Monday, April 11, 2011
Luke 22:42 Father, if it is Your will, take this cup away from Me; nevertheless not My will, but Yours be done.
YOUR WILL BE DONE
In order to yield to God's will we first have to know what His will is, what does He want. This He has revealed to us in His Word. The bottom line is that God wants people in heaven. Everything that He does revolves around that desire. This is expressed in 1 Timothy 2:4, "God would have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth." Also in 1 Peter 3:9, "[The Lord] is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance."
To this end Jesus was in the Garden of Gethsemane praying fervently, and after ascertaining the Father's will, went to the cross because that was God's plan of salvation. It was necessary for Jesus to die. There was no other way that people were going to be saved. As true Man Jesus yielded to His Father's will, "not My will, but Yours be done." It is a mystery of Christ's nature as true God and true Man that He was at the same time co-equal with the Father, and yet submitting to His will. Jesus carried through with the agony that was ahead of Him out of love for God and out of love for you and me.
The other things that God wants are tied into His desire for people to be saved. He wants the good news of a Savior to be preached, believed, and lived. A person needs faith in Christ to be connected to forgiveness and salvation, to receive the blessings won by Christ on the cross. The Holy Spirit only creates faith through the Gospel of Jesus, so God wants this Word to get out. He also wants godly lives lived on the earth in order that He may be glorified, and so that even without saying a word we are testifying of Jesus. He wants faith that was created to be preserved. He wants those who are lost to be found. It is all connected to His desire to save people from destruction.
