Book 3 of Musings Gods Will Alone

There is only one legitimate will in the universe-that of the Father.

God is bringing the entire creation into subjection to Jesus Christ. When this has been fully accomplished, Christ being subject to the Father's will, all creatures in the heavens and on the earth will be obedient to God. This marks the end of Satan's rebellion against God.

The "rest" of God, mentioned in the fourth chapter of the Book of Hebrews, is untroubled rest in the center of God's will.

The most wonderful state of being of any creature is rest in God's will.

This is the true and eternal Sabbath, that in which the Lord Jesus always abides.

Before the earth was created, Satan decided to challenge God's will. The history of the universe since that time is a record of God's response to the satanic rebellion.

Mankind and the rebellious angels are in rebellion against God's will. The teaching today is that man should be his own god and act according to his own will. This is Antichrist as well as the False Prophet.

I think I am correct in saying most Christian people are not clear about God's will. If you were to ask them if they were doing God's will perfectly in their life, they probably would answer "no," or "I don't think so," or "I am not certain."

Sometimes Christians declare that no one can do God's will and this is why we must be saved by grace.

Satan has been quite successful in persuading Christians that God's will is so demanding that very few if any people could hope to obey it. The truth is, however, that most people, including Christians, are doing God's will. They just don't have the satisfaction of knowing God is pleased with them. They live unnecessarily in perpetual guilt.

If this is true of you, why don't you stop right now and tell God that you want to do His perfect will, and you will obey Him in every respect if He will give you the grace to do so. Then rest in this prayer. If there is something God wants you to do He is well able to show you. And His will shall bring you to joy.

We have to present our body as a sacrifice to God in order to prove His will. This means we have to be ready to set aside any and all of our pursuits if God should so require. But any part of our life that God insists we surrender is something that will bring us sorrow, and God knows it.

Be persuaded God is bringing you to joy and liberty. He really is, you know.

In the Book of Genesis we find God created all things in six days (whether literal or symbolic days). Then He rested.

Do you know what this means? It means God created all of history in advance clear through to the new heaven and new earth, and the new Jerusalem. Everything has been finished from the beginning of the world.

What else? It means God completed your life and mine from the beginning of the world. Now God is resting.

What is our response to be to the fact that God has ordered the events of our life, and, in fact, the number of our days, from the beginning of the world?

Our response is to be that we abandon our own view of what our life should be and seek the Lord every minute of every day that we might align ourselves with God's will for us.

I used to compose music. Sometimes I had the feeling what I actually was doing was developing a composition that had been written previously somewhere. When I got the composition the way it was supposed to be it kind of fell into place. This probably is a far-fetched idea and only my imagination.

But our life is to be like that. It is to be a seeking out of something already written in God's book. When we get in line with His will, and enter His rest, we move toward the role in His Kingdom He has determined for us.

This idea, that our life was planned from the beginning, can cause us to be passive or fatalistic. If God has planned our life from the beginning, why not just drift along? Everything has been decided in advance anyway!

It doesn't work like that. The rest of God is dynamic, not passive. We must press forward, as did the Apostle Paul, that we might grasp that for which we have been grasped.

Here is the point. We have been grasped for something. We don't know what it is. But we have to fight our way toward that dimly-lighted goal, for our sinful nature as well as the demonic atmosphere in which we are attempting to survive are determined to steer us away from our rest in God's will.

The Lord Jesus told us if we would abide in Him we would bear fruit, the fruit of His moral image and the fruit of rest in the perfect will of God. These two objectives have been placed before us, and we achieve them by abiding in the will of God as expressed in Jesus Christ.

Abiding in Christ is the central aspect of the Christian salvation. Abiding in Christ becomes more difficult for us each day, and more grace is given to enable us to overcome the increased difficulty. God is teaching us to fight!

Abiding in Christ, in God's perfect will, should be so simple. But there are several major forces that always are seeking to persuade and distract us, to tear us down from our high place in Christ in God. It is a fight all the ways, but God's grace enables us to be more that a conqueror.

Why shouldn't the whole world want to do God's will? God knows everything about each one of us and desires to bring us to love, joy, and peace. When we decide to go our own way we reap hatred, misery, and unrest. Also we bring hatred, misery, and unrest to those around us.

You would think after the thousands of years of the history of mankind on the earth we would be convinced that men succeed only in destroying each other. What century has not been one of war?

And it is all so completely unnecessary. If people would only stop and listen to the Lord, there would be no wars. The troubles of earth would disappear.

