Now the next portion of this prayer says, “Let Your will (God’s will) be done on earth as it is in heaven.” He is very specific in this prayer. He doesn’t just pray; “Let Your will be done anywhere” because here is no problem with God’s will being done in heaven where God’s throne is. When God speaks, His will is carried out, but on the earth there is a problem.

It is very interesting. In the book of Genesis it talks about when God first created man, When God created man He wanted man to have dominion. There is a list of things there God wanted man to have dominion over: the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, the creeping things, and the beasts on the earth. Then He says, “Over the whole earth”. God’s intention from the very beginning when He created man was that man would manage this earth, rule over this earth. So here Jesus is teaching us to pray this way, “Father, let Thy will be done on the earth just like it is in heaven.” In other words, we need to bring God, Who is in the heavens, to the earth. We need to bring the things of God, the feelings of God, the will of God, the desires of God, and the things God wants to do to this earth—not just let them stay up in heaven where everything is okay and there are no problems. God originally created man to rule and reign on this earth. Here, in this prayer Jesus is teaching us to pray, “Thy will be done on earth just like it is in heaven.” Now I believe this portion of this prayer, “Let Your will be done on earth” is somewhat related to following God’s will even in our lives personally. There are several places in the Bible that talk about knowing the will of God and following the will of God. For instance, you might ask the question, “How do you know what God’s will is?” In the book of Galatians it says, “Walk by the Spirit.” In other words, the Spirit reveals to us God’s will. Then it says, “And then you will not carry out the desires of the flesh. Further in this passage it says, “If you are led by the Spirit.” So we have seen, “Walking by the Spirit”, and “Being led by the Spirit”. So if you ask the question, “How do you know the will of God”, you know by the Spirit. Now in the book of Acts, chapter 16, we have Paul and someone else attempting to go to a certain place to do some ministry. It says that the Spirit of Jesus suffered them not, or prevented them from doing that. In other words, there was a feeling in his spirit from Jesus saying, “No, you are not supposed to go there, Paul.” So Paul knew the will of God by the Spirit. Also, in Acts 13 when Paul was being commissioned for his missionary journey, it says the Spirit said, “Separate me Paul for this work” or something like that. Here you have the Holy Spirit speaking. How do you know the will of God? You know the will of God by the Spirit.

Let’s go on to the next portion. It says, “Forgive us our debts as we forgive others.” Or you could say, “Forgive us our sins, our mistakes, and our failures.” We need to admit that we, as human beings, make mistakes. A lot of people try to say that if you are a man of God or a Christian, you should not make mistakes. But if you read the Bible it is hard to find a character or a person who did not make mistakes. Even when Jesus chose His disciples, two of them specifically, made some real big blunders, and others had some problems too. One of them He chose was Judas, and he was the treasurer. He handled the money and he betrayed Jesus. Then the leader of the twelve, you could say, Peter denied the Lord, not once, not twice, but three times! He didn’t do this in front of the supreme court, but just in front of a woman servant. Servants, at that time, were really low class. I mean you could care less what a woman said in that day, but Peter couldn’t stand up to anybody and say, “Yes, I am a follower of Jesus.” Peter failed. We fail also. All human beings have failures and problems. Here He is saying that we need to be forgiven. We need to be forgiven for our problems and things that we do wrong, as we forgive others. Often we look at others and say, “They goofed. They are bad, we don’t like them anymore. We don’t accept them anymore. We don’t want to be around them. We are going to look down on them forever and ever.” We get that way about people, but the problem is we never see ourselves. If you look at yourself and I look at myself, we can see we have had a lot of problems and we have made a lot of mistakes in life. We realize that if we could do things over we would not do that again. We wouldn’t get involved in that, or if I could do it over I would not have said it that way. If I had the wisdom I have now, I would have done better. We all have a history of mistakes in our life. We need to forgive others as God has forgiven us. When we hold things against others, it holds God back in our experience, so it is important to forgive others.

As we continue on with this prayer it says, “Lead us not unto temptation and deliver us from evil.” Jesus was admitting that there are temptations out there, and we will face evil. But in prayer we ask to be delivered from these things. But sometimes we fail, and the Bible makes provision for our failures. Not only does the Bible record the positive things people they have done, but it also records their failures. King David’s failure was recorded in the Old Testament.

As an eBook on Olive Tree see The Lord’s Prayer by Drew Haninger

Taken from a Cable TV broadcast called In the Beginning by Drew Haninger  Message number: TV0023 web site:  www.DrewHaninger.com