God’s compassionate will,” and we will take a look at that in a moment.

 

            “Jesus greatly desired that Jerusalem be saved, and He prayed, preached, healed, and ministered among its people to that end.  But few believed in Him; most rejected Him, and some even crucified Him.  ‘O Jerusalem, Jerusalem,’ He prayed.  ‘I wanted to gather your children together, just as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not have it!’’  (Luke 13:34).  That was the repeated experience of God’s Son, who came to earth that men might have life, and have it more abundantly.  Like the unbelieving Jews in Jerusalem, most people were not willing to come to Jesus for that abundant life (John 5:40; cf. 1 Tim. 2:4; 2 Pet. 3:9).

 

            Now from his book as he writes about God’s compassionate will, a name that means much to me as I have studied this prayer.  “Included in this are the things that God wills that don’t always happen; they are His desires, but men may reject them… You remember that Jesus wept, but do you know that in Jeremiah 13:17 God says that when He must judge sinners, ‘Mine eyes…run down with tears?’ 

            “Peter says He is not willing that any should perish, ‘but that all should come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9).

            “That is the heart’s desire of God, and yet many will say in that last day, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and He will respond, ‘Depart from me, I never knew you’ (Matthew 7:22-23).  He desires all to be saved, but not all will be.  That’s the mysterious paradox of an absolutely sovereign God’s allowing man his own volition.”

 

            I think it best to do the last point in our next SD as we have not actually covered much in words, but the words that were written have some deep meaning that we need to think about.

 

11/21/2020 11:34 AM

PT-2 "Right Understanding of God's Will" (Matt. 6:10b)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 11/20/2020 10:27 AM

 

My Worship Time                                          Focus:  PT-2 “Right Understanding of God’s Will”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Matthew 6:10b

 

            Message of the verse:  “Your will be done, On earth as it is in heaven.”

 

            I believe that the following statement is a very important one for us to look at and to think about as MacArthur writes “Jesus knew the end from the beginning, but He did not accept the situation as inevitable or irresistible (appealing).  He preached against sin and He acted against sin.  When His Father’s house was profaned, ‘He made a scourge of cords, and drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and the oxen; and He poured out the coins of the moneychangers, and overturned their tables; and to those who were selling the doves He said, ‘Take these things away; stop making My Father’s house a house of merchandise’’ (John 2:14-16; cf. Matt. 21:12-13).

 

            “To pray for God’s will to be done on earth is to rebel against the idea, heard today even among evangelicals, that virtually every wicked, corrupt things that  we do or that is done to us is somehow God’s holy will and should be accepted from His hand with thanksgiving.  Nothing wicked or sinful comes from the hand of God, but only from the hand of Satan.  To pray for righteousness is to pray against wickedness.  To pray for God’s will to be done is to pray for Satan’s will to be undone.”   

 

            I mentioned in my SD a couple of days ago that as I began this study of what is commonly called “The Lord’s Prayer,” that I wanted to learn how to pray for what is going on in our country, and so I have listed to many conservative news programs to find out that what happened in our election was filled with fraud and cheating, more than any other election.  I do not believe that it is in the will of God for our country to be turned into a socialist society, and I know that it is not in God’s will to have a party in there who wants to make abortion a law of the land, and so my prayer is that God will cause Satan’s will to be undone as we have seen in the paragraph above. 

 

            David cried “Let God arise, let His enemies be scattered; and let those who hate Him flee before Him’ in Psalm 68:1.  This prayer of David certainly is in the will of God.  Another prayer request that we see is from those who had been killed for the cause of Christ in the tribulation period and is one of the seal judgments found in Revelation 6:10 where we read “How long, O Lord, holy and true, wilt Thou refrain from judging and avenging our blood on those who dwell on the earth?”  I believe that in earth years that it would take God a little more than three years to do this and that is why He tells them to wait “And there was given to each of them a white robe; and they were told that they should rest for a little while longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their brethren who were to be killed even as they had been, would be completed also” (Rev. 6:11).  We all hate to wait, but I suppose that waiting helps to bring about our character as we grow in Christ.  Joseph is a wonderful example of this.