I guess people don't believe this. Perhaps the answer is faith. We have to have faith that God knows what He is doing with each one of us, and that his intentions are good.

Satan persuaded Eve that God was not seeking her good; that she had to reach forth her hand and take her own good. What a disaster! And the same is true today. We don't seem to be able to believe God knows what He is doing, and so we stretch forth our hand to create our own heaven and earth. What a disaster!

Perhaps we should be pessimistic concerning the future, because it is obvious people are becoming more willful, more self-centered and self-directed as the years go by.

But we are not pessimistic. Why is this? It is because God has a believer here and a believer there who have chosen to do God's will instead of their own.

When the Lord has the number of obedient servants He wants, He is going to return to earth with them. He is going to raise their bodies from the dead. He is going to catch them up to be with Him in the air. He is going to mount them on the huge white war stallions. Then He is going to lead them in a cavalry charge that will attack all disobedience in the earth. This is the coming of the Kingdom of God, spoken of by John the Baptist, Jesus, and the Apostles of the Lamb.

So we are not pessimistic, because God is going to remove all disobedience from His creation.

We notice that after a thousand years of righteous government, of the rule of the rod of iron, Satan will be released from the bottomless pit. He immediately will set out to sow disobedience in the nations that have been taught by the saints. Satan will be successful, so deeply rooted is rebellion in the hearts of people, and there will be a rebellion against the saints.

I find all of this difficult to understand. The will of God is so delightful, and God is so wise, and He is seeking to bring us to joy, why then are we finding it more desirable to follow our own way rather than God's?

If God were demanding something of us that we could not possibly perform, we might have an excuse for rebelling. Even then, however, it would be foolish because God has total power over us in any case.

But God is not demanding something of us we cannot possibly perform. His yoke is easy. His burden is light. His commandments are not grievous.

Why, then, do we listen to Satan when he warns us that we cannot possibly do God's will; and if we do try to do it we will be miserable and lose many of the good things of life? After the thousands of years of earth's history we ought to be convinced by now that Satan is a liar; he is not to be trusted.

I don't know about you, but I want to do God's will today, tomorrow, and for eternity. I am persuaded God is good. That He knows what He is doing. That He knows all about me. That He has determined to bring me to joy and has the power to bring me to joy.

I will not be satisfied until every other person in the universe, including myself, is determined to do God's will from the heart. If it requires the Battle of Armageddon, so be it. If it requires the rule of the rod of iron, so be it.

As I am writing, our nation is preparing to go to war (February 28, 2003). I support our government in all that it does, but I wonder if we are hearing from the Lord. Is this what God wants? Are we in His will? If not, the fact that we have the most powerful military machine in the world is not going to make any difference. The battle will be decided by the Lord.

No matter what happens, I know those individuals who are living in God's will shall be taken care of.

God's will! God's will alone! This must prevail. This shall prevail!

First, every creature, angelic and human, must bow the knee to Jesus Christ.

When every knee has bowed, Jesus Christ Himself being in total subjection to the Father, God's will shall be done completely and perfectly everywhere in His creation.

It will be the task of the saints to govern the nations of the earth to insure that never again shall there be as much as one person who is resisting God's will.

God's Person shall be available, through the saints, to every individual on the new earth. There shall be love, joy, and peace everywhere. No more wars. No more uncertainty. No more evil men attempting to force their will on other people.

Can such a world actually come into existence? Yes, it shall.

The foundation was laid when the Righteous One, Jesus Christ, came into the earth to do God's will.

Building on that sure foundation are those of the Church who have dedicated themselves to God's will, regardless of the consequences to them personally.

Then will be added the weaker members of the Church who finally will be persuaded God's will must be obeyed in its entirety.

Finally the nations of saved people on the earth will come to understand no will other than the Father's is permitted.

This new world of righteousness has been finished from the beginning of the world. The Word of God is bringing it to pass piece by piece. We now are in wonderful days as the Spirit of God is bringing us through fiery trials that all of our self-seeking might be burned out of us.

The future is bright with God's promise. His saints are rejoicing over the thought of the Kingdom that soon is to come to the earth, when God's will is done on the earth as it is in Heaven.

Let's you and I hasten that glorious day by dedicating ourselves every day to perfect obedience to every aspect of God's will for our lives.

For he "has put everything under his feet." Now when it says that "everything" has been put under him, it is clear this does not include God himself, who put everything under Christ. When he has done this, then the Son himself will be made subject to him who put everything under him, so God may be all in all. (1 Corinthians 15:27-28)