For it is God who worketh in you both to will and to work, for his good pleasure. Philippians 2:13.
God has a good pleasure and a good will for your life, but it is not easy to attain the will of God. You know you want to do the will of God but when you face things you can’t handle and don’t know what to do about them, what can you do? To begin with, start to seek the Lord. You need a dedication to do the will of the Lord. You need to yield to His Lordship.
There is difficulty knowing what the will of the Lord is in a person’s life, but to yield and submit to it is a great thing. You may want to do the perfect will of God and know you mean it, but you may also not know what that entails in your life. It isn’t easy to know the will of God, it isn’t easy to want to do it and it isn’t easy to do it.
To know it, to want to do it, to will it and to finally do it are difficult things all in themselves. Many times we don’t know what the will of the Lord is, because our own thinking and desires get in the way. We believe what we want to believe—that is a human faculty. People could walk into the church, see signs and wonders, and the Lord Jesus Christ Himself standing here, but if they were conditioned to reject it, they would walk out saying it was false. People believe what they want to believe, and they reject what they want to reject. It’s deep within them.
Where is the honest man who will come before the Lord, and say, “I know not. My judgment is not excellent enough to evaluate this. Will You just show me, Lord?” and let the Lord show him what His will is, what is right. In the text it said, “It is God who is working in you to will.” If you open your heart to God and keep saying, “Lord, I know I don’t want to do Your will.”
I’ve heard people talk like that many times. “Oh, I’ll go any place You want me to go, but not Africa, Lord.” Then with fear and trembling they say, “Lord, I’ll go to Africa, if that’s what You want me to do.” All this time they know they don’t want to and hope the Lord doesn’t want them to. But God can work in you to will and to do of His good pleasure. It’s not enough that you say, “I’m going to do the will of God,” because the will of God is not a matter of certain number of right choices and decisions. You may say you want to know the will of God for this week, because you have to make some decisions, and you’re thinking you’re in the will of God if you do the right things and make the right decisions. That’s not enough. There are people who are doing the right things and making the right decisions, but the will of God is more than that: it’s a state of heart; it’s something down within you that’s yearning after the Lord. It’s a spiritual condition. It is not only the actions and the words all being right, but it goes beyond that and becomes a spiritual condition in your heart.
There are those who have had wrong judgment and thought God told them to do certain things, when He didn’t; but because they were in the will of God as far as the condition of their heart was concerned, God would overrule it; He would direct it and He would make it right.
You need to know this because you might say, “But I’m too stupid to do the will of God. I’m not bright enough to get all of the right decisions and to know what I’m to do in every instance. I’ve made too many mistakes along the way trying to do the right thing.”
Then you should come with an open heart and do the will of God from your heart and say, “Lord, in my heart it is there.” You may think, “I can’t do that either.”
Then start praying and the text will come to pass, “It is God that is working in you to will.” If you submit it to the Lord, the Lord will put the will in you. He will put that desire for His will above everything else. That is the way that it comes.
When you were first faced with the fact that to do the will of God involved more than you could understand or accept, you weren’t prepared. You all come in the same way, not having a perfect desire to do the will of God. But God is working in you to will. It is God that starts working in you so that you will want to.
“Lord, you will have to work it in me to will, to even desire it, to even want it.” That’s the grace of God: He puts the “want to” in you; and then He puts the “how to” in you; and then He puts the doing of it in you. That’s the way God works—He puts it in you to will it and then to do it; to do of His good pleasure, the perfect will of the Lord.
Most of us have emotions and conflicts within us on a personal level that are warring against the will of the Lord, and it’s time that they come to an end. “Lord, work in us to will, work in us to do of your good pleasure.”
Now, one more Scripture—I John 2:15–17. Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God (there it is) he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.
All of the things that you want: the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of the life, are of a passing thing that may loom pretty big in your heart, but will disappear, and you will disappear with it. The thing that will happen is that God’s will is going to be done, and the man that does the will of God will abide forever.
It’s worthwhile to seek above everything else to do the will of the Lord. It is no accomplishment if you go out and fulfill the lust of the flesh. There is still something perverse in the old nature that glories in what it is able to accomplish in the flesh. There’s nothing great there, anyone can do that. But it is something when you accomplish this one thing—that you love not the world nor the things that are in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life; you turn away from it and you turn toward one thing—the will of God, and it’s an abiding thing, it lasts a long time.
Do you think that you need to pray about really wanting to do His will and letting the Lord work in you until the will is there? Do you want that drive and hunger for God, that desire to do His will? What if God says, “Now, look here, I called you to do a certain work, and I want you to go here, and to go there.” You don’t want to, but you have to. Why don’t you want to? Because of what’s happening right in your heart. Something takes place in the hearts of the people and that’s where the battles are. That’s where devils twelve feet tall jump at you out of every alley. In the heart is where you have conflict, and in the heart is where you make it through.