On Earth as It Is in Heaven
Praise the Lord, you angels of his, who are mighty in strength, who fulfill his word, obeying the voice of his word. — Psalms 103:20
Worthy are you, our Lord and God, the Holy One, to receive the glory, the honor, and the power, for you created all things, and because of your desire they existed, and were created! — Revelation 4:11
Author
Dr. Roberto Miranda
Summary: In a fallen world, the powers of darkness oppose God’s will and foster rebellion and pride. Therefore, we long and pray for his holy purposes of love, life, and justice to be fulfilled on earth with the same freedom and fullness as in heaven. There, no resistance exists: everyone delights in honoring the Father and submitting entirely to him. The twenty-four elders illustrate this attitude by falling down before the throne and laying down their crowns as a sign of total surrender. As we await the day when all creation embraces the Creator’s will, let us seek to express it ourselves without resistance through lives of surrender and obedience.
In this fallen world ruled by evil, God’s will is done reluctantly, in the face of great opposition. There is a spirit of sin in the world, ‘which opposes and exalts itself above all that is called God or is worshiped’ (2 Thessalonians 2:4). The powers of darkness exist to oppose God’s will and to contradict every noble or holy principle that exists on earth. Satan’s desire is to subvert the divine will and fill the human heart with the same spirit of rebellion and pride that overwhelms his own heart. This is his reason for being, his sole purpose in creation. Satan is the Adversary, the opponent par excellence, the source of all resistance to God’s will in creation.
Creation groans for the day when God’s will shall be done in the world without any resistance. Jesus Christ teaches us to pray that God’s will be done ‘on earth as it is in heaven.’ Our ardent longing should be for the day to come when God’s will—his holy purposes, his initiatives to promote love, life, and justice—is carried out as spontaneously and freely in the world as it is in heaven. In heaven there is no opposition whatsoever to God’s will. There, the delight of all its inhabitants is for the Father to reveal his Person and his holy purposes.
In Revelation 4:10, the apostle John presents us with the marvelous scene of twenty-four elders, marvelous beings filled with mystery, who fall down before the One seated on the throne and worship the One who lives forever and ever. These elders take their crowns, symbols of their authority and royalty, and cast them before the throne as a sign of total submission to the will of the King of kings and Lord of lords. That is the attitude that governs heaven—total surrender to God’s will, delight in submitting to him, an absolute desire for his will to be done.
Let us long for the day when a similar scene takes place throughout the world. May all creation embrace the Creator’s sublime purposes, and may the world be a perfect reflection of his holy will. In the meantime, let us do everything possible to be, ourselves, an expression of that unresisting fulfillment of God’s will on earth.