Thy will be done, as in heaven, so in earth.
—Luke 11:2
When God created heaven and earth, He meant heaven to be the divine pattern to which earth was to be conformed; “as in heaven, so in earth” was to be the law of its existence.
This Scripture calls us to think of what constitutes the glory of heaven. God is all in all there. Everything lives in Him and for His glory. As we think of what this earth has now become—with all its sin and misery, with the great majority of people lacking any knowledge of the true God, and with the remainder living only as nominal Christians who are for the most part estranged from His holiness and love—we feel what a miracle is needed if these words are to be fulfilled: “As in heaven, so in earth.”
How is this ever to come true? Only through the prayers of God’s children. Our Lord taught us to pray for it. Intercession is the great link between heaven and earth. The intercession of the Son, begun on earth, continued in heaven, and carried on by His redeemed people on earth, will bring about the mighty change—“on earth as it is in heaven.” Christ’s redeemed ones make His prayer their own and unceasingly send up the cry, “Thy will be done, as in heaven, so in earth.”
Every prayer of a parent for a child, every prayer of a believer for the saving of the lost or for more grace for those who have been saved, is part of the great unceasing cry going up day and night from this earth: “As in heaven, so in earth.”
But when God’s children not only learn to pray for their immediate circles and interests, but also enlarge their hearts to take in the whole church and the whole world, then their united supplication will have power with God and will hurry the day when it will indeed be “as in heaven, so in earth”—the whole earth filled with the glory of God. Child of God, will you not yield yourself, like Christ, to live with this one prayer: “Our Father… Thy will be done, as in heaven, so in earth”?
“Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in heaven, so in earth” (Luke 11:2). Amen.