"Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is done in heaven."
This request from the Our Father shows what it would take for life on earth to become the paradise everyone seeks.
Heaven is trouble-free because God's will is always done by its residents. Earth is filled with trouble and death because God's will is not being done by its residents.
The only way this world will change is when Christ returns and sets up the kingdom of God. Till then there will be "wars and rumors of wars and nation [Greek ethnos = ethnic group] rising against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in various places." (from Matthew 24)
When the kingdom is set up, then this will be fulfilled: "And He shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more." (Isaiah 2:4)
And, from Isaiah 11:6-9 "The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together: and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the nursing child shall play on the hole of the cobra, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the viper's den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea."
This is how and when the prayer will be fulfilled. Till then the Our Father should be fervently prayed every day. |
