“Servants, be obedient unto your masters, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ; not in the way of eye service, as men pleasers, but as servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart; with goodwill doing service as unto the Lord, and not unto men.” Eph. 6: 5-7.

The importance of the teaching that these words contain can hardly be overrated. They tell us that not only when we are fulfilling some direct command, but equally when we are doing our common daily work, all is to be done, may be done, as the will of God. They tell us that this cannot be done except as it is done in singleness of heart, and from the heart, with the joyful and loving consent of our whole being. They tell us that the strength thus to act is to be found in doing all in Christ’s presence and unto Him. They teach us, too, how the most common daily life, with its drudgery, or even its oppression, may be transfigured into the work of Heaven — doing the will of God.

The passage derives special force from the fact that it was addressed to slaves. At that time almost all servants were slaves, entirely, even with their life, at the disposal of their masters, and with no rights in law. Many of the early Christians were slaves, of the base and despised whom God had chosen. Their servitude was often harsh and thankless, and the very liberty and brotherhood which the Gospel preached would only make some of them feel all the more the bondage they endured. To such Paul writes to be obedient to their masters, as unto Christ, and to perform all their service as the will of God from the heart. If this was expected of these slaves, just come out of heathenism, in circumstances of such difficulty, it is surely time that our Christianity had learned the lesson that everything we do, even the compulsory or ill-requited service of a hard master, is to be done as the will of God.

And how can this disposition be attained? Only in one way. By heartily accepting any position into which Providence brings us as God’s will for us. Then the work we have to do in that position will be God’s will for us. In our opening chapter we saw that one of the first lessons in the Christian life is to accept every trouble that comes to us from the mistakes of ourselves or others or the trial of circumstances as God’s appointment. His Providence is His will for us. This alone can prevent the irritation and anger and fretfulness that so often embitters life, and clouds the sense of God’s favor. Nothing under heaven can then disturb our faith or peace: to see God in all gives rest and hope. Every work we have to perform, however unpleasant, however unjust or ill-rewarded, becomes, as long as God allows it, His will for us. To do it as such makes it easy and makes it holy, a well-pleasing sacrifice. And if this be true of the work of a slave, much more does it hold good of all the duties of daily life. In housekeeping and business, in all the thousandfold work or service in earning a livelihood or fulfilling a calling — everything must, may be done as the will of God.

The thought at once suggests itself of this demand being too high and hard. Who can always be remembering, with so much to occupy and disturb, that this common work is all God’s will? There is only one way to succeed in doing this, and that is to do the work “in singleness of heart,” “from the heart.” The heart means desire, will, love, delight, joy. What we do from the heart is a pleasure. The only religion that satisfies God is that of the heart; that is why He asks us to love Him with the whole heart. As long as we only take God’s will as a law that we are obliged to obey for our own safety and happiness, or to prove our faith and gratitude, the doing of it is a burden. But when we take it into our heart as a thing we delight in, and cannot have too much of, as what we have given our life up to, everything is welcome that gives us an opportunity for doing more of that blessed will, for keeping our devotion to it unbroken.

“Doing the will of God from the heart.” God not only asks the heart; He has promised to put His law into our heart. God wants the heart, and nothing less can please Him. He has therefore made provision for securing it. He sends forth the Spirit of His Son into our heart. Let us believe in the Holy Spirit dwelling in us, and imparting the love of God. Let us in that faith worship and give ourselves away to “the beautiful, sweet will of God,” and cherish it as our choicest treasure and chief desire. As it gets possession of the heart, and opens itself in it, the heart that has learned to adore its glory in God will learn to welcome every trace of it on earth, and we shall find ourselves doing the hardest service in singleness of heart, with the heart only set upon pleasing God, in very deed doing the will of God from the heart.

Our text tells us one thing more — how the doing the will of God will always be connected with the presence of Christ. The will of God and the Son of God are inseparable. Jesus is the will of God. He did it. He works that will from heaven. His great work as Savior is to secure our doing it. And so Paul writes to the slaves: “Be obedient to your masters as unto Christ; not as men-pleasers, but as servants of Christ; with goodwill doing service as unto the Lord.” Here we have the thrice-repeated thought that in the daily drudgery the animating motive is to be that it is a service rendered to the Lord we love. His presence and His pleasure are to be our inspiration. The poor slave could understand that. The eye of the slave-master, with the fear of displeasing him, spurred on to continuous effort. The presence of Jesus Christ, the sense of being His servant, the bond-slave of His love, the glory of pleasing Him, can as unceasingly fill the heart and carry you through all the day, doing work for men, as servants of Christ. The presence of Christ fits us for this. He knows what the difficulties and temptations are in the way of always doing God’s will. He knows how the victory can be obtained, and the will of God always be done. He lives to secure to us the strength and the victory. If we give ourselves to nothing less than to be wholly His servants in ever doing God’s will alone, if we trust Him to maintain His own presence in us all the day, we can know the joy of His service in His strength.

“Doing the will of God from the heart.” Let God, let Jesus Christ, God’s Son, let God’s love, have the heart, the whole heart, and nothing less, and God’s will shall be done by us on earth, as it is in heaven. God Himself will work it in us, and amid all the changing circumstances of life there will be one thing that never changes — our place of rest in the center of God’s will.

“We do not cease to pray for you, that ye may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding.” Col. 1: 9.

To understand the place of this prayer in the Christian life, and to realize how being “filled with the knowledge of God’s will in all spiritual wisdom ” lies at the very root of its growth and health, just notice what a beautiful description of the walk of a believer follows on this prayer as the blessing it is meant to bring. The result of being filled with the knowledge of God’s will shall be, that we “walk worthily of the Lord unto all pleasing; that we bear fruit in every good work; that we increase in the knowledge of God; that we are strengthened with all power according to the might of His glory, unto all patience and long-suffering with joy, giving thanks unto the Father.” Walking worthily of God and pleasing Him; bearing fruit; increasing in the knowledge of God; being strengthened with all might; all patience and long-suffering with joy and thanksgiving — such is the sure portion of a soul “filled with the knowledge of God’s will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding.” It is the will of God that all these things should be in us and abound. Where the heart is filled and possessed with the knowledge of all this indeed being God’s will, the life will be filled with its fruits.

