What happens when you determine—when you will—to do God’s will? You share His holiness. You become like Him. Because God is a will, you begin to reflect Him who created you in His image and are transformed from glory to glory (2 Corinthians 3:18). I want my will to be the reflection of God Who is a will. The decisions you make today are extremely important because they form your will. If you have a will that is still malleable, you can change it. Just determine, “I will not do that anymore.”
The Father “disciplines us for our good, so that we may share His holiness” (Hebrews 12:10).[1] Discipline is a very natural thing; you do it with your children all the time. You discipline them to do the right things. You work with that will so it can learn to be self-disciplined. Your objective is to shape a will that wills itself in the right direction.
“Train up a child in the way he should go, even when he is old he will not depart from it.” (Proverbs 22:6)
Why does a child not depart from this training? Because—one way or the other—his will is fixed. But your will is enabled to change when you make it do the will of someone else. You can relate to it as a dress rehearsal for the Kingdom of God because that is really what this experience is preparing you for. I do not want to get into the Kingdom and hate it because my will is working against it so much that I want to escape. I want to be able to stand in the Lord’s presence.
The greatest faith Yeshua (Jesus) found was in the Roman centurion who understood authority. The man said, “I say to this one, ‘Go!’ and he goes, and to another, ‘Come!’ and he comes, and to my slave, ‘Do this!’ and he does it” (Matthew 8:9). Yeshua exercised His will to do the will of the Father and became King of kings; that is why He has all authority in heaven and on earth (Matthew 28:18). His will is greater than everything else. What was the last great event that Yeshua went through before the cross? The night of His betrayal in the Garden of Gethsemane Christ prayed to the Father, “Abba! Father! All things are possible for You; remove this cup from Me; yet not what I will, but what You will” (Mark 14:36).
We are looking to move with authority on the earth. We are looking to change things and to come into His likeness. But that only happens as we pray with a will that is set to do God’s will. When your will connects with His, then you will share His holiness and see things happen.
“The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much.”
(James 5:16)
Through God’s discipline, we can take on His very image and holiness. The apostle Paul explained, “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come” (2 Corinthians 5:17). By faith, you can develop the nature of Christ in you by setting your will at every turn to do the will of God. At some point, it will begin to take over and then, by your very nature, you will do the right things. “For it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure” (Philippians 2:13).
[1] All Scripture references are from the New American Standard Bible 1995 (NASB1995).