Your Will, or His?

Do you know what it is to be a Christian? In essence, it means giving yourself up completely to Christ. In more ways than one: your belief, your worldview, your actions, your thoughts, ambitions, plans, hopes, goals, and very character must be a willing living sacrifice. You must die to yourself in order to live. Sounds completely logical right? Bear with me. It is said that Christians die to themselves. I believe we do, but so do non-Christians. But how can this be? This is how: we each die according to our will. Christians die to their natural selves, their sinful flesh and selfishness. This is because they want God’s will to be done. Non-Christians do the opposite, they want their will to be done. They die to their spiritual selves instead, never realizing what they have done. They feel no remorse. God graciously gives us this freedom of choice. Missing the mark is called sin.
    As Singh explained, “For instance, a thief who is stealing and hoarding things as a means of happiness is not only missing his happiness, but by his acts of theft is destroying the very capacity for it. That capacity is deadened by his sinful conduct. And if he loses the sense of the sinfulness of theft and his consience does not feel remorse, he has already committed spiritual suicide. He has not only killed the capacity but has killed the soul which had the capacity.” The thief died to his other self, the wrong self. This is a tragic thing, and too often they realize it too late, if at all.
    So, we may desire the will of God, but how do we find out what it is? Isn’t it hard enough to figure out our own? Well the will, the plan, of God is not something to be figured out. Wrong question. Singh elaborates eloquently, “A scientist had a bird in his hand. He saw that it had life, and, wanting to find out in what part of the bird’s body the life was, he began dissecting the bird…those who try to understand the inner life merely intellectually will meet with a similar failure.” In other words, don’t kill the bird. Don’t dissect God. You can’t do it an yield the results you desire. Trust in Him, will His will, and love His love.