We have before spoken of the knowledge of God’s will. The great truth suggested by these words in regard to it is that it must be in “all spiritual wisdom and understanding.” There is a wisdom and an understanding of the truths of Scripture which is not spiritual. The human mind can study and apprehend the doctrines the Bible teaches concerning God and the Divine life in man, without having any true apprehension of them in their quickening life and power. Christians, to a very large extent, study their Bible, listen to preaching, read religious books, in the confidence that they are earnestly desirous of knowing the truth, and able to some extent to grasp it, while the real spiritual wisdom and understanding to make it their own, to prove its power in their life, is not waited for from God. They wonder why so much Bible knowledge does not make them humble and lowly as they would like to be. They never know that it is simply because their knowledge of God’s will is in the power of human wisdom and the natural understanding. And such knowledge is powerless to work effectually what God’s Word is promised to work.

In His farewell discourse our Lord said to His disciples, “The Holy Spirit shall teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said unto you. The Spirit of Truth will guide you into all truth.” To the Holy Spirit alone was thus committed the power of teaching Divine truth and leading men into it. He was to teach all things, to guide into all truth; no truth could be known truly without His teaching. As the indwelling Spirit, possessing and renewing the heart, He alone could so impart the truth, that it became part of our very nature, giving both the will and the power to obey it. Our Lord had taught His disciples many things while on earth with them. But how little had they understood? Still less were they able to obey His commands of self-denial and meekness, and humility and love. With the Holy Spirit coming down from heaven into their hearts as the power of God, and the Spirit of His Son, the words of God would come to them in their spiritual, supernatural, quickening power.

We need to study this. As no one can worship God in spirit and in truth but through the Holy Spirit, so no one, not even a true Christian, can have any spiritual understanding of God’s will but by the Holy Spirit. The one reason that our knowledge of God’s will is so defective in its extent and power, that we see so little beauty in God’s will, that we so little delight, or ever succeed in fulfilling it, is simply this: the knowledge is not in all spiritual wisdom and understanding.

And what is needed to get this spiritual wisdom through the Holy Spirit’s teaching? One great thing — we must be spiritual men. Paul says to the Corinthians, “I could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal.” They were unfit for full spiritual teaching, because they were not spiritually minded. This suggests to us the law of all the Holy Spirit’s teaching. He cannot communicate spiritual truths to those whose lives are worldly, selfish, carnal. He asks a disposition that at least longs to be spiritual. It is in the heart He gives His teaching. The man who yields his life to be led and ruled by Him will be taught by Him. Such a one can be filled with the knowledge of God’s will.

Mark the word ‘filled.’ It points to an emptying out and putting aside of all else. It suggests a heart given up wholly and entirely to the will of God. It promises a life in which the will of God shall spontaneously enter the minutest details of daily life — the whole heart filled with it and with nothing else. It is not the thought of a multitude of commandments all packed together, but of God’s grand will, as the controlling power of the life, inspiring and animating the whole being. The two thoughts accompany and are the complement of each other — the whole being surrendered to be spiritual and receive spiritual wisdom, and the whole being thus filled with the knowledge of God’s will.

For this Paul did not cease to pray and make request for the Colossians. Let us pray for God’s Church and ourselves, that the spiritual filling with the knowledge of God’s will may be given us. The blessing is waiting for us; the Father delights to give it. It is our birthright — a Divine birth needs and has the promise of a Divine education. The Spirit through whom we received the Divine life can alone, will most surely, guide us unto all its riches. Let us pray unceasingly, honestly, believingly, to be filled with the knowledge of God’s will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding.

In heaven the will of God is done. Nothing but the heavenly life can do it. None but God’s Spirit can do God’s will. Let us not expect to know or do it without the heavenly life working in us by the Spirit come from heaven into our heart. The heavenly life delights in God’s will. This is one of the great lessons that the Church needs to learn, that the universal neglect of so much of God’s will, and the universal complaint of lack of power to perform, has but one cause: the heavenly life in the power of the Holy Spirit is so little known or sought.

Brother, learn well the lesson that no knowledge and no book can profit you except as it reminds you of the need of the One and Only Teacher, the Spirit of Truth, and leads you in inward adoration and teachableness to wait for the hidden spiritual wisdom which He gives in the inward part.

“Epaphras, who is one of you, a servant of Christ Jesus, saluteth you, always striving for you in his prayers, that ye may stand perfect and fully assured in all the will of God.” Col. 4: 12.

In the first chapter of the Epistle, we had Paul praying, here we have Epaphras. The prayers of both had reference to this one thing — of such supreme consequence is it in the Christian life — the will of God. Paul prayed that their hearts might be filled with the spiritual knowledge of God’s will; then they would walk worthy of the Lord to all pleasing. Epaphras prays that their lives may be so filled with that will, that they may stand complete in all the will of God. Paul says that he does not cease to pray thus. Of Epaphras, he says that he always strives for them in his prayers. In both cases the relation to God’s will is to be no partial or divided one — but whole and entire, as expressed by the word ‘all.’ Paul asks that they may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom, to walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing. Epaphras strives for them in his prayers that they may stand complete in all the will of God. Nothing less than all God’s will is to be the standard, the desire, the prayer, the hope of the believer.

To stand perfect in all the will of God — the believer’s only standard. How can it be otherwise? The will of God is one whole, all equally Divine, and beautiful, and blessed. All, all of equal obligation, equally needful for our peace and perfection, with equal provision made for its performance in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. The will of God is so entirely one with the nature, the perfection, and the love of God, that to neglect or refuse any part of it is making it impossible for God fully to reveal Himself to us and to bless us. As perfect and complete as the will of God is as a whole, ought to be the believer’s acceptance of and surrender to it as his only standard.

Paul and Epaphras regarded this as an attainable measure of perfection among the Colossians. There are many Christians who admit that the words express the Scripture standard of duty, but rob that admission of all its power by counting it impossible. The standard is only an ideal one, not really practicable or practical. They regard it very much as the law of Moses, with its demands that never can be fulfilled. They do not understand the words, “Ye are not under law,” which demands what you cannot do, and gives no power to do, “but under grace,” which demands only what it will give and work in you, and so enables you to do all it demands. All His will is God’s standard for us actually asked and provided for; let it be ours too. Your Father asks nothing less; let nothing less be what you ask of Him and offer Him.

To stand complete in all the will of God — the believer’s one desire. Desire is the one great power in the world that urges and enables men to undertake and accomplish what at first sight appears impossible. When a man has set his heart upon a thing, difficulties only rouse his energy and increase his power. Oh that Christians might be taught and trained to set their heart upon “all the will of God” as their highest and only blessedness, upon “standing perfect in it” as the one hope of their calling! It is to be feared that the preaching of the will of God has not had the same place as the preaching of the grace of God. Men have not seen that as the grace is nothing but the will of God manifested, and as it came through Christ doing that will, so its one object is to unite us with that will, and have it done in us as it is done in heaven. Doing the will of God has been something additional, a supplement to what the grace of God has done, an expression of gratitude, instead of being the very door into all the love, and salvation, and blessedness out of which the grace came and into which it leads. If we understood this, how every desire for help from God for salvation, and happiness, and the enjoyment of His love, would be identified with the standing complete in all that will in which God is revealed and is alone to be found. Let us set our heart upon this.

