The Will of God
“Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” — Matt. vi. 10.
1. The will of God is the living power to which the world owes its existence. Through that will, and according to that will, it is what it is. It is the expression or manifestation or embodiment of that Divine Will in its wisdom, power and goodness. It has, in beauty and glory, but what it owes to God’s having willed it. As that Will formed it, so it upholds it every day. Creation thus does what it was destined for, it shows forth the glory of God.” They gave glory to Him that liveth for ever and ever, saying. Thou art worthy to receive glory, for Thou hast created all things, and because of Thy will they are, and were created.’
2. This is true of inanimate nature. It is still more true of intelligent creatures. The Divine Will undertook the creation of a creature will in its own image and likeness, with the living power to know and accept and co-operate with that Will to which it owed its being. The blessedness of the unf alien angels, consists in counting it their highest honour and happiness to be able to will and do exactly what God wills and does. The glory of heaven is that God’s will is done there. The sig,,. misery of fallen angels and men, consists simply in their having turned away from, and refused to abide in, and to do, the will of God.
3. Redemption is nothing but the restoration of God’s will to its place in the world. To this end Christ came and Showed in a Human Life, How Man Has but One Thing to Live for the Doing of God’s Will. He showed us how there was one way of conquering self-will — by a death to it, in obeying God’s will even unto death. So He atoned for our self-will and conqueredjt for us, and opened a path through death and resur-
^i^A^^ection, into a life entirely united with, and devoted to, the will of God.
4. God’s redeeming will is now able to do in fallen man, what His creating will had wrought and ever works in nature, or in unfallen beings. In Christ and His example, God Has Revealed THE Devotion to and the Delight in His WiHi, WHICH He Asks and. Expects of Us. In Christ and, His Spirit He renews and takes possession of our will: works in it both to will and to do, making us able and willing to do all His will.
He Himself worketh all things after the counsel of His will. “He makes us perfect in every good thing to do His will, working in us that which is pleasing in His sight.” As this is revealed by the Holy Spirit, and believed, and received into the heart, we begin to get an insight into the prayer, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven/^ and the true desire is awakened for the life it promises.
5. How essential it is to the believer that he realise his relations to God’s will, and its claim on him.
Many, many, believers have no conception of what their faith or their feeling ought to be in regard to the will of God. How few who say: My Whole Thought of Blessedness is in INT othing BUT THE Most Complete Harmony with the Will of God. I feel my one need to be, the ever maintained surrender, not, in the very least thing, ever to do other than what God wills me to do. By God’s grace every hour of my life may be a living in the will of God, and doing it as it is done in heaven.
6. It is only as a living faith in the Divine Will, working out its purposes increasingly in us, mastersjthejieart, that we shall have the courage to believe in the answer to the prayer our Lord taught us. It is only as we see, that it is through Jesus Christ, that this working of God’s will in us is carried out, that we shall understand how it is the close union to Him that gives the confidence that God will work all in us. And it is only this confidence in God, through Jesife Christ, that will assure us, that we too can do our part, and that our feeble will on earth can truly ever correspond and co-operate with the will of God. Let us but accept our destiny and our obligation as the one thing our heart desires, that in everything the will of God be done in ns and by ns, as it is done in heaven; that-Jaith will overcome the world.
7. The will may not be disconnected from its living union with the Father here, nor the living presence of the Blessed Son. It is only by a divine guidance given through the Holy Spirit, that the will of God in its beauty, in its application to daily life, in its ever-growing revelation, can be truly known. ‘I]nsJea(JiingwilLlifi-^iYen, not to the wise and prudent, but to the babes, the men of childrlike disposition, wh<gLArejwilling. to wartior, and-depend-on what is.^iventhgm. The Divine guidance will lead in the path of God’s wHl.
8. Our secret intercourse with God is the place where we repeat and learn the great lessons....
The God whom I worship asks of me perfect union with His will.... My worship means: “I delight to do Thy Will, 0 God.” ... The morning hour, the inner chamber, the secret intercourse with God, as in these the knowledge of God’s will, the power to perform it, the entire and joyful surrender to do all God wills, are sought and cultivated, our study of God’s word and our prayer will bring their true and full blessing.