For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me. John 6:38
Jesus Christ lived a perfect life, He never sinned, and therefore He is our example, we are to copy His way of life, for that is the only way that we can have life, I mean true life. In the above Scripture Jesus told us how He lived His life, He said “I came down to earth not to do My own will, but the Will of Him who sent Me.“
This is a very important Scripture; in it we are told how to live an overcoming life, and how to have continual victory in our lives here on earth. We start out in life doing only our own will; the things that we want to do, this is the fountain of sin – doing our will instead of God's will, which is really thinking that we are smarter than God! Learn this about God, He can see around corners, by this I mean He can see what is going to happen tomorrow, and even ten thousand or twenty trillion years in the future. He is Eternal; He doesn't live in this finite life of time!
How foolish is it to have a God like our Heavenly Father, and not listen to Him, not be led moment by moment by His very insightful will. This appears to me to be the mistake of all mistakes. Why do people make this tragic error over and over?
God has given us certain faculties, one of which is intellect; intellect includes understanding, reason, and conscience. Another is sensibility; it is the faculty of feeling. It comprises emotions, desires, affections, all of the things we call feelings. Will is the power of choice, our ability to choose or refuse whatever we want to. Our conscious state is made up of our intellect, sensibility, and will.
Now we must understand that the law of God presents us plainly with the fact that we can do the things that God commands us to do, which is always everything that God's moral government demands. Its language is "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and thy neighbor as thyself." The true meaning of this law is that every moral being shall consecrate all of his or her powers, whatever they are at the present moment, to the service of God. Our consciousness informs us that by willing, we control the acts and states of our intellect and that we think, reason, judge, and affirm, by voluntarily controlling the attention of our mind. Consciousness also testifies that we feel, by directing our attention to objects calculated to excite our feelings, and that we act by willing to act. Thus God rules us by the voluntary power of our minds surrendering to the will (law) of God. God wants to secure the entire consecration of our whole being to His great purpose, which is non-conditional love.
Always remember that the will of God is expressed in His law. He is Himself in the same state of mind in which He requires all moral beings to be; that is, He loves us regardless of what we do, or don't do, He is always in a state of non-conditional love.
Holiness is a term that expresses the moral quality of His will. Love is the fulfilling of that will; and our conformity to His will in this law of universal love is holiness. When we obey God in this, it implies that we have confidence in the wisdom of God. If we did not believe that God was wise we could not innocently pray that His will be done.
It also implies confidence in His love. If God is not love, we have no right to pray that His will may be done. And if we do not believe Him to be universal and perfect love, we have no right to pray that His will should be done perfectly on earth as it is in heaven.
It implies a confidence in the one who prays, that it is possible that the will of God can be done on earth as it is in heaven. For if he does not believe it is possible, he cannot sincerely pray that it be done.
It implies the belief that the grace that is necessary is available for the believer, to do His will on earth as it is done in heaven. If he does not believe that such a thing is possible or that God's grace can make it possible, he is only mocking God when he makes such a request. And if he does not believe it to be according to the will of God, that persons are to attain to such a state of holiness while on earth, it is downright rebellion in the person to ask it to be done.
So away with all such excuses that tend to relieve your conscience of all responsibility of obeying God in this great commandment! Come at once and forever out of the selfish religion that puts your own will and comfort first, and gives Christ what you have left over and don't want.
Another aspect of this prayer is hypocrisy. In the mouth of a selfish being it can only be hypocrisy. It must be in all cases downright hypocrisy for a selfish man to offer this petition to God. Because this petition is hypocrisy on the lips of anyone whose will is not in entire harmony with the will of God so far as God's will is known to them. If there is anything in which the will is not entirely conformed to the known will of God, in offering this prayer, the petitioner is being hypocritical, and is in the act of abusing, flattering, and mocking God.
We see what Christ intended by the command, "Be ye perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect." Many persons feel shocked at the idea of anyone being even for a moment without sin in this life. And to expect to be perfect in this life is with them completely unreasonable. From the manner in which they speak of the subject of perfection, it would seem that Christ's command to be perfect as God is perfect is a most extravagant demand, and some-thing which Christ did not expect we could, or would obey in this world.
If they are consistent they must suppose that in requiring us to offer this petition to God, He must have intended that we should understand Him as using a “figure of speech,” and not that we should seriously expect or even suppose it possible that the will of God should be done on earth by any human being as it is done in heaven. But the truth is that Christ requires men to be truly religious. We have just seen that nothing short of being as perfectly conformed to the will of God as the Angels in Heaven are can be called true religion. He meant therefore merely to say, be truly religious. Be what God requires you to be. Do not rebel in anything against the will of God, but be upright, sincere, and perfect, which is all saying the same thing. It is therefore, true that every moral being that can sincerely offer this prayer is, and must be, in his measure, for the time being, so far as the state of his heart is concerned, as perfect as God is.
Both the flesh and the Spirit have desires, one must be denied in order for the other to have its way! Wherever and in whatever, the working will chooses to dwell and delight in, that becomes the food for your soul, its clothing, and its habitation. For all these are the true and certain effects and powers of the working will. Nothing does, or can go with a man into heaven; nothing follows into hell, but that in which your will loved and dwelt in, and with which it was fed, nourished, and clothed, in this life.