To stand perfect in all the will of God — the believer’s continual prayer. The teaching about the knowledge of God’s will, and the standing complete in God’s will, comes in connection with the telling of Paul’s unceasing prayer and Epaphras’ striving always. It is not earnest thought, or clear apprehension, or strong desire, that will bring us what we need — but unceasing prayer. Doing the will of God is the life of heaven, because God is there, and works His will without hindrance in all the holy spirits who are wholly yielded up to Him and ever wait upon Him. It is from God in heaven that this heavenly life of doing His will must come down. And it will come down and be carried on and maintained in us just in proportion as we too wait upon God, yield ourselves to Him, and continue offered up to His Holy Spirit to work in us. Whether it be in the quiet, steady perseverance of our daily prayer, or in the fervent striving in seasons when the need and the desire are especially felt, or in the inward supplication of the heart that prays without ceasing — it is only the life that is continually looking upward, and depending alone upon God’s working His own will in us, that will feel that God’s standard is not too high, because what the word of His mouth demands, the power of His hand performs.

To stand complete in all the will of God — the believer’s sure hope. Paul and Epaphras were praying out of their blessed experience. We, alas, have grown so accustomed to use words in prayer for things we never expect. They lived so under the power of the Holy Spirit, they saw, notwithstanding so much to grieve and disappoint them, some whom they could call spiritual men, and they knew that in answer to their prayer it would be given — men “filled with the knowledge of God’s will, in all spiritual wisdom,” men “standing complete in all the will of God.” Let us pray without ceasing, let us strive always, for the churches or the saints with whom we are connected, that these two prayers may be fulfilled in them. Let us to that end ask God to reveal in ourselves and our experience their full truth and meaning. Amid all disappointment let us say: My soul, hope in God! I shall yet praise Him for the help of His countenance! Let us set our hope upon God, who works all things after the purpose of His will. “God must ever be God alone. Heaven and the heavenly nature are His, and must forever be received only from Him, and forever be only preserved by an entire trust in Him.” God alone can work His will in us. In a heart that prays and waits without ceasing in dependence upon Him, He can and will do it. Oh! let us believe that these precious words of Epaphras’ prayer are not vain; in them the Holy Spirit reveals the sure hope of every believer who will trust God. Let us not doubt, but “stand complete and fully assured in all the will of God.”

“For this is the will of God, even your sanctification.” Thess. 4: 3.

The Apostle had closed the third chapter of this Epistle with the wondrous prayer for the Thessalonian believers that the Lord might “establish their hearts unblameable in holiness before our God and Father.” He proceeds in chapter 4 to urge them to a walk well-pleasing to God. He begins by especially warning against two sins, uncleanness and fraud, 4: 3-7. And then just as he had pleaded with God to establish them unblameable in holiness, so he pleads with them to remember and yield to the blessed truth: “This is the will of God, your sanctification.” “God has not called us for uncleanness, but for sanctification.” The great plea against sin is that we are called to be holy. And the great power of holiness is that it is God’s will for us.

And what is holiness? God alone is the Holy One. There is none holy but the Lord. There is no holiness but His. And nothing can be holy except as He makes it holy. “Be ye holy, for I am holy.” “I am the Lord which sanctify you.” Holiness is the very nature of God, inseparable from His being, and can only be communicated by His communicating Himself and His own life. We are in Christ, who is made of God unto us sanctification. The Spirit of God is the Spirit of Holiness. We are God’s “elect in sanctification of the Spirit,” “chosen to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit.” The Three-One God is the Thrice Holy One, and Father, Son, and Spirit each share in making us holy. Our part in sanctification consists in our recognizing how God makes us holy. We have been sanctified in Christ Jesus. The new nature we have derived from Him has been created in true holiness. Our holy calling is in the power of the new, Divine, holy nature, to act out its impulses and principles. Our justification and our sanctification are equally in Christ, by union with Him, and therefore equally of faith. It is as we believe in God working in us, through Christ and the Spirit, that the inflow of the holy life from above is renewed, and that we have the courage and the power to live out the precepts that reveal the way in which it is to act. Like the whole of salvation, sanctification, or the life of holiness, is the result of man’s cooperating with God. That means first of all his entire dependence on, and surrender to, the Divine operation, as the only source of goodness or strength. And then the acting out in life and conduct all that God has worked within us.

And what is now the help we can get from the words — ‘This is the will of God, your sanctification?’ The first thought is that of the Divine obligation of holiness. God wills it. It is enough to regard it in the other aspects in which it can be presented. It is indeed an essential element of the Christian life, the great proof of our gratitude for our deliverance from the guilt of sin, indispensable to true peace and happiness, our only preparation for heaven. All this is of great importance. But at the back of all this there is something of still greater force. We need to realize that God wills it. In eternity God predestinated us to be holy, “we are elect according to the foreknowledge of God in sanctification of the Spirit.” (Eph. 1: 4; 1 Pet. 1: 2.) God’s whole purpose as a holy God, was to make us holy, as He is holy. The whole of redemption was ordered with a view to this. It is not only one of His commands, among many, it is the command which includes all. The whole being and character of God proclaim it; the whole nature and aim of redemption insist upon it; believers! God wills your sanctification. Worship God in His holiness, until every thought of God in His glory and grace is connected with the deep conviction: This blessed God wills my holiness. Rest not until your will has surrendered unconditionally to the will of God, and found its true destiny in receiving that Divine will and working it out.

A second thought that suggests itself is that of the Divine possibility of holiness. We have learned in our meditations that the will of God is not only a Divine purpose of what God is to do, or a Divine precept as to what we are to do, but a Divine power that works out its own purpose. All that God wills He works. Not, indeed, in those who refuse to accept or submit to that will. They have the power to resist it. But in those who yield their consent, who love that will and long that it should be done on earth as in heaven, God Himself works out all things after the purpose of His will. In every man with a sound, strong will, it seeks at once to embody itself in action, and to effect what had been counted an object of desire. God works in us both to will and to do. When He has worked the willing, He delights, if He be waited on and yielded to, to work the doing. When, by His grace, the believer wills as God wills, when he has accepted God’s will for sanctification as his own will, he can count upon God’s working it. God wills it with all the energy of His Divine being. God can as little cease working holiness as He can cease being holy or being God. He wills our sanctification; and if we will but will it too, in the faith of the new nature in which the Holy Spirit works, and yield ourselves to the will of Omnipotent Love in the assurance of His working in us, we shall experience how true and blessed the message is. God wills, and therefore most certainly works your sanctification.

