Luke 11:2 “So He said to them, "When you pray, say: Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
We have already looked at the above quoted passage of scripture when we discussed the difference between God’s perfect and His permissible will, and we saw that the Lord Jesus was teaching us in this passage that we were to pray that God’s perfect will would be done on the earth. And so this passage reveals to us an important spiritual truth about prayer, which is if we want to experience God’s perfect will in our lives then we are going to have to pray for that to happen. For the Lord Jesus implied in His teaching that unless we prayed, then God’s perfect will would not be done, which means that we would therefore by default experience God’s permissible will in our lives. In other words when believers enter the kingdom of God they do not automatically experience God’s perfect will for their lives, for God expects them first to find out what His perfect will is, and then ask Him through prayer to perform His will in their lives. The question is then asked, why God doesn’t automatically perform His perfect will in the lives of His saints. We can answer that question by looking at the life of the Lord Jesus. Jesus was the perfect Son of God and He knew God’s perfect will for His life before He ever came to the earth (Hebrews 10:7). Nevertheless if you study the life of the Lord Jesus you will see that He had to pray and intercede to God so that God’s perfect will would be accomplished in the His life (Hebrews 5:7). The Psalms specifically, are full of the Lord’s prayers that He prayed while He was on the earth. And so if the perfect Son of God had to pray to experience God’s perfect will then we are no different, and we too will have to pray if we want to experience God’s perfect will manifested in our lives. We saw earlier that both angels and mankind have free wills. Nevertheless in this area there is a distinct difference between men and angels, for angels are able to do the perfect will of God and never have to pray to God for that to happen. Men on the other hand, even if they know God’s perfect will still have to pray that His will would be done in their lives. So why is there a difference between angels and men in this area? The reason is because angels have the ability to do God’s will, for God has endued them with supernatural power (Psalm 103:20-21), which is why God does not give angels any aid, because they don’t need it (Hebrews 2:16). Men on the other hand do not have the ability to do God’s will, for God has not endued us with supernatural power. Therefore because men are completely reliant on God’s power they have to pray, both for God’s ability and His intervention in their lives so that they can walk in His perfect will. And so in essence that is one of the main purposes of prayer. It is the saints asking God to perform His perfect will in their lives, and thus in this manner the saints are able to influence the will of God. It is for this reason that the apostle John teaches us that if we pray in accordance with His will, He hears our prayers and grants us our petitions (1 John 5:14-15). The will of God that John is referring to in his teaching is God’s perfect will for our lives. The question is then asked, how do we know what God’s perfect will is? The answer to that question is that God’s perfect will is revealed to us in His word and by the leading of the Holy Spirit.
Isaiah 1:18 “Come now, and let us reason together," Says the Lord, "Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; Though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool.”
Man is a unique creation of God, for we (not angels) have been created in His image and His likeness. And so because of the intimate relationship that we enjoy with our creator, in that not only is He our God but He is also our Father, we are able to not only pray to Him but we can also converse with Him. In the above quoted passage of scripture the Lord invites us to reason together with Him. In other words God is saying that there are instances when He will let us know His will for a given situation, and in turn He invites us to let Him know our will for that same situation. God does that because in certain instances, He is not averse to changing His will to meet our desires, as long as they are spiritual and not fleshly in nature.
Michael E.B. Maher
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