2006-05-19
Good Morning God's Cherished,
We are learning about how people retained the lessons of the Lord's Prayer before there were neat, compact Bibles to read. It was by memorizing index sentences. One can't help but be awed at how God puts ideas into people's heads, ones that help them along the hard path from the narrow gate to eternal life [MT 7: 13-14]. By doing an analysis of the lessons of the Lord's Prayer [MT 6: 9-13] and taking our time like this, we are mining "eternal gold" in how the Lord wants us to pray. And, we must remember that prayer is one of the two most important ways that the Lord reveals Himself and His will to us. Study of His word is the other. Now to those index sentences: The first one, "Our Father Who Art in Heaven hallowed by Thy name...," begins the prayer with worship; the second one, "Thy Kingdom come...," signals our allegiance to the Father, our belief that He alone will replace all human kingdoms with His own permanent one. And now today, we will look at the third index sentence, "Thy will be done..."
Immediately, a heartfelt utterance of this sentence is a message to God that the believer acknowledges his submission to our beloved Deity. When you boil expressions of our faith in God down to their essence, they are saying, "God, Your will is first in my life, over my own. I put You first." There is wisdom and a certain step toward unselfishness in this, if it is genuinely meant. Why even think about putting God's will before our own? The story of the once-blind man to whom Christ gave sight in JN 9 helps us to understand this. Christ explained to the disciples that this man's blindness was not a punishment for his sin or his parent's sin, but instead was so others could see God's power at work in him [JN 9: 3]. Later the legalistic Pharisees questioned the healed man twice over. In the course of this they divided themselves into two groups, one that reasoned that Christ cannot be from God, for He doesn't obey the Sabbath law (the healing was accomplished on the Sabbath). The other group asked in (16b), "How can a Man Who is a sinner perform such miracles as these?" Even the once-blind man's parents were brought into the inquiry, and they were afraid to acknowledge that Christ is the Messiah, so they referred to him as a prophet. (The penalty for displeasing the Pharisees was expulsion from the synagogue). In a second inquiry, the once-blind man was brought back and admonished, in (24), "Promise before God that you will tell the truth! We know that this man who cured you is a sinner." This time the once-blind man said, "I do not know if He is a sinner or not. One thing I do know. I was once-blind and now I can see" (25)..." We know that God does not listen to sinner; He does listen to people who respect Him and do what He wants them to do. Since the beginning of the world nobody has ever heard of anyone giving sight to a blind person. Unless this Man came from God, He would not be able to do a thing" (31-33). While the arrogant self-righteous Pharisees expelled the once-blind man from the temple, the once-blind man surely was a winner in the eternal sense of the word, a winner, because he knew the truth, and the truth set him free [JN 8: 32).
Oftentimes I have written that real power comes from submission to God, not from submission to mankind. The older I become, the more firmly I believe this. Even in cases of the worst persecution, like that to which Daniel or the Jews in WW II concentration camps were subjected, those who endured in their faith in God came out best in the long run. God often speaks of how dear He holds loyalty and obedience to Himself in the Scriptures. Here are two examples out of many: 2 CH 16: 9, "The eyes of the Lord range throughout the earth to strengthen those who hearts are fully committed to Him;" PS 103: 17-18, "And His righteousness to children's children, to such as keep His covenant." Think of those persecuted for God's cause, the apostles, Ann Frank (and others who went through the Holocaust never losing their faith in God), and the young lady who professed her faith in Jesus Christ at the moment she would be shot to death at Columbine High School, for example. I believe the persecuted for their faith in God will be found under the altar of God as described in REV 6: 9-11. "Then the Lamb broke open the fifth seal. I saw underneath the altar the souls of those who had been killed because they had proclaimed God's word and had been faithful in their witnessing. They shouted in a loud voice, 'Almighty Lord, holy and true! How long will it be until You judge the people on earth and punish them for killing us?' Each of them was given a white robe, and they were told to rest a little while longer, until the complete number of their fellow servants and brothers were killed, as they had been." These people serve as an example of real power-the courage of their convictions that God is supreme and should be obeyed even to death. And then, we must cite the greatest example of submission to God ever seen, that of Jesus Christ, Who the night of His arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane utters in LK 22: 42, "Father, if You will, take this cup of suffering away from Me. Not My will, however, but Your will be done." This is what I mean by a person having real power.
PRAYER: As we come with heads bowed in reverence before Your throne today, You lead us to examine our own lives for willingness to obey You. Each of us is likely to be in a different place on this issue. A person willing to use His fists, his thirst for power as Saddam Hussein or Slobidon Milosovic did, or his hatred of certain groups of people as Osama bin Laden has are not powerful people in Your view. Those willing to put Your will over their own are the ones You see as having eternal power. They are the ones who will endure in their faith and inherit the Kingdom as joint heirs with Your Son, Jesus Christ [RO 8: 17]. Dearest Father, I recently saw a TV reality show about four young men who were trying to decide if You are calling them to the Catholic priesthood. While I am not a Catholic, I can't help but respect how each of them appealed to You in his own way to direct them to Your will. One young man, a graduate in business of the University of VA, had begun his career making $80, 000 a year and living with every material comfort he could have wanted. You called him to give that up and become a missionary. He overcame his fears (and they were many) to serve a mission down in Guatemala. This experience changed his life forever. He committed to make Your will first in his life as a Catholic priest. The other three young men didn't end up committing to be priests, but in each case, they did commit to following Your will for themselves. One will be a youth minister; one will work for the time being at a Catholic college; one will teach elementary school and continue a relationship with his girlfriend with the idea of one day marrying her. Each person of faith should be asking the same questions Isaiah did in IS 45: 9, "Does a clay pot dare argue with it maker, a pot that is like all others? Does the clay ask the potter what he is doing? Does the pot complain that its maker has no skill?" These questions are answered in IS 64: 8, "But You are our Father, Lord. We are like clay, and You are like the potter. You created us." We stand before You today dedicated to spend our lives on earth learning to seek and submit to Your will. We worship, adore, thank, and praise You for being Who You are and doing what You do for us. In Christ's powerful name, we pray. Amen.
Next week, I am led to continue writing about the third index sentence of the Lord's Prayer. If you are as surprised at how much precious "eternal meat" is in each sentence of the Lord's Prayer, then you are like me. We must all stand in awe of the God Who loves us enough to have directed His Son to write such succinct, yet lesson-heavy messages on how to pray. We have a God Who deserves our worship, allegiance, submission, confession, obedience, faithfulness, thanks, and praise. In return, He blesses beyond what any other person can do. His blessings are real and eternal, not ephemeral like what man gives. The greatest blessing of all is found in the very familiar verse, JN 3: 16, "For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life." Should we mind submitting to such a God? I think not! None of us knows how we will react if we find ourselves in the position of being martyred for our beliefs until and unless it happens. Under the circumstances, we must always choose to seek God's will and His help in whatever challenges we face or callings we think we have. JER 29: 11-13 gives us insight into God's view of things. "I alone know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you, not to bring disaster, plans to give you the future for which you hope. Then you will call to Me. You will come and pray to Me, and I will answer you. You will seek Me, and you will find Me because you will seek Me with all your heart." Repeatedly, God invites us to come to Him, to submit to Him-so we can go back to Him at the right time for a joyful and close eternal fellowship with Him in heaven. Then, we will have the privilege of seeing Him face to face. Praise be to our holy God forever!
Grace Be With You Always,
Lynn