The third lesson suggested by our text is — the Divine means of holiness. The will of God is your sanctification — that is, all that God wills has this one object, will secure this one result. Whether it be His will in the eternal counsel, or here in time in Providence, whether in mercy or in judgment, whether in precept or promise, all that God wills concerning us is our sanctification. This gives a new meaning, and its true glory, to every command of Scripture. The commands of God have unspeakable value, as marking out for us the path of safety and of life, as guiding us to all that is lovely and of good report. But here is their highest glory: through them the Holy One seeks to make us partakers of His own holiness. Do let us learn to regard every indication of God’s will, in Scripture or in Nature, in things great or little, as the will of the Holy One coming to make us holy. Let every thought of God’s will fill us with the longing and the hope to be holy. And let every thought of holiness lead us to the study of, and the delight in, and the faithful doing of, God’s will. Let every sin that God’s Word forbids, such as those Paul mentions of uncleanness and fraud, be put far from us. Let everything that is of the earthly, carnal, selfish nature be put off, that the whole spirit, soul, and body may be sanctified. Let every command that points to the true Christ-like life — humility, and love, and self-sacrifice — be welcomed as the channel of God’s holiness. The desire after, and delight and faith in, God’s holiness and God’s will become inseparably one. Let all who would experience this remember one thing. It is because it is God’s will and God’s holiness that there is power, and life and blessing in it. Everything depends upon our knowing God and waiting on Him, coming under the operation of His Holy Presence and Power. As we know Him as the Living God, and have relations with Him as the Holy, Loving, Almighty, ever-present and ever-working One, His will and His holiness will become to us heavenly realities, and we shall know how certainly, how blessedly, His will is our sanctification.

“In everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus to you-ward.” 1 Thess. 5: 18.

In everything give thanks — that means a life of unceasing joy. The bestowment of a gift makes me glad. Giving thanks is the expression of that gladness to the giver. For what in the gift he has bestowed on me, for what he has proved himself to be as a friend, my happiness offers him all it has to give, all he desires — the acknowledgment of indebtedness and obligation and grateful love. Every father does his utmost to make his children happy; he loves not only to see them happy, but to see them connect their happiness with himself and his love. It is the will of God that in everything, in every circumstance and condition, the whole life of His child should be one of unceasing praise and thanksgiving. If it be not always so with us, let us set ourselves to learn the lesson: In everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus towards you.

In everything give thanks — there is good reason for it. God is not a hard master, who reaps where He has not sown. He never commands joy without giving abundant cause for it. He does not expect thanks where there is nothing to thank for. He would have us remember that, in the most trying circumstances and the deepest sorrow, there is cause for thanksgiving infinitely out-weighing the reason for mourning. Whatever we lose, God and His love are still left us. The very loss is meant to make the love more precious; the trial is love seeking to give itself more completely to us. Whatever we lose, there is always the unspeakable gift — God’s own Son to be our portion and our friend. Whatever we lose, there is always a peace that cannot be taken away, a joy that is unspeakable, a riches of glory that will supply every need, an abounding grace that perfects Christ’s strength in our weakness. There are always the exceeding great and precious promises, and the heavenly treasures that can never pass away. God is educating us, through loss and trial, into the full enjoyment of our heavenly heritage and the perfect fitness for His own fellowship. So let us believe that the command is most reasonable, and say that this will of God, in everything give thanks, is our will too.

In everything give thanks — this is both the mark and the means of a vigorous Christian life. It draws us off from ourselves, and fixes the heart upon God. It lifts us above the world, and makes us more than conquerors through Him who loved us. It places our peace, our happiness, our life, beyond the reach of circumstances. So far from rendering us indifferent to the suffering of our fellow-men, it fills us with hope in seeking to relieve them, it teaches us what joy there is in the kindness and love of God, and makes that the key-note of our life. It gives wings to our prayer, our faith, our love, to live the true heavenly life in God’s presence and worship. It enables us to conquer every temptation with the hallelujah of victory.

In everything give thanks. God Himself will work it in you. This is the will of God in Christ Jesus towards you. We have seen more than once that the will of God is a living, almighty power, working out its own purpose with our intelligent consent. We are co-workers with God — that means, not that He does part and we do part, but that He does all in us, and we do all through Him. It means that He works in us to will and to do, and that we, through faith in His working, in the power that works in us, work out His will. Just because it is the will of God, the believing soul is sure that it can be. It is the will of God in Christ. This expression is so frequent that its meaning is passed over. All that God is and does to us, He is and does through our Lord Jesus. The Father does nothing in us but through the Son. The Son does nothing but as the Father does it through Him. Our experience of God’s work in us depends upon our abiding in Christ, our drawing and remaining near to God in and through Christ. To a soul seeking its life in Christ alone, the will of God ensures a life of unceasing praise and thanks.

In everything give thanks. It needs a life of entire consecration. Many of God’s commands become an unbearable burden, an impossible strain, because we look to the feeble, sickly life to do what only the strength of vigorous health can perform. We cannot take up one part of God’s will, and do it when we please. A life of undivided and absolute surrender to all God’s will is the condition of being able to perform any part of it effectively. Every command to perform some special part of God’s will is a call to inquire whether we have accepted all His will as the law of our life. The soul that has done this, that is learning the lesson of daily guidance for daily duty, and is prepared to meet every new demand with the question as to its implicit submission to that will, and its unquestioning confidence in the provision of sufficient strength, all settled, has found the secret of obedience to this command also. When God is known as our exceeding joy, when a walk in the light of His countenance all the day is counted equally a privilege and an indispensable necessity, the giving of thanks in everything is not looked upon as a hopeless attainment. Because it is the will of a loving and Almighty Father, that will can be done.

In everything give thanks. These are indeed the Christians the world stands in need of. It is the happy Christian — not the happy man who happens also to be a Christian, but the Christian who proves that his happiness is in God, and who lives the life of joy and praise because he lives in God’s presence, — who will find the joy of the Lord his strength in God’s service, and who will be the best witness to what the grace of God can do to give true joy and blessing. It is the will of God in Christ towards us that this unceasing thanksgiving should be our life — let us rest content with nothing less.

“I exhort therefore that supplications, prayers, intercessions, thanksgivings be made for all men. This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who willeth that all men should be saved.” 1 Tim. 2: 1-4.

“The Lord is long suffering to you-ward, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” 2 Pet. 3: 9.

