Book 2 of Musings Doing God's Perfect Will

How incredibly wonderful to know beyond doubt that God's will is identical with our will and He is pleased with us.

When I was in Bible school, in 1946 I guess it was, I had just been discharged from the Marine Corps. This was at the end of World War Two.

I was saved in the Corps, and so I knew very little about Christian churches and Bible schools. To my dismay I was told that no one can do God's will perfectly. My wife says I am a maverick at heart. I guess I am, for right then and there I decided I was going to do God's will perfectly.

So I told the Lord if He would help me and give me the necessary grace, I would do His will perfectly.

I didn't know what to expect. It really seemed to be an audacious statement at the time.

Now I know it was not an audacious statement. It was, and is, the attitude that every true Christian is to have.

How this idea started, that no one can do God's will perfectly, I do not know. Christian people were willing to live their lives with the understanding that they were doing God's will to a certain extent, but no one could do God's entire will.

You know, this gives one a distorted idea of God. It is as though God requires extraordinary feats of service or asceticism that no one could possibly accomplish. He is content for us to be partially obedient and partially disobedient.

I tell you here and now that I will never accept this point of view. If I am not doing God's perfect will, I want to know right now where I am coming short. Then I am going to start doing what God wants, trusting He will give me the grace to do just that.

You know, we have been tricked by Satan. He wants us to go about in the belief we are not really serving God but are trusting in God's mercy to bring us to Heaven anyway. Satan's kingdom is not threatened until we begin to do God's will in the earth, and so Satan will do everything in his power to keep us from obeying God.

It is Satan's intention to keep us cut off from God. Satan does not want us to think of God as our Father.

Ordinarily our earthly father does not expect us to perform some task he knows we are unable to do. He does not assign some impossible project, and when we fail tell us because we were unable to do what he asked he is willing to show mercy toward us and forgive us. All we have to do is confess we are unable to do what he wants. This is absolutely ridiculous!

Sometimes there are fathers who demand too much of their children. Such fathers are wicked. They scar their children for life. Long after the father is dead, the children are still trying to please him.

Our Father in Heaven is not like this. Whenever God asks something of us, He knows we can do it with His assistance. There is no exception to this.

So we have been told a lie, and the purpose of the lie is to keep us separated from God because of condemnation, something like Adam and Eve hiding from God.

The one nobody can ever please is Satan!

The Book of Hebrews mentions the rest of God, and warns us about coming short of it.

The rest of God is that place in the very Center of God's Person where the Lord Jesus always abides. Jesus said He would come back and take us to be with Him where He is.

The Lord did not mean by this that He would return to earth and bring us to Heaven. He meant He would return in the Spirit and help us enter the rest of God. Of course, the day will arrive when He returns literally. But the purpose of that coming is not to bring us to Heaven, or even to bring us into the heart of God. It is to gather together His warrior-saints so that He and they might establish the Kingdom of God, the doing of God's will in the earth.

It is today that the Lord has come in the Spirit and is helping us get rid of our sinful nature so we might be with Him in the Center of God's Person and will.

Now, when we decide our goal is to enter the Center of God's Person and will we are viciously, skillfully, continually resisted by wicked spirits who have had thousands of years to master the art of deception. It is these same spirits who counsel us that no one can do God's will perfectly, and that we shall not surely die as a result of not doing God's will.

Circumstances often war against us and we have to pray until our problems are resolved.

Our love of the world competes for our attention and seeks to distract us.

The lusts and passions of our flesh and soul attempt to force us to behave in a manner we know is sinful, so we will be condemned and run from God.

Our personal ambition wants us to define our own objectives and plan ways to attain to them. Our self-will is not comfortable with resting in God's will.

Sometimes we picture God's will for us as being unpleasant relationships, things, and circumstances we would not ordinarily choose.

What we do not realize is that God knows what will bring us joy far, far better then we do. God wants to bring us to joy. And when He leads us through difficult, sometimes painful trials, it is because He is bringing us to joy and wants us to be able to keep the joy once we gain it.

It is Satan who tells us that God's wants us to be miserable. He told Eve that God did not want her to be wise and happy. He tells us the same thing.

So we see that the warfare never changes. The issue always is, do we believe God is bringing us to joy, or do we have to evade God's will and grasp what we believe to be lasting joy?

The just shall live by faith means the righteous live by faith in God's goodness rather than in their own abilities to fulfill their desires.

How difficult to fight our way into the perfect rest of God's will, but how blessed once we get there. I don't believe there is a better, more restful, joyous, confident state of being than that which we gain when we fight through to the place where God's will and our will are identical.

This is entirely possible, you know, for each one of us. It is a fight, no doubt about that. But it is possible. Once attained we find it increasingly easy to maintain.

What God wants intensely is what we want intensely. This is our goal. This is true of the Lord Jesus. Then we are fully in the rest of God; fully in God's perfect will.

If this sounds good to you, tell the Lord about it. He will work in you such that you will choose and do what He desires.

For it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose. (Phil 2:13)

This is love for God: to obey his commands. And his commands are not burdensome, (1 John 5:3)