 

            How do we pray rightly?  We pray in faith, believing that God will hear and answer our prayers.  What would you say is the greatest hindrance to prayer? It is to not lack of being the right technique, or the lack of biblical knowledge, or even having the lack of enthusiasm for God’s work, but to lack faith.  “We simply do not pray with the expectation that our prayers will make a difference in our lives, in other people’s lives, in the church or in the world.”

 

            I am going to quote the first sentence in a paragraph from MacArthur’s commentary and then Lord willing we will pick up on what he is talking about tomorrow.  “There are three distinct aspects of God’s will as He reveals it to us in His Word.” 

 

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  It certainly is a desire of mine to understand prayer better, and to be able to pray in faith, knowing that my prayers will mean something to me, to others that I pray for in my family, and in my church, and those who I pray will be saved in the future.

 

My Steps of Faith for Today:  To continue to learn more about prayer.

 

11/20/2020 10:56 AM

PT-1 "Right Understanding of God's Will" (Matthew 6:10b)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 11/19/2020 11:19 AM

 

My Worship Time                                          Focus:  PT-1 “Right Understanding of God’s Will”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Matthew 10:6b

 

            Message of the verse:  “Your will be done, On earth as it is in heaven.”

 

            In today’s SD we begin by looking at what we could call the opposite side of God’s will, the right understanding of it.  As we look at this verse we can see that God’s will is always done in heaven, and the reason is that there is only one will in heaven, and that is God’s will.  There were two, but Satan was tossed out of heaven.  Now compare that to how many wills we find on earth and if there are seven plus people on earth at this time then there are that many wills on earth.  One more thing and that is that the angels who were not tossed out of heaven are doing God’s will in heaven and we will look at this in the following paragraph.

 

            We can see that the angels were doing God’s will as David writes the following in Psalm 103:20 “Bless the Lord, you His angels, mighty in strength who perform His word, obeying the voice of His word.”  MacArthur adds “That is the way God’s will is done in heaven, and that is the way believers are to pray for God’s will to be done on earth—unwavering, completely, sincerely, willingly, fervently, readily, swiftly, and constantly.  Our prayers should be that every person and thing on earth be brought into conformity with God’s perfect will.”

 

            Now I want to quote from MacArthur’s book “Jesus’ Pattern of Prayer” to give us a little more meat to the bones of these eight words that describe how angels do God’s will in heaven.

            “First, unwaveringly.  There’s never a discussion.  On earth the Lord prods and pokes, and maybe we get moving sooner or later, but in heaven there’s an unwavering commitment to His will.

            “Second completely.  There are not alternatives, no gaps, no omissions.

            “Third, sincerely.  They are eager, waiting for the next command so they can hurry to accomplish it.

            “Fourth, willingly.  Do you know how many will there are in heaven?  One.  There were two once, but one got kicked out.

            “Fifth, fervently.  They are aggressive in doing God’s will.

            “Sixth, readily.

            “Seventh, swiftly.

            “And eighth, constantly.”

 

            Now as we look at these eight words that describe how the angels do the will of God in heaven, we can wonder why that it is not consistently done that way on earth. I can give you the answer to this question, and I think that we will look more in-depth at this answer later on, but the answer is “pride,” and I do not think that that answer will surprise anyone.

 

            As we continue to look at this right understanding of and also an attitude towards God’s will we will see that it is what might be called a sense of righteous rebellion. That is rebellion that is opposed to Satan.  As we pray “Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven,” is to rebel against the worldly idea that sin is normal and inevitable and should therefore be acquiesced to or at least it should be tolerated.  I think that if one things about this they have to agree that there are times, probably too many times when we tolerate sin in our lives. MacArthur adds “It is to rebel against the world system of ungodliness, the dishonoring and refection of Christ, and also the disobedience of believers.  Impotence in prayer leads us, however unwillingly, to strike a truce with wrong.  To accept what is, is to abandon a Christian view of God and His plan for redemptive history.”

 

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  As I study this prayer it is my desire to learn what God wants me to learn about it, and then use what I have learned in my prayer life, especially the things that are going on in our country.

 

My Steps of Faith for Today:  God will continue to teach me to be a better prayer warrior.