After Paul had urged that supplications, prayers, and intercessions should be made for all men, he reminds us that we may do so in confident assurance that it is good and acceptable to God, because He wills that all men should be saved. The knowledge and faith of God’s will for all is to be the motive and the measure of our prayer for all. What God in heaven wills and works for His children on earth we are to will and work for also. As we enter into His will for all, we shall know what we are to do to fulfil that will. And as we pray and labor for all, the faith in His will for all will inspire us with confidence and love.

Perhaps the question arises — If God wills the salvation of all, how is it that it is not effected? What of the doctrine of election, as Scripture teaches it us? And what of the Omnipotence of God, which is surely equal to the Love that wills the salvation of all? As to election, let us remember that there are mysteries in God and in Scripture which are beyond our reach. If there are apparently conflicting truths which we cannot reconcile, we know that Scripture was not written, like a book of science, to satisfy the intellect, but as the revelation of the hidden wisdom of God, to test and strengthen faith and submission, to awaken love and childlike teachableness. If we cannot understand why His power does not work what His will has purposed, we shall find that, as the endowment of the creature with a free will, is an act by which the will of God has limited itself, all that God does or does not do is decided by conditions far beyond our ken, and which it needs a Divine wisdom to grasp and to order. We shall learn that God’s will is as much beyond our comprehension as God’s being, and that it is our wisdom and safety and happiness to accept every revealed truth with the simplicity and the faith of little children, and yield ourselves to it to prove its living power within our hearts. Let us not fear to yield ourselves to the uttermost to this blessed word: God willeth that all men should be saved.

God is love. His will is love. As He makes His sun to shine on the good and the evil, so His love rests upon all. However little we can understand why His love is so longsuffering and patient, and does not take its power and reign, we believe and know the love that God has towards us — a love whose measure in heaven is the gift of His Son, and on earth every child of man. His love is nothing, but His will in its Divine energy doing its very utmost, in accordance with the Divine law by which His relation to His creature is regulated, to make men partakers of its blessedness. His will is nothing but His love in its infinite patience and tenderness delighting to win and bless every heart into which it can gain access. If we only knew God and His love, how we should look upon every man we see as one upon whom that love rests and for whom it longs. We should begin to wonder at the mystery of grace that has taken up the Church, as the body of Christ, as a partner in the great work of making that love known, and rendered itself dependent upon its faithfulness. And we should see that all living to do God’s will must lead up to this as its central glory: our doing the will that wills that all should be saved.

God wills that all men should be saved. This truth is a supernatural mystery, not to be apprehended but by a spiritual mind through the teaching of the Holy Spirit. It is in itself so Divine and beyond our apprehension, the difficulties that surround it are so many and so real, it needs so much of time and of the sacrifice of the humble loving heart to master its teaching, that to very many the words carry but little meaning. To the believer, who in very deed seeks to know and to do all God’s will, they give a new meaning to life. He begins to see that this call to love and to save his fellow-men is not something accidental or additional that, along with other things, goes to make up his life, and to which he can devote as much of time and thought as he sees fit. He learns that just as this loving, saving will of God is the secret source of all His will, and rules it all, so this loving, saving will is to be the chief thing he lives for too. I have been redeemed and organically united to and made a member of the saving Christ, who came to do this will of the Father. I have been chosen and set apart and fitted for this as the one object of my being in the world. I begin to see faintly that the prayer, ‘Thy will be done!’ means above everything that I give myself for this loving, saving will of God to possess, to inspire, to use, if need be to consume me. And I feel the need of spelling out the words of the sentence till my heart can call them its own: God — my God, who lives in me — wills, with His whole heart, in that will which He has revealed to His people that they may carry it into effect — that all men, here around me, and to the ends of the earth — should be saved, should have everlasting life.

Paul wrote these words in connection with a call to prayer for all men. Our faith in the truth of God’s loving, saving will must be put into practice. It must stir us to prayer. And prayer will most certainly stir us to work. We must not only seek to believe and feel the truth of these words, but must act. This will of God must be done. Let us look upon those around us as the objects of God’s love, whom His saving will is seeking to reach. Let us, as we yield ourselves to this will, go and speak to those around us of God’s love in Christ. It is possible that we are not succeeding in doing God’s will in our personal life because we neglect the chief thing. As we pray to be possessed and filled with the knowledge of this will of God, let us in our Sunday-school class, or Gospel work, in our efforts for young or old, for poor or rich, seek to have hearts filled with this love, tongues that speak of Jesus and His salvation, and a will that finds its strength in God’s own will — that all men should be saved. So will our life, and our love, and our work, and our will in some measure be like that of Jesus Christ — a doing of the Father’s will, that none of these little ones should perish.

“Then said I, Lo, I am come to do Thy will, O God. In which will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ, once for all.” Heb. 10: 7-10.

“Lo, I come. I delight to do Thy will, O my God.” Ps. 40: 7, 8.

David had said: Sacrifices and offerings You did not desire, neither had pleasure therein. They had been appointed for a time, as a shadow or picture; they were not what God sought or what could please Him; they were not really the will of God. David understood that what God wanted was the doing of His will, and said: I delight to do Your will, O my God. While saying this of himself, he spoke it of Christ, in whom alone its true fulfilment could be found. They are the great words with which Christ coming into the world announces His work: Lo, I am come to do Your will, O God. If we are really to penetrate to the very heart of what Christ is, and means, of what He did for us and does in us, we must seek to know Him as come from heaven to earth to do the will of God, and so to restore the doing of God’s will on earth to the place it has in heaven.

His doing of God’s will is first contrasted with the sacrifices and offerings of the Old Testament worship, and then especially connected with the offering of His own body once for all. Of this will of God, as thus done by Him, even unto death, we are taught that in it we have been sanctified, because by one offering He has perfected forever them that are sanctified. Let us try to learn the great lessons that there are to be found here in connection with our study of the will of God.

The doing of God’s will is the only worship that is pleasing to God. — It was this alone that gave their value to the Old Testament sacrifices. Not in the costliness or the multitude of the offerings lay their value, but in the disposition; in the contrition, or the faith, or the consecration of which they were the expression. Not even in these however, except as they were a Divine appointment, and were brought in accordance with God’s own command. If not accompanied by obedience they were worse than useless. “Obedience is better than sacrifice.” “Thou desirest not sacrifice; Thou delightest not in burnt-offering; the sacrifices of God are a broken heart.” It is as far as they were the doing of God’s will that they were well-pleasing. And so they became the symbols of a life given up in devotion to God, wholly yielded to His will and service. The doing of God’s will is the secret of acceptable worship.

