March 7 Daily Devotional

Bible Verse

"Your will be done, on earth as it is heaven" (Matthew 6:10).

Devotional

Robert Leighton (1611–1684) remarked that to say from the heart, "your will be done," constitutes the very essence of sanctification. There is much truth in this—more perhaps than strikes the mind at first.

Before conversion, the will (the governing principle of the soul), is the headquarters of all opposition to God. It rises up against God. It rises up against his government. It rises up against his law. It rises up against his providence. It rises up against his grace. It rises up against his Son. Yes, the unrenewed will of man is hostile to everything that relates to God. Herein lies the depth of man's unholiness. The will is against God. And as long as it refuses to obey him, the creature remains unholy.

Now, when the Holy Spirit renews the will and makes it submit to God, the holiness of the believer will be in proportion to the degree of its submission. There could not be perfect holiness in heaven if there were even the slightest influence of the will of the creature towards itself. The angels and "the spirits of just men made perfect" (Heb. 12:23), are supremely holy because their wills are supremely swallowed up in the will of God. "Your will be done on earth, even as it is in heaven." God's will is supremely obeyed in heaven, and in this consists the holiness and the bliss of its glorious inhabitants.

Thus, to the degree that God's will is "done on earth" by you the believer, you drink from the pure fountain of holiness. And to the degree that you are enabled by the grace of Christ to look up to God with filial love in all things, and to say, "not my will," O my Father, "but yours, be done," you attain the very essence of sanctification.

Make me a captive, Lord,
and then I shall be free;.
force me to render up my sword,
and I shall conqueror be;
I sink in life's alarms
when by myself I stand;
imprison me within your arms,
and strong shall be my hand.

My heart is weak and poor
until it Master find;
it has no spring of action sure—
it varies with the wind;
it cannot freely move
till you have wrought its chain;
enslave it with your matchless love,
and deathless it shall reign.

My power is faint and low
till I have learned to serve;
it lacks the needed fire to glow,
it lacks the breeze to nerve;
it cannot drive the world
until itself is driven;
its flag can only be unfurled
when you shall breathe from heaven.

My will is not my own
till you have made it thine;
if it would reach a monarch's throne,
it must its crown resign.
It only stands unbent
amid the clashing strife,
when on your bosom it has leaned,
and found in you its life.

(George Matheson, 1890; mod., 2009)

Be sure to read the Preface by Octavius Winslow and A Note from the Editor by Larry E. Wilson.

Larry Wilson is an ordained minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. In addition to having served as the General Secretary of the Committee on Christian Education of the OPC (2000–2004) and having written a number of articles and booklets (such as God's Words for Worship and Why Does the OPC Baptize Infants) for New Horizons and elsewhere, he has pastored OPC churches in Minnesota, Indiana, and Ohio. We are grateful to him for his editing of Morning Thoughts, the OPC Daily Devotional for 2025.