Thy Will Be Done: Spiritual Warriors Prayer, Part 3
This is week three in a seven-week study on the Lord's Prayer, or as Pastor Ricky Jacob likes to call it: the Spiritual Warriors Prayer. Need to start at the beginning? Read Part 1 here.
Listen to the devotion:
You might wonder, is it God’s will that this should be happening to me? How could a loving God allow such things to happen? There are several stories found in the Bible about those who were afflicted with leprosy. Was it God’s will to have such a disease separate one from family, from the temple, from drawing near to others?
The same might have been said about a young girl, stolen away from her family, friends, and people, enslaved to serve this diseased man.
Maybe the girl would be tempted to make fun of this warrior who had leprosy? Maybe she thought ‘well that serves you right!’ or ‘what goes around comes around!’? But instead, the young Jewish slave girl was moved to tell her mistress, the wife of Naaman, about a prophet of the God of her people who could heal her husband of his leprosy. Maybe it was for this very reason that the young girl was whisked away from her family so that God’s healing mercy would not only come to this man physically but spiritually as well.
Have you ever wondered if maybe, just maybe, God is attempting to get your attention when trials and bad things happen to you? Are you willing to trust in Him and pray that His will, that what would be best for you, would come your way?
In what I call the Spiritual Warrior’s prayer, we pray: Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
The good and gracious will of God is done even without our prayer, but we pray in this petition that it may be done among us also. God’s will is done when He breaks and hinders every evil plan and purpose of the devil, the world, and our sinful nature, which do not want us to hallow God’s name or let His kingdom come; and when He strengthens and keeps us firm in His Word and faith until we die.
This is His good and gracious will.
Prior to His suffering and death for your sin and mine, Jesus fell to the ground and prayed “Abba, Father, everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.” (Mark 14:36 NIV)
Thank God that it was His will for Jesus, the one and only One who was able to fulfill His Heavenly Father’s will and offer you complete pardon and peace!