Christ came to this world to do the will of God — He came and lived as man to show us that the one thing God asks of the creature, that the one thing that can bring the creature life and blessedness, is the doing of the will of God. With this view He not only submitted Himself to all the commandments and ordinances of the law; in all His life and work, in His eating and speaking, in His travels and miracles, He lived a life of absolute dependence upon God’s guidance — in everything He did only God’s will, He did all God’s will. He knew that it was God’s will that He should die as a propitiation for our sins. As the time came near, and all that that would imply opened up before His human nature, He had more than once occasion to say: How am I straitened! How is My Soul troubled! My Soul is sorrowful even unto death! But through it all He thought of God’s will; the surrender to God’s will sustained Him. And He gave Himself to be what the sin-offering and burnt-offering had only typified, a sacrifice unto God; obedient even unto death. It was this that gave His inconceivable suffering its inconceivable value; it was borne as the will of God, laying God’s just judgment upon Him that the guilty might go free.

It is Christ’s doing the will of God even unto death that has effected our salvation — “In which will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.” The word ‘sanctified’ is used here in its larger sense, as it includes justification and regeneration, and the whole of redemption — our being restored to the fellowship of God, and taken possession of by Him. The great sin of Adam and of mankind was doing their own will instead of God’s will. The great, the only root, of all sin and misery was self-will. Jesus Christ came to take away sin. He did so by a life and a death of the most perfect sacrifice of His will to the will of God. He bore the consequence, the punishment, the curse that our self-will had brought. Through His perfect obedience to God’s will He made a perfect atonement for our sin, and won for the will of God its place of supremacy in this sinful world. He did this by the offering of His body, once for all, and so perfected for ever them that are sanctified. “By the obedience of one, many are made righteous.” As the partakers of a complete and perfect righteousness, won by obedience to the will of God, as “created after the image of God in righteousness,” their entrance into the perfect love and life of God is complete and forever.

The doing of God’s will by which Christ wrought out our salvation is now and ever the power of the salvation He imparts. — Doing God’s will is not only, as many think, the price by which salvation was won. Doing God’s will is salvation itself. In Christ it was the power that conquered every temptation to self-will, that proved what human life ought really to be, that brought a perfect human life and laid it a sacrifice at God’s feet, that broke forever the power of self-will in its dominion over us. In Christ it proved that sacrificing self-will to the very utmost, doing the will of God even unto death, is the path to the fulness of the life and glory of God. In Christ doing the will of God is seen to be the life and joy of heaven brought down to earth, and the power to rise from earth to heaven. Doing God’s will is at once the cause, the object, the power, the blessedness of salvation.

It is only by Christ in us that we can in any measure do the will of God on earth as it is done in Heaven — The prayer that Christ taught us was meant to be heard; God answers it in many various degrees. To pray it daily means to aim at it in the faith of God’s answer. And yet how many earnest Christians who are utterly hopeless in regard to it. Their surrender to do God’s will is ever failing. Is not the great reason that they are attempting it in the power of a life that is not wholly possessed by Jesus Christ? Listen to His Word: “Lo, I am come to do Thy will.” All power to do God’s will is in Him. As we can truly say, Christ lives in me, we shall find His strength is perfected in our weakness. The call comes to each believer, as one sanctified in the will of God, by the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all, and perfected forevermore, to accept the will of God as done by Christ for us, as still being done in us by Him, as God’s free gift in Christ Jesus. The one thing needed, when the heart sees and accepts and loves and vows this doing of God’s will as its one desire, is the faith that Jesus does take charge of a surrendered will, and that in the power of Him who lives in heaven and lives in us, the doing of God’s will can become our daily life.

“Ye have need of patience, that, having done the will of God, ye may receive the promise.” Heb. 10: 36.

It was in a time of very severe trial that this Epistle was addressed to the Hebrews. It had been to them a bitter disappointment to see the nation rejecting their Messiah, and for that rejected of God. To have the temple, too, with its Divine ordinances of circumcision and sacrifice, set aside, was to many a mystery and a cause of deep sorrow. In reproach and the spoiling of their goods they had personally to endure the pain of persecution. The Epistle was written to comfort them by revealing the spiritual glory of Christ’s priesthood and the salvation He bestowed. And it pointed them to the Father, to prove that suffering had been the path of all God’s saints, and had always brought a great recompense of reward. It is in this connection that the words come: Ye have need of patience, that, having done the will of God, ye may receive the promise. The promise was sure and very precious; the suffering was needful, and would be very blessed. The one thing they needed was patience in bearing what God sent, and awaiting what God had promised. And in that time of patient waiting they needed just one thing — to see that they did the will of God. In a world of sorrow and trial the Christian has but this one thing to strive after: not only to bear, but to do the will of God; that, having done the will of God, you may receive the promise.

Doing the will of God is the path to the inheritance. The inheritance owes its Divine glory and blessedness to God having willed it. God’s will working in us can alone fit us for receiving and enjoying it. And God’s will can work in no other way in us as creatures endowed with intelligence and will and moral powers, than by our doing it. Not in any way as a matter of work or merit, but in the very nature and necessity of things the only way of our receiving the promise, which has been bestowed of grace, is by our doing the will. We have been looking at the will of God in various aspects — let us once again turn to this, one of the most elementary, and yet one of the deepest, truths connected with it.

Having done the will of God. It has been said the highest form of existence is the power of working. It is so in God. All His attributes could not make Him the glorious God He is, if they were all dormant, inactive powers. His love, for instance, would be a mere thought or sentiment, not in deed and truth. The highest form of human existence is even so the power of working; and, as a creature, the highest form of that power can be nothing other than working out the perfect will of God. God works to will and to do in us, and what He works in us we work out, doing what He wills and does in us. Such doing the will of God is the proof of our entire surrender to it, our being truly mastered and possessed by it. Such doing the will of God is what gives its strength to our inner man, refines and spiritualizes our whole being, and fits us for being here the abode of the Three-One God ( John 14: 15, 21, 23), and entering His abode hereafter (Matt. 7: 21). Such doing the will of God fits a Christian for receiving every promise.

It was in the time of suffering and trial that these believers were thus to do the will of God. The first concern of most Christians in trouble is to be delivered from it. This may not be the chief thing. The one great desire ought to be — in nothing to fail of knowing or doing the will of God. This is the secret of strength and true nobility in the Christian life. Some think that if under reproach or persecution or injustice, evil feelings are roused and given way to, there is some excuse for it — it cannot be judged too severely — the temptation was so great. God’s word teaches us differently. It regards the Christian so entirely as a man who has given up his own will to live wholly for God’s will, that it says to him, of all trial and temptation of whatever nature, seek one thing: not to sin against God. Be patient, and see that you do the will of God.