 

11/19/2020 11:49 AM

PT-4 "The Wrong Understanding of God's Will" (Matt. 6:10b)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 11/18/2020 9:13 AM

 

My Worship Time                                  Focus:  PT-4 “The Wrong Understanding of God’s Will”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Matthew 6:10b

           

            Message of the verse:  “Your will be done, On earth as it is in heaven.”

 

            We continue with our quotation from “Jesus’ Pattern of Prayer” by John MacArthur.

 

            “God’s will is that men be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth, but not all men do.  God’s will is done in heaven, but it is not always done on earth.  You say, well God allows those things.  That’s right.  But do not make the mistake of calling them the expressions of His will.

            “It is not God’s will that people die, otherwise why would He come to destroy death?

            “It is not God’s desire that people go to hell, or why would He die and provide the salvation that keeps them from going there?  He made hell for the devil and his angels (Matthew 25:41).

            “I’m confident that God allowed man the choice to do good or evil.  I believe man has a choice; I also believe God is sovereign, and that’s another of those paradoxes I have to accept.  God has allowed sin; He has allowed the cup of iniquity to be full.  But it is not the expression of His will.

            “God is not responsible for sin, and He is not responsible for its consequences.  Matthew 10:28 says, ‘Fear not them which kill the body…but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.’  That refers to God.  God will destroy soul and body in hell.  It cannot refer to Satan, because he is one who will himself be destroyed eventually.

            “Yet 2 Peter 3:9 says that God is not willing that any should perish.  God’s holiness, justice, and righteousness must provide for dealing with sin, but death is not God’s will.  He wept over the city of Jerusalem and said, ‘Thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent into thee, how often would I have gathered thy children, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under he wings, and ye would not.’ (Matthew 23:37).

            “God so loved the world that he gave His Son.  Why?  That men might be saved from judgment.

            “Why then did God allow sin?

            “That is a question theologians have discussed for a long time.  Lucifer fell.  How did that happen?  Did pride come from inside him?  No, he was perfect.  Did it come from outside him?  No, the environment was perfect.  Where did it come from?  I don’t know.

            “God knows. Lucifer sinned.

            “Then God had two options:  to destroy Lucifer immediately or to allow evil to run its full course.  I believe God chose that latter rather than have the constant possibility of another rebellion.  He let the uprising go full blast, and it will ultimately run itself out, like a comet that fades, forever dead and never to rise again.

            All eternity will be saved from another sinful expression.  God let it run.  He let it gather all the host of angels who wanted it.  He let it gather the hearts of willing men, all the while providing a way of escape for every man who would come to him.  He has allowed evil to run its course, because He sees the bigger picture of all eternity, but during this time when evil is running the gamut, it is not by any stretch of the imagination the will of God.

            “It fits within His tolerance only in order that it may be destroyed.  So you cannot say everything is God’ will.  Such a statement is simplistic.

            “There are also some who pray, ‘Thy will be done,’ with theological reservations.  To them it’s theology, simply God’s doing what He’s doing because He runs everything and it’s all cut and dried.  No pleading, no intensity, no passion.  I can’t honestly say I ever met anybody who really took this hard line who had much of a prayer life.

            “I wonder if that attitude can every bring about a heart like David’s who said, ‘O how I love thy law!’ (Psalm 119:97).

            “When we say, ‘Ty will be done,’ we are not factually affirming theology with indifference.  We have a responsibility to be personally involved.

            “In Luke 18, Jesus was trying to teach that men ought always to pray and not to faint.  In other words, you don’t want to just stop praying—you don’t want to become weary, lose heart, or become indifferent.  And then He tells a story:

            “There was in a city a judge, which feared not God, neither regarded man.  And there was a widow in the city; and she came unto him, saying, Avenge me of mine adversary.’

            “She had been wronged, and she wanted the king to mete out justice.  He would not do it for a while, ‘but afterward he said within himself, Though I fear not God, nor regard man; yet because this widow troubleth me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me.’

            “He was so sick of hearing the woman; he was going to do what she asked just to get rid of her.  If an unjust judge will give justice to a badgering woman, what will a just, loving, righteous, caring Father God give to His children? 

            “The parallel Jesus drew was obviously not between God and the Judge, because there is no parallel at all, but between the widow and the petitioner.  The woman refused to accept an unjust situation, and she persisted with her case.”

