When I started this blog, I’d intended to take a look at the different aspects of God’s will – those things that are ‘the secret things’ of God, and the ‘things that are revealed’ (Deuteronomy 29:29).

Good Friday

But I wrote this on Good Friday, and going through the events that lead up to Jesus’ arrest, there’s a place where he uses the expression ‘your will be done’ for a second time, so I’ve taken a different perspective on what it means for God’s will to be done.

As well as in the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus prays ‘your will be done’ in Gethsemane, the night before his crucifixion. He’s there with his disciples, wrestling with the awful prospect of what’s to come. He says how his soul is ‘sorrowful unto death’; Luke records his agony and how he sweat drops of blood. He pleads with God to save him from the suffering to come (‘the cup’¹ ), but then says ‘nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will’. Two more times he prays ‘My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done’. There it is.

He doesn’t pray that again, it’s as though the matter is resolved, and he goes willingly to the cross.

It’s an example of submission to the will of God, even in circumstances that no other human being will have to face. At one level he is resisting the prospect of a horrific death, enduring the wrath of his Father, knowing that at that point his Father will be against him, not with him. But he is also resolved to obey his Father and complete his mission despite the cost, and so he submits to his Father’s will.

In so doing, Jesus is providing us with an example, albeit extreme, of what it means to follow him.

The Mark of a Christian

There are many occasions in the New Testament, where obeying, or keeping God’s will is the mark of a Christian. It is not that obeying God earns us salvation – that is not possible – but having been given salvation as a gift, we demonstrate the consequence, or fruit, of that gift in our lives in our submission to God’s will.

For instance, it is the one who does God’s will who enters the Kingdom of heaven (Matt 7:21) and is Jesus’ brother or sister (Matt 12:50).

We get to know God’s will by renewing our minds (Rom 12:2), so that doing God’s will becomes a delight and a heart-response (Eph 6:6).

We are called to endure in doing God’s will (Heb 10:36) becoming mature and fully assured in it (Col 4:12).

While the will of God for our individual lives will be specific to each one of us – for instance, in the introductions to many of his letters, Paul says how he has been called to be an apostle ‘by the will of God’ – there are some general principles of what God will is for all of us.

Sanctification, abstaining from sexual immorality, is God’s will (1 Thess 4:3). So is giving thanks in all circumstances (1 Thess 5:18), and doing good (1 Peter 2:15). We choose the will of God over ‘human passions’ (1 Peter 4:2), which can come from within (1 John 2:15-16) and from the influences of others (Eph 4:17).

Your Will be Done

As with the other phrases in the Lord’s prayer, ‘Your Will be Done’ is powerful and rich in meaning. It can, and does, apply to God’s will in the world. But it is also a personal prayer of submission to the will of God – what is good, acceptable and perfect (Rom 12:2). Having endured the suffering, Jesus is now at the right hand of God (Her 12:3). The will of God may take us through hard times, but it will always be for our good. I recently heard someone sum it up this way – we do Gods will because we trust him and trust he wants the best for us.

1. In the Old Testament, the “cup” normally signifies the outpouring of God’s wrath (Psalm 75:8; Isaiah 51:17, 22; Jeremiah 25:15, 16; see also Revelation 16:19) [↩]