But is not this something beyond human power — in every trial ever to think first of God’s will, and do that? It is indeed something beyond human power, but not beyond the power of grace. It is just for this that our Lord Jesus came to earth, saying: I come to do Your will, O God! and went to the Cross with the cry: Not My will, but Yours be done. He lived as an example of how we ought to live. He died to set us free from the power of sin, and open the path, through death to sin and self, to a life for God and His will. He ascended to heaven to give His own Holy Spirit, that in His power we might, like Him, do the will of the Father.

Alas! that in the Church of Christ the truth should be so little known that to do the will of God is the first duty of the believer; and, as a consequence of this, that there is so little desire of the promise and the need of the Holy Spirit to teach us God’s will in daily life. And still further, so little faith in the power of the grace of Christ and His Spirit to fit us for the life of doing the will of God. Men have lost sight of the supernatural light that can reveal the will of God in its beauty and attractiveness, and make it a joy to do it; and of the supernatural obligation to live wholly and entirely for the will of that God who created us, and to whom Christ has brought us back; and of the supernatural power, corresponding to the light and the obligation, which brings a life in the will of God within our reach, because Christ’s strength is made perfect in our weakness.

Believer! whatever others say or do, take you the word in its simple Divine meaning: “You have need of patience, that, having done the will of God, you may receive the promise.” Beseech God, by His Holy Spirit, in the renewing of the spirit of your mind, to show you how He would have you live wholly in His will. Yield yourself to that will in everything you know, and do it. Yield yourself to that will in all its Divine love and quickening power as it works in you and makes you partaker of its inmost nature. Pray, pray, pray, until you see increasingly how what Christ revealed in His life and death is the promise and pledge of what God will work in you, and how your abiding in Him and your oneness with Him, means nothing less than your being called to do the will of God as He did it.

“Now the God of peace, make you perfect in every good thing to do His will, working in us that which is well pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ; to whom be the glory for ever and ever.” Heb. 13: 20, 21.

In Hebrews we have three passages on the will of God. The first, 10: 7-10, spoke of that will, and Christ’s doing of it, as the cause of our redemption — the deep root in which our life stands. The second, 10-36, spoke of that will as done patiently by us, amid the trials of this earth. The third, our present text, shows us the wondrous bond of union between the two former: the same God who wrought out His will in Christ for our redemption, is working out that will in us too. What God did in Christ is the pledge of what He will do in us too. That Christ did the will of God secures our doing that will too. Listen to the wondrous teaching.

Now, the God of peace, who brought again from the dead the Great Shepherd of the sheep in the blood of the everlasting covenant, even our Lord Jesus, make you perfect to do His will. All that is said about the Lord Jesus refers to the previous teaching of the Epistle. It has taught us what the covenant was, what the blood of the covenant, what the exaltation to the throne of Christ as the Priest King, the Great Shepherd of the sheep. And now it says that the God of peace, who did it all, who gave Christ to do His will and die on the Cross, and then raised Him from the dead, that the same God will perfect us to do His will. As much as it was God who sent and enabled Christ to do His will, and through that perfected Him and perfected our salvation, it is God too who will perfect us in every good thing to do His will. God’s will being done in us is to God of the same interest as His will done in Christ; He cares for the one as much as the other. The same Omnipotence which created for Christ a body through the Virgin Mary, and empowered Christ — who could do nothing of Himself — to do that will, even to the agony of Gethsemane, and the surrender of His Spirit into His Father’s hand on Calvary, and then raised Him from the grave to His own right hand, the same Omnipotent God is working in you that you may do His will. Oh, for grace to believe this — the God who worked all in Christ, even to raising Him from the very dead, is working all in us!

You do not catch it yet. It looks altogether too impossible. The difference is too great. The difficulties in our sinful nature are too insuperable. Come and listen once again. Now, the God of peace, who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus Christ — what now — do pause, and take in every word — make you perfect — in every good thing — to do His will! What more could one wish? [Note: The word ‘perfect’ here means to repair, to equip, to fit; God fits us for every good thing, and so enables us to do His will.]

And yet, to remove all doubt, there is more. There follows: working in us that which is pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ. The center words, to do His will, are welded fast between what precedes: God Himself make you perfect in every good thing, and what follows — working Himself in you that which is pleasing in His sight. How wonderful the connection between our doing and God’s working. He fits us in every good thing to do His will, so that the doing of it is really our work, and yet at the same time it is His own working in us. God fits us for the work, and then works it through us. And so all is of God!

The lessons for which we want to take these words into our heart, and which we want to ask God to teach us by the Holy Spirit, are three. The first is: The one object of the great redemption is to fit us to do God’s will here on earth. For that we were created; that was God’s image and likeness in us; that was our fitness for fellowship with God, and the participation in His rule of the world to which we were destined. To redeem and bring us back to this, God worked that stupendous miracle of power and of love; His Son becoming man, that as man He might show us how to do God’s will, and how by doing it sin could be atoned and conquered. For this Christ lives in heaven and in our hearts, that through Him God may work in us that which is well pleasing in His heart. What the sinner needs to know when he is called to repentance, what the believer needs to be continually reminded of and encouraged in, is this: to do God’s will is what I have been redeemed for. The entire failure of so much Christian life is simply owing to this, that the Church has not clearly and persistently preached the great message, that all God’s wondrous grace has this one object, to restore us to the original glory of our creation, and make it our life to do His will.

The second lesson is of no less importance — we can do God’s will because God Himself fits us for it, working in us that which is pleasing in His sight.

Alas! how little this is known or believed by believers. The call to do all God’s will is made of no effect by the terrible unbelief that says: It cannot be; I cannot do it. Men say that they believe that all the mysteries of redemption, up to Christ’s resurrection and exaltation to heaven were wrought “by the working of the strength of God’s might” (Eph. 1: 20). But they do not believe what Scripture affirms as distinctly (Eph. 1: 19), that the same exceeding greatness of His power works in them that believe. Let me implore every child of God who would live to do His will, to remember: the will of God is so holy and Divine no one can do it but God Himself. God has given you a renewed will, capable of knowing and desiring, and even delighting in, His will, but not of doing it in your own strength. The work of our will is to accept of His will as being indeed what He will work in you. This is indeed our highest glory, that God, who, according to His very nature, must work all in all, will work in us both to will and to do. He Himself fits us in every good thing to do His will, working Himself in us that which is pleasing in His sight.