 

            Now the following paragraph in this quotation is the answer that I was seeking when I wanted to know how to pray for the ongoing election in our country:

 

            “That is a good word for us.  We have a right to refuse to accept certain situations in the world.  We have a right to refuse to accept the way things are, and to pray persistently that God would do them the way they ought to be done.”  The more I find out about this election the more I am understanding that it was the most crooked election that has ever happened in our countries history and I will pray the way this paragraph has said as I have “a right to refuse to accept the way things are, and to pray persistently that God would do them the way they ought to be done.”

 

            “I believe praying in this way is an act of rebellion against the world in its fallenness.  It is a rebellion against accepting as normal what is pervasively abnormal.  It is rebellion against the usurper and against every agenda and scheme and interpretation and deed and word and movement at odds with the will of God.

            “We literally have to assault the gates of heaven. We will not stand by and let our theology and our passive resignation or our resentment assign it all to God’s will.

            “It is not God’s preference.  We must pray, ‘Thy will be done in earth,’ because it is not being done on earth.

            “Jesus never accepted the status quo.  He didn’t say, ‘Oh, well, the cross, its’ Your will.’  He said in effect, ‘Father, does it have to be this way?  I rebel against this sinfulness.  I rebel against the power of sin to take My life.  I rebel against the necessity for bearing sin.  I rebel against these things that violate the sanctity of Your holy universe.’

            “He was in the midst of His rebellion against the fallenness of the world, and the disciples were sleeping.

            “How about your prayer life?  Are you praying, ‘Thy will be done in earth,’ because you feel you have no choice?  Are you indifferent due to your theology?

            “There are better reasons to pray, ‘Thy will be done.’”

 

            In my conclusion I certainly believe it was the will of the Father for Jesus to die on the cross for the world as John 3:16 tells us, however I certainly can see the humanness of Jesus as this was the weakest moment of His life as He prayed in the garden.  After all He was human and He was God, and I can’t explain that either.

 

11/18/2020 10:26 AM  

PT-3 "The Wrong Understanding of God's Will" (Matt. 6:10b)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 11/17/2020 9:55 AM

 

My Worship Time                                 Focus:  PT-3 “The Wrong Understanding of God’s Will”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Matthew 6:10b

 

            Message of the verse:  “Your will be done, On earth as it is in heaven.”

 

            I mentioned in our last SD that we may want to get some quotes from John MacArthur’s book that we have been looking at entitled “Jesus’ Pattern of Prayer,” and after reading again for about the third time the chapter that goes along with these verses I have decided to quote from this book again.  Two things that I want to say before I do this:  First it will probably take two days to get all I want to quote as I don’t want to make it too long as it is good to think about what we are reading.  Second, and this goes back to when I began this section on “The Lord’s Prayer,” and that is that because of all that is going on in our country at this time I was praying that God would give me insight in how to pray for our President and for our country.  I truly believe that He has given me insight on how to pray and it came from a paragraph from my reading last night, but I will not get to that today, so you will have to wait until tomorrow to see what I found out.  As always, Lord willing we will do that tomorrow.  One more thing that I want to mention and that is the word paradox, as while we study this prayer we will see a paradox in it, and this is not the first time we have talked about paradoxes as there are many of them in the Scriptures, especially in theology.  What do we do with them?  I hope to answer this question later on as we quote from this chapter.  I will begin with an unknown quotation that is found in this book that is very worthwhile reading.

 

            “I cannot say ‘our’ if I live only for myself.

            “I cannot say ‘Father’ if I do not endeavor each day to act like His child.

            “I cannot say ‘who art in heaven’ if I am laying up no treasure there.

            “I cannot say ‘hallowed be Thy name’ if I am not striving for holiness.

            “I cannot say ‘Thy kingdom come’ if I am not doing all in my power to hasten that wonderful event.

            “I cannot say ‘Thy will be done’ if I am disobedient to His Word.

            “I cannot say ‘in earth as it is in heaven’ if I’ll not serve Him here and now.

            “I cannot say ‘give us this day our daily bread’ if I am dishonest or seeking things by subterfuge.

