WILL

Saying, “Father, if it is Your will, take this cup away from Me; nevertheless not MY WILL, but Yours, be done”– Luke 22:42

We have “dissected” the human soul into the Mind, WILL and Emotions. Let’s meditate on the WILL. When you desired to do something, but chose not to do it; that was your WILL in action. The devil’s chief goal is to take control of the human will. The moment you are born-again and filled with God’s Spirit, demons abruptly try to gain entry into your life to render you ineffective for God’s Kingdom. But the Holy Spirit woos, nudges, and speaks to you gently. God would normally not violate the will He gave you, whereas the devil and his demons do. Moreover, the devil normally uses other aspects of the soul – the emotions, intellect, imagination or memory – to get to the will. But his goal in the battle of the soul is ultimately the will! Seldom do demons directly or frontally invade and capture the will. They are crafty, and know that using any of the other routes they can most likely gain entry to the will. Satan targets our will in order to achieve his vital goal: to get back at God.

Demons love to violate both God’s will and the human will. The moment an evil spirit has a person’s will under control, that individual no longer has any resistant power. The evil spirit would have gained the ability to corrupt that person by injecting his evil, twisted nature into his or her thought patterns. Your will is the door you choose to open or close. It’s your choice. That was what God gave Adam and Eve in the beginning. God told them, “but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat…” (Gen.2:17a). But they chose to eat what was forbidden and God did not restrain them! He had told them what not to do, but He gave them the freedom to obey or disobey. He created us as real beings, not robots. We are not pre-programmed computers. He gave humankind a free will. As a believer, you still have a Will and a Self, although your will can never threaten God’s sovereignty! Your freedom is always within limits, and always comes with consequences.

There is no contradiction between God’s sovereignty and the human will. Divine sovereignty is incontrovertible (Dan.4:35). Man is free, but his freedom can never violate or overrule God’s sovereignty. Your freewill is always constrained by the sovereignty of God. If He is sovereign over the human will, are we responsible? Yes, we are. Our choices are our choices. We have a will. Our will is active. We are genuine moral agents. We have freedom to do things as we please, but if our will conflicts with the decretive will of God, there is no question as to the outcome – God’s decree will prevail over our choice. We will “give account for every careless word” (matt.12:36). Each of us will give an account to God for our preferences, choices and behaviour (Rom.14:12). Therefore, we must seek to do God’s perceptive will, especially as we swim through the perilous waters of the moral, ethical, and social dilemmas of our age.

You can choose to walk after the Spirit or after the lusts of the flesh, with which Satan bombards the spirit of your mind. Praise God, His Son, Jesus Christ, left us His perfect Pattern: in the midst of Gethsemane’s agony, He submitted His will to the Father’s Will. We can do likewise! In God’s sight, we reach our spiritual zenith, not when we have fought our fiercest battle, accomplished our most fruitful work, or gained our brightest vision of truth; but when we have reached the point in which we can most cheerfully and thankfully say, like Christ our Lord, “Not my will, but Yours, be done.” Oh, that we would be perfectly willing for God to do with us as His Wisdom and Love direct! That is the place of peace; the sphere of serenity.