"Thy will be done on earth ..."

"Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven" is a favorite verse for churches to cheer their congregations on to do great things for God. This is especially popular today to try and get Christians to be more active in conforming our culture to God's wishes. Representing God well in our lives on this earth is surely admirable way to think, but there are some pitfalls in thinking this way. In fact, what if this is not what this verse really means? Interpreting scripture has its risks since humans are a threat to bias their understanding based on starting assumptions they may not even be aware of.

Let's examine this verse in two ways.
First let's just do a word study and see what Jesus is literally saying.

"on earth" is the Greek word 'gẻ', which means "the arena humans live in which operates in time and space to prepare us for eternity"
"will" is the Greek word 'thelẻma', which means "best offer which can be accepted or rejected."
"let be done" is the Greek word 'ginomai', which means "transitioning from one realm to another."

If we put these together, maybe Jesus is saying, "God, please send Your best offer from heaven to Your representatives on earth"? Why would we seem to think Jesus is praying to us? NOOOOOO WAY! Jesus is petitioning God, not us. Now, what is meant by His "best offer"? Grace, Glory, Goodness? That's a tough choice. Seems hard to go wrong.

I'd go with His glory. Why? It seems that God's glory is His most prized attribute. It is what Jesus wants Him to gladly share with us or we would have no hope. This would suggest that anything we read into this verse that places value on the outcome of what we do is off base. This would deny the intent of Jesus, who is asking God to send His glory across realms for us to share. Its not about what we can accomplish in this realm. It is not asking anything of us. "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven" is about the source of all we have that is worth anything. Jesus wants His "best deal" to come out of the infinite realm into the finite realm humans occupy. In fact, Jesus Incarnate is just that. Maybe this verse is just Jesus affirming what God has done already in Jesus?

Second, let's look at how our human nature or our flesh wants to see things. Our carnal mind is oriented to "the outcome of things." We have to make sense of everything through cause and effect lenses. Its very natural for us to think God wants or needs us to accomplish things for Him. Its also natural to think that God causes things through His action. A divine nature would be oriented differently. We would be oriented toward "the source of things." We would not try to understand what is happening by answering the question "why?" Instead, we would rest comfortably that all is about His will. He is Sovereign. He wills and that's it.

Jesus is simply praying that this Sovereign will transcend heaven and occupy earth. What an amazing request!

I wonder if that is what the congregations are hearing when churches emphasize that Jesus is praying to us for us to do great things for God?

You should at least ponder this I would think .....