            “I cannot say ‘forgive us our debts’ if I harbor a grudge against anyone.

            “I cannot say ‘lead us not into temptation’ if I deliberately place myself in its path.

            “I cannot say ‘deliver us from evil’ if I do not put on the whole armor of God.

            “I cannot say ‘Thine is the kingdom’ if I do not give the King the loyalty due Him from a faithful subject.

            “I cannot attribute to Him the power if I fear what men may do.

            “I cannot ascribe to Him the glory if I’m seeking honor only for myself, and I cannot say ‘forever’ if the horizon of my life is bounded completely by time.”

 

            Now we will move onto quoting from John MacArthur, and we talk about paradoxes.

 

            “If prayer is effective, then how can God still be absolutely sovereign?

            “I don’t know.  It is one of the great paradoxes of Scripture that tells me again that God’s mind is infinitely beyond my own.  This is an impossible dilemma for me and for everyone else.  But it is no contradiction at all of our majestic God.

            “It is akin to the question, Who wrote the book of Matthew—Matthew or the Holy Spirit?  Is either answer wrong?  Are both right.”

            “Who live the Christian life?  You say, not I but Christ in me.  Yet Paul says, ‘I beat my body to bring it into subjection.’  Who is doing it?  You or He? Both? Yes.

            “Another paradox:  Was Jesus God or man?  It’s like asking, Is it colder in the mountains or in winter?  Jesus is God, and He is man.  He cannot be 200 percent of Himself in the limits of our comprehension, but somehow in the infinite mind of God, those seeming paradoxes exist.

            “We could go on forever with mind-bogglers, but my point is that when you find paradoxes in Scripture—and you’ll find them at all the points of great doctrine—do not come up with some compromise and ruin both sides.

            “That’s the temptation, but let them both exist.  If God allows them, surely we can too.  We don’t have to fully understand.  If we could understand the mind of God, what would that make us?  God is sovereign.  God has predetermined the flow of the universe.  God does know the end from the beginning.  God will do what God will do.   And some day we will know as we are known.

            “On the other hand, prayer does work, and if you don’t understand how those fit together, don’t let your theology destroy your prayer life.

            “Once you have decided that you can accept the fact that prayer—even to the predeterminate God—is valid and vital, a right attitude toward prayer is achieved.

           

            I want to know move onto a different part of the chapter.

 

            “To say, ‘Thy will be done in earth,’ assumes that it is not always done, and that is true of some other elements of this prayer.

            “We say, ‘Hallowed be thy name,’ but there are times and places when His name is not hallowed.

            “We say ‘Thy kingdom come,’ yet there are hearts that reject His reign.

            “So when we say, ‘Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven,’ we have to admit that not everything that happens in the world is His will.  Otherwise the petition is pointless, and the Lord is asking us to mumble meaningless things.

            “Very often you hear of someone telling the parents of a child who has died, ‘It’s the Lord’s will.’

            “Or a mother, who is so needed by her husband and children, becomes wracked with cancer and is fading fast, and somebody says, ‘It’s the Lord’s will.’

            “Or you hear about a flood or an earthquake or a fire or a train wreck or an airplane crash or a famine or starving boat people, and you say, ‘It’s the Lord’s will.’

            “You know what?  If you start looking at things that way, it will suck the energy right out of your prayer life.  Would you want to pray to the person who will such horrible catastrophes?  I wouldn’t.

            “Those things are not God’s will.  Those are the kinds of things that Jesus came into the world to stop.  His will must be seen as His preferred purposes for those He loves.  God ‘is not willing that any should perish’ (2 Peter 3:9), but people are perishing all over.”

            As I look at the rest of what I want to write I have to say that it will probably take two more days.  We will see.

 

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  I have to say that as I have read and studied this section that it has brought a new light on God’s will, and one verse comes to mind that helps me understand what I have learned, and that is Romans 8:28 “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.”  I worship a God who can use my circumstances to work together for my good and for His glory even though many times my circumstances are not good.

 

My Steps of Faith for Today:  I trust God to do as He says in Romans 8:28, along with giving me strength to deal with difficult situations.

