The most important part of us is our will. You may argue otherwise but consider this. The will is so important that Jesus tells us about it in His Prayer, “Our Father Who is in heaven, hallowed (kept holy) be your Name. Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Matthew 6:9-10. He also refers to His will when He was in the garden, “Saying, Father, if You are willing, remove this cup from Me; yet not My will, but [always] Yours be done.” Luke 22:42. So the ‘will’ of any person is the most important part of them. It is the gatekeeper to the spirit core of every person and determines their eternal fate.
I was at a grocery store once and as I stood there I noticed that just past the clerk there were two conveyor belts for purchased groceries. After a person had purchased their groceries, and was bagging them, the clerk would swing a gate to one side so she could slide the next person’s groceries to the unused conveyor belt. That gate allowed the clerk to control where the groceries would go. This little illustration is very much how the will works. You see we all have experiences that come to us throughout our day. These experiences are then funneled by the will into our spirit core. Likewise, we have many thoughts and feelings that arise from within our spirit core. They could be from our spirit or they could come from ‘self’. We may not know which, in fact when we are immature it is almost impossible to know the difference. Whatever the source it is our will that decides whether we will act on these thoughts and emotions. Those actions then affect ourselves and others.
So your will is the gatekeeper for what goes into and comes from your spirit core. These decisions the will makes happen hundreds, maybe thousands, of times each day. Some decisions we are conscious of and many we are not conscious of. Either way the choices our will makes will determine the growth and power of either our spirit or ‘self’, which resides in our spirit core. Each decision, especially the tiny ones we don’t think matter, build and strengthen either our ‘self’ or spirit. If we feed ‘self’ it will control more and more of our decisions. If we feed spirit, then our spirit will control more and more of our decisions.
We are all born with a will and, like the mind, emotions and body, it needs to grow and mature. The unfortunate reality is the fact that the spirit and ‘self’ nature inside of us battle for control all the time. The first assault we face on earth from the moment we are born is against our ‘will’ by our ‘self’ nature. It quickly takes control of our will so we pursue ‘self’ aided and abetted by the world and satan. It is not a fair fight right from the start because satan and ‘self’ have no qualms about violating the sovereignty of our will. Once our will is co-opted only a pitched battle will free us from the control of 'self'. Thankfully God has made provisions to help us BUT He will not make the decisions for us. That is entirely our responsibility. It always will be our choice whether we follow ‘self’ or spirit.
If your will makes too many choices for ‘self’ you will find yourself ever more distant from God. This is not His choice but yours. ‘Self’ is as much an enemy to God as satan is for ‘self’ comes from satan. By agreeing with, feeding and making choices for ‘self’ you are choosing to be God’s enemy. This saddens Him but because God will not violate your sovereign will He will accept your choices. That does not mean there won’t be consequences though, because a righteous God cannot dwell with ‘self’. This is why, when you choose for ‘self’, you voluntarily separate yourself from His presence. Happily, if your will instead makes decisions for spirit, you will be able to draw closer to Him. You will find He will give you great help and support as you grow in these choices. Over time you will grow in spiritual maturity and, eventually, may become His Bride. This is called grace. This grace can be seen as real spiritual progress in Song of Songs 6:8-9. The virgin becomes the concubine, the concubine becomes the queen, and the queen becomes the dove; the undefiled, without spot or wrinkle Bride. Just remember that He cannot, and will not, make these choices for you. Your will is sovereign and He will never violate it. I cannot stress this enough. Once your choice is made you will experience all the consequences of that choice. The only way to correct a bad choice is to repent.
Repentance is the only way to change any decision we make. Unfortunately, very few people understand just what repentance is and how it works. You know now that with your sovereign will you make decisions that grow either your ‘self’ or spirit. These decisions are not ‘good’ or ‘bad’ they are just feeding one part of your spirit core, ‘self’ or spirit. Once the decision has been made it is set in the spiritual realm and you will experience the consequences that come from that decision, physically, emotionally and spiritually. The only way to correct any decision is to repent. Repent simply means that you turn from your decision, you choose the opposite of what you did. This needs to be declared and acted upon otherwise it is just remorse. For it to be real repentance the action must flow from a change within. What is not clearly known is that repentance works both ways. You can repent of choices for ‘self’ and you can repent of choices for spirit. We have witnessed the latter far more than the former. Repenting of selfish choices is quite rare as many desire to feed and encourage their ‘self’ nature rather than kill it. Repenting of spirit choices is far more common than we ever realized. Many times on our journey we witnessed people give us something of themselves only to repent of the choice later and try to harm us. It was this fact that we could repent of our spirit choices that sobered us to the all importance of the will.
Now that you understand a little about the will you can see why Jesus told us to pray that the Father’s will be done on earth and why Jesus surrendered His will to the Father. The Father’s will is perfect for there is no ‘self’, no evil way in Him. By surrendering to the Father’s will Jesus is teaching us to let go of making choices from ‘self’ and to align our will to the Father’s. This is a long process and we call it growing in spiritual maturity. It will lead you into the wilderness where you will learn to let ‘self’ go and accept the Father’s will as He leads you. Now it is up to you to make some decisions.
Blessings,
Homer
