A Church With Purpose: Thy Will Be Done

“And when he would not be persuaded, we ceased, saying, The will of the Lord be done.” Acts 21:14

A church that is Spirit-filled is one that prays like it’s Lord! The Prophet Agabus has just given Paul a prophecy from the Holy Spirit that revealed his fate when he finally arrives in Jerusalem. Not only through a word of prophecy, but in typical prophetic form he illustrates Paul’s fate by taking his girdle and binding him hand and foot saying he will be delivered unto the Gentiles. When the believers heard this they begged Paul not to go to Jerusalem. But Paul understanding from the very beginning that he must suffer many things knew that this was the will of God for him. After convincing believers to not beg him anymore they responded “The Will of the Lord be done.”

God’s will at times can be fulfilling, easy, exciting, and full of pleasure. But at other times it can be difficult, challenging, and even painful in many ways. It can be easily embraced and reluctantly received but nevertheless the outcome will always be the same: God’s will was accomplished. This is much easier to endure when we remind ourselves that God’s will is always good and he will never put us into a place or situation that will not bring glory to his name and accomplish his divine plan. Paul could have went to Rome by various other means, but those means would have been on his terms and not the Holy Spirit’s terms. God’s will must be done in his time and his way or else it’s not God’s will!

Our Lord demonstrates this in the Garden of Gethsemane. Up until this moment he has with joy done the will of his father. He has fed many, healed many, and revealed to all of Israel what God is like and his love towards them. But now we see where the weight of God’s will by being the sin substitute for sinful man and the reality of that substitutional sacrifice being carried out by way of the cross, caused him to be in agony. He does pray for another way if possible, but then succumbs to what he knows to be the right way by saying “nevertheless, not my will, but thy will be done.”

This is the best way that we reflect our Lord Jesus Christ, by submitting to the will of the Father, even when we realize it is going to be difficult and cost us something. There is no time on earth that is more like heaven when we say,“thy will be done.” I believe that it is essential that the Lord’s Prayer should be prayed by every believer, every morning. Bit it is not just a prayer. When we meditate on it, it teaches us that we need God everyday and it instructs us on how to live for God and with one another. My focus here is on “thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Again, I re-emphasize that there is no time on earth that is more like heaven when we pray and carry out God’s will for his church and our lives.

Never has Paul be so conformed to Christ than here in this moment when he says “for I am ready not to be bound only, but also to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.” He is not overconfident, arrogant, or being boastful. He understands the will of God for his life and he wants God’s will to be done even if it cost him his life. This is the purpose for God’s church in the world today. It is to bring glory to God by doing things his way and when we do it his way, then that is when we are truly conformed to Christ who is “The way, the truth, and the life!”

Pastor Robby