God's Will, Not Mine

Over the past week, I’ve really given some consideration to what it means to live in God’s will vs. my own. What I realized is that what we’re really talking about is obedience vs. rebellion to God’s authority. We are born in sin and our very nature is the opposite of God’s will.  Sure, we may be “good” people according to worldly standards, but we still have utterly wicked hearts (Jer 17:9-10) and are essentially all about ourselves. Given the right set of circumstances, without Jesus, we are subject to do anything. Even with him, we will on occasion step out of who we are in God in rebellion to seek our own. For every act of rebellion against God there are negative consequences, the biggest one is the separation it causes between us and our Heavenly Father. Rebellion is sin and wages of sin are death (Rom 6:23). We get a glimpse of the consequences to our rebellion to God’s authority in Gen 3 with the Fall of Mankind.

So, God’s Will is obedience to Him and His word and to act when He tells us to……to have such faith that we don’t worry about what the future holds and take the step that is directly in front of us knowing God has already worked out the details. When we move like He tells us to move, we show we trust Him with everything. Without faith it is impossible to please God. Faith is saying “yes” when we don’t even know what we’re saying yes to, because we trust His leading and His love for us. 

When we strive to know Him better and we are transformed as we study His word and learn what His will is for us (Rom 12:1-2), our will changes to be more in line with His will (Psa 37:4). Our obedience is directly related to our level of trust in God and our belief that He loves us and has our best interest at heart, as well as, our understanding that He knows better than we do. When we disobey, we are really saying we know better than God does – just like the teenager who explains to their parents they don’t know anything the teenager is going through. Just like parents have lived what teenagers are facing and have good advice for how to navigate, God clearly already knows everything we are going through and will go through the rest of our lives. 

So, we have choices to make about whether we will seek to do God’s will – love Him with all our heart, soul, mind, body, etc., and love our neighbor as ourselves, or will we seek to do our own will – be all about ourselves and what we can get?  God is faithful (1 Cor 1:9) and He keeps His promises (Heb 10:23), but there are consequences when we go our own way and if we die in our sin, the ultimate consequences of death and hell. Accepting Jesus as personal savior, studying God’s word and following it is the best way to stay in God’s will. His will is that none would be lost (2 Pet 3:9), but that is a choice we get to make. We get to choose Him or not. Can you imagine what He can do with a willing heart and an obedient spirit? Open doors beyond measure and Him getting the glory as you walk out His calling on your lives, since we remember and acknowledge we are nothing without Him (John 15:4-5). 

Choose His will over your own and watch what He will do with your life.