 

11/17/2020 10:55 AM

 

           

PT-2 "Wrong Understanding of God's Will" (Matt. 6:10b)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 11/16/2020 10:00 AM

 

My Worship Time                                          Focus: PT-2 “Wrong Understanding of God’s Will”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Matthew 6:10b

 

            Message of the verse:  “Your will be done, On earth as it is in heaven.”

 

            We want to continue talking about the parable that we ended up starting to talk about in our last SD found in Luke 18:1-8 1 Now He was telling them a parable to show that at all times they ought to pray and not to lose heart, 2 saying, "In a certain city there was a judge who did not fear God and did not respect man. 3 “There was a widow in that city, and she kept coming to him, saying, ’Give me legal protection from my opponent.’ 4 "For a while he was unwilling; but afterward he said to himself, ’Even though I do not fear God nor respect man, 5 yet because this widow bothers me, I will give her legal protection, otherwise by continually coming she will wear me out.’" 6 And the Lord said, "Hear what the unrighteous judge said; 7 now, will not God bring about justice for His elect who cry to Him day and night, and will He delay long over them? 8 “I tell you that He will bring about justice for them quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?’”

 

            John MacArthur writes “The very fact that Jesus tells us to pray ‘Thy will be done on earth’ indicates that God’s will is not always done on earth.  It is not inevitable.  In fact, lack of faithful prayer inhibits His will being done.  In God’s wise and gracious plan, prayer is essential to the proper working of His divine will on earth.”

 

            I think it best to continue to quote from MacArthur’s commentary:  “God is sovereign, but He is not independently deterministic.  Looking at God’s sovereignty in a fatalistic way, thinking ‘What will be will be,’ absolutely destroys faithful prayer and faith obedience of every sort.  That is not a ‘high’ view of God’s sovereignty, but a destructive and unbiblical; view of it.  That is not the divine sovereignty the Bible teaches.  It is not God’s will that people die, or why would Christ have come to destroy death?  It is not God’s will that people go to hell, or why would His only Son have taken the penalty of sin upon Himself so that men might escape hell?  ‘The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance’ (2 Pet. 3:9).  That sin exists on earth and causes such horrible consequences in not evidence of God’s will but of His patience in allowing more opportunity for men to turn to Him for salvation.

 

            “Other people, overemphasizing the importance of man’s will, look at prayer as a means of bending God’s will to their own.  They think of God’s providence as a sort of cosmic vending machines, which they can operate simply by inserting the required claim on one of His promises.  As Elton Trueblood observes, ‘In some congregations the Gospel has been diminished to the mere art of self-fulfillment.  Some current religious authors, far from emphasizing what it means to believe that God was in Christ reconciling the world upon Himself, write chiefly of themselves.  Egocentricity is all that is left when the objective truth about the revelation of Christ is lost or even obscured.’

 

            “But Jesus undercuts that notion throughout His model prayer.  True prayer focuses on ‘Thy’ name, ‘Thy’ will.  Amy Carmichael wrote, ‘And shall I pray to change Thy will, my Father, until it accord to mine?  But no, Lord, no; that shall never be.  Rather I pray Thee blend my human will with Thine.’

 

            “There is tension between God’s sovereignty and man’s will, between God’s grace and man’s faith, but we dare not try to resolve it by modifying God’s truth about either His sovereignty or our will, His grace or our faith.  God is sovereign, but He gives us choices.  God is sovereign, but He tells us to pray ‘Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.’  And James reminds us that ‘the effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much’ (5:16).”

 

            Now this is the end of MacArthur’s comments as far as from his commentary, but I want to go over what he has written in his book “Jesus’ Pattern of Prayer,” and see if there are some things that I may want to use in our next SD as he goes more indebt in his book as I have mentioned before.

 

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  I desire to continue more about how my prayers to the Lord will be how He desires me to pray.  Prayer is such a deep subject and I suppose that my prayer life has not always been in the way that I should be praying, and that is why I am thankful for this section on what we have called “The Lord’s Prayer” as it is so very important to me, especially in the times we are living in.

 

My Steps of Faith for Today:  I desire to continue to trust the Lord in the very confusing times that we are living in, trust Him to fulfill what Paul wrote in Romans 8:28.

 

11/16/2020 10:37 AM