According to Your Word

Every day and during every service of the Church, we pray the words, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” These words found in the Lord’s Prayer, given to us by God are the root of our entire Christian life. These words are also the foundation of every spiritual struggle as far back as our ancestors in The Garden. As we celebrate today, just over two thousand years ago, a young girl not only understood the meaning of these words, she spoke them from her heart and changed world history.

As I have mentioned in recent weeks, free will is a gift from God, and it is absolute. God has never interfered with human free will, but free will has two sides. We can use our free will either to obey or disobey God. In The Garden our ancestors used their free will to disobey Him. Just over two thousand years ago the Virgin Mary, the Panagia, used her free will to say, “Let it be to me according to Your word.”

In that moment the Panagia became “the new Eve” being able to freely accept God’s will in her life in a way the first Eve couldn’t. It wouldn’t be easy, but it would be blessed by God. In many similar ways, we have the chance to freely accept God’s will in our life by saying “According to Your Word,” and welcome to potential struggle of saying “yes” to God.

If we have gained anything from the past five weeks of Great Lent, I pray it will be the willingness to say “yes” to God. When we have the courage to utter the words, “According to Your word,” we will be opening our hearts to the blessing of God’s will for our life. What is His will? God’s will is for everyone to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. Are you ready to say “yes” to God?