It is sad but very true, that your nature must become a torment and burden to itself, before it will willingly give itself up to that death, through which alone it can pass into life. For salvation is in reality a victory over nature; so far as you resist and renounce your own vain, selfish, and earthly nature, so far you can overcome all your own natural (evil) habits of the old man, and as far as this is done, this is how far God can enter into you, live and operate in your life. "My little children, of whom I travail in birth, until Christ be formed in you." This forming of Christ in us, is the sum total of all, and, if this is missing, everything is missing. "Though I speak with the tongues of men and Angels, though I have the gift of prophecy, though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, etc. and have not love" (that is, have not the Spirit of Christ) "It profits me nothing." For by love here, the apostle means neither more nor less, but strictly that same thing, which, in other places, is called the new creature, Christ formed in us, and our being led by the Spirit of Christ.
All preaching and hearing is vain, and all preachers and hearers stand chargeable with the vanity of their religious performances, who think of preaching, or hearing to be profitable, in any other way, or by any other power, than in and by the Holy Spirit of God dwelling and working in them. As creatures therefore, we are under an absolute necessity of being under the motion, guidance, and inspiration of some spirit, that is greater than our own. All that is put in our own power, is merely the choice of our leader; but led and moved we must be, and by that spirit, to which we give ourselves up, whether it be to the Spirit of God, or the spirit of our old fallen nature. Every spirit necessarily reaps that which it sows, it cannot possibly be otherwise; it is the unalterable procedure of nature.
All of our salvation necessarily depends upon us, because our will has its power of motion in itself. As a will, it wills only to receive that which it wills; everything else is absolutely shut out of it. For it is the unalterable nature of the will, that it cannot possibly receive anything into itself, but that which it wills; its willing is its only power of receiving; and there can be no possible entrance for God or heaven into the soul, until our will desires it; and thus in this way, all of man's salvation depends upon himself. God made us free moral agents.
And so the Lord of glory says to us "If you love Me, you will keep My commandments. John 14:15 Yes, this is, and can only be our decision, our will in action. And though when we are upon our knees, and pray for different spiritual things, and direct our prayers to the Lord God of heaven; yet only the things that are truly in our desire (heart) are, in fact, the things we really desire, and these things are in actuality the God of our heart, and, unfortunately we truly worship them in spirit and in truth.
As we can see, willing and doing are connected by a natural necessity, and that a man naturally and necessarily acts as he wills, and can't act any way other than that in which he wills to act. We oftentimes are “taken in” by our own subtle ways of praying, when we pray prayers that are not from our heart (our will.) What greater good can be expected from our praying in the words of David, or singing his Psalms several times a day, if our heart has no more of the spirit of David in it, than the heart of the Pharisee had of the spirit of the humble publican?
The great multitude who profess to having religion have, I fear, fallen entirely short of conceiving rightly the nature of true religion, and a thorough investigation of the subject is long overdue, also, the Lord's prayer in its true spirit should be deeply pondered by the Church, and the question should be asked, “What is implied in the sincere offering of this prayer to God?” Unless these fundamental inquiries are started and pressed, until the Church comes to an intelligent understanding of them, false hopes will continue to be cherished, and thousands of professing Christians will continue to go down to hell.
If self is not denied, if you live on in your own will, to the pleasures of your own natural lust and appetites, and in conformity to the vain customs, and spirit of this world, you are truly dead yet while you live.
Therefore stop all this self-activity, do not listen to the suggestions of your own reason, do not run on, in your own will, but be retired, silent, passive, and humbly attentive to this new risen light of God's Spirit within you. It is because of all of this, the working of your own will, reason, and judgment, that you are not where you are supposed to be, and it is because all of these things are false counselors, the sworn servants, bribed slaves of your fallen nature; they are all born and bred in your kingdom of self; and therefore, if a new kingdom is to be set up in you, if the operation of God is to have its effect in you, all these natural powers of self must be silenced and suppressed, until they have learned obedience and subjection to the Spirit of God.
Jesus said, “Unless a man forsakes all that he has, he cannot be my disciple” The reason is simple, and the necessity absolute. It is because all that the natural man has is in the possession of self-love, and therefore this possession is to be absolutely forsaken, and parted with. All that he has is to be given to Divine love, or else this natural man cannot be changed into a disciple of Christ. For self-love in all that it has, is earthly, sensual, and devilish, and therefore it must have everything taken away from it; and then to the natural man all is lost, he has nothing left, all is laid down at the feet of Jesus. I know all of this seems to be “A hard saying” but it is the truth, listen to Jesus, "Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking fine pearls, and upon finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had, and bought it. ”You must sell all that you have, you must lose your life,” in order to gain Eternal life. The riches of self are your own riches; but all this self is to be parted with before the pearl of great price can be yours. Think of a lower price, or be unwilling to give this price for it, plead with your excuse, and then you have become that very rich young man in the gospel, that went away sorrowful from our Lord, because HE HAD great riches! Did he really have great riches, do you?