The last lesson follows naturally: Our great need and our great duty, when we have accepted our calling to live only to do His will, is to bow before God in continual humility and dependence, asking to know fully our utter impotence, and seeking to trust confidently in His power working in us. And with this, to understand that His power cannot work freely and fully in us, except as He dwells in us. Jesus said: The Father abiding in Me does the works. It is “through Jesus Christ” that God works in us what is pleasing in His sight. That is, through Jesus Christ dwelling in the heart, by the power of the Holy Ghost, God by a continual secret, almighty operation, works out His will in us, by fitting us to do it. The one thing needful is: a simple, but unceasing and unlimited, faith in the indwelling Jesus. Lo, I come, He said. I delight to do Your will. That is not only for us, but in us. He is the Executor of the Father’s will, through whom it is all carried out. Oh! let us turn with a new consecration to do all God’s will, with a new faith to God who will work in us the fitness to do it, with a new devotion to Jesus Christ, through whom we the sinful, we the impotent, can indeed have grace to say also: I delight to do Your will, O my God.

“For so is the will of God, that by well-doing ye should put to silence the ignorance of foolish men. If, when ye do well, and suffer for it, ye shall take it patiently, this is acceptable with God. Because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, that ye should follow His steps.” 1 Pet. 2: 15, 20, 21.

“It is better, if the will of God so will, that ye suffer for well-doing, than for evil-doing. Because Christ also suffered for sins once.” 1 Pet. 3: 17, 18.

“Inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings, rejoice. Wherefore, let them also that suffer according to the will of God commit their souls in well-doing unto a faithful Creator.” 1 Pet. 4: 13, 19.

Before Peter had received the Holy Spirit, he could not understand that suffering had to be borne as God’s will. When Christ spoke of His suffering, he reproved Him, and had to bear the rebuke: ‘Get thee behind Me, Satan.’ When his discipleship brought him into danger and suffering, he denied his Lord. He could not see that suffering was God’s will. With Pentecost everything was changed. He knew no fear. He rejoiced that he was counted worthy to suffer for His name. In his Epistle he ever connects Christ’s suffering for our sins with his example, calling us to suffer like Him. Through suffering to glory is the keynote of his exhortation to the saints. Let us listen to what he teaches us of the will of God in suffering.

The first lesson is: To regard all suffering as the will of God for us. “If the will of God will, that ye suffer for well-doing.” “They that suffer according to the will of God.” He is speaking of the suffering of injustice at the hands of our fellow-men. Very many, who think they are ready to endure trial that comes direct from God, find it very hard to bear unkind, or hard, or unjust treatment from men. And yet it is just here that Christ’s teaching and example, and all Scripture instruction, call upon us to accept and bow to the will of God. Whether it be in the most flagrant injustice, and the most terrible suffering — such as our Lord endured at the hands of Caiaphas and Pilate — or the smaller vexations that we meet with in daily life from enemies or friends, all suffering must be to us the will of God. Nothing can come to us without the will of God. What is done may be most contrary to the will of God, and the doer most guilty in His sight — that it is done to us, that we suffer by it, is God’s will. And the first duty of the child of God is — not to look at the man who does it, to seek to be avenged of him, or delivered from his hands, but — to recognize and bow beneath it as the Father’s will. That one thought — it is the Father’s will — changes our feelings towards it, enables us to accept it as a blessing, changes it from an evil into a good. In all suffering let the first thought be to see the Father’s hand, and count on the Father’s help. Then no circumstance whatever can for one moment take us out of the blessed will of God.

The second lesson is: Ever to suffer with well-doing. In all the three texts the word “well-doing ” occurs. If we suffer when we do wrong, and take it patiently, this is no glory. The one thing we are to care for is that, if we suffer, it is not to be for wrong-doing, but for well-doing. For it is better, if the will of God so will, that you suffer for well-doing than for evil-doing. And also with well-doing, not allowing the suffering to call forth anything that is sinful. That must be our one desire in suffering. It is caused by sin, it is meant to take away sin — how terrible if I make it the occasion of more sin, and turn it to the very opposite of what God means it to be. But if we suffer when we do well, and take it patiently, this is acceptable with God — that so by well-doing we put to silence the ignorance of foolish men. Men may learn from us what the power of Grace is, to soften and to strengthen; what the reality is of the heavenly life and joy that enables us to bear all loss; and what the blessing is of the service of the Divine Master, who can make His own path of suffering so attractive and so blessed to His followers. And it is in well-doing that we can commit our souls unto a faithful Creator.

Here is the third lesson: In suffering to commit our souls to God’s faithful keeping. What a precious privilege! Amid all the temptation suffering brings, God Himself offers to take charge of the keeping of our souls. Going down into the darkness of death, our Lord Jesus said: “Father, into Your hands I commit My Spirit.” Into every dark cloud of suffering into which we enter, we may say this too. From all the strife of tongues and the pride of man, from all that there is in ourselves of the tendency to impatience or anger, to quick judgments or unloving dispositions, the faithful Creator can keep the soul committed to Him. He who sends the suffering as His will, has beforehand provided a place of safety, where the blessing of the suffering will assuredly be given. Let us say: “I know in whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him.”

Then comes the last lesson: In all our suffering according to the will of God, Christ is our pattern and our strength. In all the three chapters, Christ suffering for our sake is connected with our suffering for His sake. “Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example — that ye should follow His steps” (2: 2). “It is better that ye suffer for well-doing, because Christ also suffered for sins once, the righteous for the unrighteous” (3: 17, 18). “Forasmuch as Christ suffered in the flesh, arm ye yourselves with the same mind. Insomuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings, rejoice ye . . . because the Spirit of Glory and the Spirit of God resteth on you” (4: 1, 13, 14). The sufferings of believers are as indispensable as are those of Christ. They are to be borne in the same spirit. They are the means of fellowship with Him, and conformity to His image. Christ Jesus accepted and bore all suffering, of whatever nature, great or small, whether coming in the ordinary course of events or specially devised against Himself, as the will of God. He endured all, as the necessary result of sin, in submission to the will of the Father who sent it, as the school in which He was to prove that His will was one with the Father’s, and that the Father’s will was over all.

Christ is our pattern, because He is our life. In time of suffering proof is given that the Spirit of Glory and the Spirit of God rests upon us. Oh, that all believers, who desire to live wholly to the will of God, might understand how much depends upon their recognizing God’s will in all suffering, and bearing all according to the will of God! And might understand, too, how impossible it is to disconnect Christ’s sufferings for us from our’s for Him. He suffered for us as our Head, in whom we are made alive. We can only suffer for Him as He lives in us. The attempt to do or bear the will of God aright, as long as we are living on a different level from that on which Christ lived, must be failure. It is only where the whole-hearted surrender to live and die for the will of God as He did, possesses the soul that the mighty power of His Love, and Grace, and Spirit can do their wonders in the life.