Have You Met Good O'le Will?

Have You Met Good O'le Will?

"Suffer hardship with me, as a good soldier of Christ Jesus." 2 Timothy 2:3

I know that you know him -- his name is WILL. Everyone of us knows him very intimately. We see him, dialog and interact with him every day. In fact, some of us actually do battle with him each day -- some of us battle him quite often during the day.

Some if us know him as "Strong Will" or "Iron Will". He often wants to control us, do battle with us, and take us in places that we know are forbidden territory. The only way we can do battle with him and win, is to allow the Spirit of God to reign him in.

Listen to what Dr. Glynn Evans says about "good o'le will" in his devotional book, Daily With the King:

I will be soldierly at all times. The chief requirement of the soldier is the surrender of his WILL. Other things are irrelevant. The disposition of his time, his duties, and his responsibilities is entirely in the hands of his commander, and they are not his business.

If Christ has my will, He will also have my body, my mind, my strength, my ambitions, my inclinations, my attitudes, in short, my all. The will is the key. When I am tempted it is in the will that the victory will either be won or lost. Temptation gives me alternatives: I can submit and lose or resist and win. There is ample power for either.

Christ gives me power to resist; my old nature gives me power to submit. But the key is the will. If I will resist, Christ will empower me has He has promised; if I will submit, I only need to let the old nature take over. Whoever [or whatever] has my will is my master!
I therefore must decide daily, hourly: shall Christ have my will, or shall it be some other master?

The decision is instantaneous; the results are eternal. My hope is based on the two-fold action of God: "God ... is at work in you, both to will and to work His good pleasure" (Philippians 2:13). While God does not make up my mind, He strengthens my resolve. Even more, He brings my resolution to a finished product "for HIS good pleasure." Thus, I can honor the Lord's intent and say, "It can be done!"

So brothers -- have you surrendered your WILL to him today? Who or what is master of YOUR will? Surrender it to HIM and allow HIM to be the Master of YOUR will. -- Bill Welte is President and CEO of America's KESWICK

DIGGING DEEPER: Proverbs 1; Exodus 27-28; Matthew 21:1-22

DIG THIS QUOTE: Prayer is co-operation with God. It is the purest exercise of the faculties God has given us - an exercise that links these faculties with the Maker to work out the intentions He had in mind in their creation. Prayer is aligning ourselves with the purposes of God...Prayer is commitment. We don't merely co-operate with God with certain things held back within. We, the total person, co-operate. This means that co-operation equals commitment. Prayer means that the total you is praying. Your whole being reaches out to God, and God reaches down to you...(continued tomorrow) E. Stanley Jones

DETERMINED DIGGING: Level 1 -- Psalm 16:8; Level 2 -- Psalm 23