Consider the Source

Sometimes when I share with others, I remember things I knew but had forgotten. Yesterday that happened. I’ve had problems with my devotional book when the writer talks about the importance of human volition when it comes to faith. Every time it was mentioned, my mind went to my fleshy I-wants. I’d think of the words of Jesus when He said, “Not my will but thine be done.” If Jesus rejected His perfect will, why should I engage my sinful will?

However, in our ladies prayer group, two people asked how to tell the difference between God’s will and their own. I drew Watchman Nee’s explanation, something like this diagram. 

As sinners, our inner spirit is dead to God and ruled by outward circumstances including our soulish intellect, emotions, and will.

When Christ gives new life to the spirit, the rule is reversed as the soul yields to Him and our outer person follows the leading of his Spirit through our new way of thinking, feeling, and making choices. To walk in the flesh is the first diagram; to walk in the Spirit is the second.

This explains how our will needs to match the will of God and I can now choose that because my spirit is alive to God’s Spirit. The choice is: am I willing to put my faith in what God says, or do I trust my old nature that will always resist the Spirit of God?

Today’s reading is about putting my will into my believing. It is not passive but made alive by the Spirit of God and giving me the option to listen to the input of the flesh or the input of the Holy Spirit.

Jesus said, “If you can! All things are possible for one who believes” (Mark 9:23) and the NT also speaks of those “who through faith conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, were made strong out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight.” (Hebrews 11:33–34)

I cannot put faith on any measurement scale and say I don’t have enough. Jesus makes it a choice, not a measurement:

Because of your little faith. For truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you. (Matthew 17:20)

There are times when outward events, trials and temptations seem to hammer my faith into the ground, but God says:

In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith — more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire — may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. (1 Peter 1:6–7)

A tough situation does not affect the promises of God. I can choose to trust Him in both sunshine and darkness. As today’s devotional says, the sun has not ceased shining when I travel through a tunnel and cannot see its light. The Sun of Righteousness still shines even if His light is hidden at times. I need to choose to remember that and can choose if I listen to His Spirit and trust His Word rather than moan about the darkness. This is only a trial, and not the end of my walk with Him.

PRAY: today, Jesus, the sun is shining — at least in my heart. (It is snowing outside but very bright and white.) Forgive my forgetfulness. You use my hands and sometimes my words to do Your will so of course You can use my will, intellect, even my emotions — as long as the motivation comes from You and not the world, the flesh, or the enemy. May Your will be done today.