Thy Will be Done

Chapter 29 – Doing God’s Will, The Secret of Abiding

“If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.” 1 John 2: 15, 17.

Here we have once again the contrast between the two great powers that contend for mastery over man. We saw, in Romans 12: 2, how the great danger that threatens the consecrated man, and makes a life in God’s will impossible, comes from the side of worldly conformity. And, in Galatians 1: 4, how the one great aim of God’s will in the death of Christ was to deliver us from this present evil world. The irreconcilable hostility of the two principles is brought out here with equal force. “If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” Freedom from the love of the world, by the love of the Father utterly expelling it, is the law of the normal Christian life. And the exercise and discipline by which the true position is to be maintained, with the love of the Father and not the love of the world filling the heart and life, is the doing the will of God: “He that doeth the will of God abideth for ever ” — abides unchangeably in God and an unchangeable love.

What sacred associations there are connected with that word ‘abiding’! Abiding in Christ and in His love (John 15); abiding in the Son and in the Father (1 John 2: 24, 28); God and Christ, the truth and the anointing abiding in us (1 John 2: 14, 27; 3: 24). The chief thought is permanent, steadfast, immovable continuance in the place and the blessing secured to us in Christ and God. The great secret of the world is its transitoriness — it passes away with all its glory. And all who are of it partake of its vanity and uncertainty. And just as far as the Christian breathes its spirit, and allows its love a place in his heart, he loses the power of abiding. All failure in abiding, all lack of permanence and perseverance in the Christian life, can have no other cause than that the spirit and life of the world are robbing the soul of its real and only strength. The Word and Will of God are unchangeable and eternal: he that does the will of God abides forever. As a man does the will of God, and in doing appropriates it, feeds upon and assimilates it, its very essence enters into his being, and he becomes partaker of its Divine strength and unchangeableness. As the life of God is, so is His will, without variableness and shadow of turning. And as the will of God is taken up into the life of the believer, it also is changed into the likeness of theDivine life, and becomes freed from all the variableness and every shadow of turning which is the mark of this world. “This world passes away; he that does the will of God abides forever.”

“He that does the will of God.” It is by doing that the will of God enters into us, and communicates its own Divine unchangeableness. The revelation by the Spirit, the knowledge and contemplation of the love and adoration of the will of God — all these have their place and value. But it is not until we have really done, and are continually doing, the will of God, that it has really mastered us, conquered every enemy, and transformed us into the perfect likeness to itself. It is as the doing of the Father’s will becomes our meat, that is, the satisfaction of our soul’s hunger, and our nourishment, that God Himself becomes the strength of our life. It is only then that man is brought back to his original glory. He was created with a will, that into it he might receive the will of God, that God might work His will into him, and so man, in working that will out again, might become the partner and fellow-worker with God in all His works. Jesus Christ, as man, restored human nature to its ideal destiny, and proved what blessedness and glory it is to live only to do the will of God. And redeemed men receive the Spirit of Jesus Christ that they, even as He, might find their life in accepting and living and doing nothing but the will of God. As God’s will is the only power that upholds and secures the existence of the universe, so that will, done by the believer, is the one security that he never shall be moved. The whole of redemption, all that it reveals of pardoning and sanctifying and preserving grace, has this as its aim and its crown — that man should find his blessedness and his fellowship with God, his likeness to Him, in doing His will. “He that does the will of God abides forever.”

Blessed abiding! How often believers have mourned and wondered that there was so little abiding peace and joy in their life — that the abiding in Christ and His love was so fluctuating and uncertain. They knew not how near the answer lay as to the cause: “He that does the will of God abides forever.” They never noticed how distinctly our Lord had laid down this as the one condition of abiding in Him: “If ye keep My commandments, ye shall abide in My love, even as I kept the commandments of My Father, and abide in His love.” Could words make it plainer that obedience, doing His will, is the secret of abiding? And that if, instead of occupying ourselves with the abiding as the object of direct desire and faith and prayer, and effort, we were to give up ourselves wholly to keep the commandments and do the will, the abiding would come of itself, because it would be given us by a secret power from on High. He that does the will of God abides forever,” and will always and unceasingly abide.

It is to be feared that in the teaching of the Church of Christ, and in the life of the great majority of believers, the doing of the will of the Father has not that overwhelming prominence which it had in the life and teaching of Christ, as in the purpose of the Father. Any revival that is really to affect the spiritual life and elevate the standard of Christian living, must be a revival of holy living, with the vindication of God’s claim that every child of His should give Himself to do God’s will on earth as it is done in heaven. When once God’s claim is fully admitted, and, without any reservation, unconditionally accepted, light will be given as to the Divine guidance that will lead us to it, the Divine power which makes it possible, the Divine certainty that it shall be done. Everything depends upon the simple and whole-hearted acceptance of the great truth, that to be brought back to do the will of God is the one thing we have been redeemed for, and that doing that will is, on earth as in heaven, with us, as with our Lord Jesus, the one secret of abiding in the love of God.



Chapter 30 – Praying According to God’s Will

“And this is the boldness which we have toward Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He heareth us. And if we know that He heareth us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions which we have asked of Him.” 1 John 5: 14-15.

God works out His will through the willing and doing of His people. He works in them, all unconsciously to them, to will and to do. While they study His will in His Word, and take it up into their wills and lives and work it out, He is all the while working it out through them. It is a heart and life filled with the love of God’s will that becomes the prepared instrument through which God can do His work.

It is with prayer as with work. As God has taken up into His eternal purpose the cooperation and the labor of His people, so their prayers also. These have their human origin in our desires as awakened by our need or by God’s promises, and are yet God’s own working in us. They cannot effect any change in the will of God, for they are God’s will realizing itself through us, and their first condition is that they must be according to God’s will. They may indeed, and do, effect a change to what appears to be God’s will, in what is His will for a time, or as a preliminary to something higher; their real power consists in their being according to God’s will, because God works out His will as much through our prayers as our works.

The question has often caused much difficulty: How can I know that my prayers are according to the will of God? The question lies at the very root of our prayer life, as well as of a life in the will of God. It is not easy to give an exhaustive answer. And yet it may be possible to give suggestions that will enable thoughtful Christians to find the answer that meets their own case. The Holy Spirit, where He is to reveal the will of God, where He is too to help us in prayer, must be our Teacher.

Let us, first of all, see that we understand the words, “According to His will,” correctly. Many connect them exclusively with “anything”: the thing asked must be according to His will. But there is something more important than this — not only the thing asked for, but the disposition and character of the asker must be according to God’s will. In this last lies the real secret of power in prayer. Two Christians both ask for something according to the will of God. He gives it to one and not to another. And why? Because the asking of the one was different from the other. We must connect the words, “According to His will,” with asking. That will include both that the thing asked and the spirit of the asking be in harmony with God’s will.

That the latter is of primary importance is evident from our Lord’s teaching of His disciples. He continually connected the answer to prayer with their state. They must forgive, they must be merciful, they must be humble, they must be believing, they must ask in His name, they must abide in Him in keeping His commandments, and His words abide in them; their life must be according to God’s will. If they loved Him, and kept His commandments, He would pray the Father for them. Only the man whose life and conduct, whose heart and disposition, is according to God’s will, can ask according to His will. So James speaks of the fervent, effectual prayer of the righteous man. And John says, “Whatever we ask we receive, because we kept His commandment.” It is the life that prays; the prayer has power according to the life; a life according to God’s will can ask according to God’s will.

One great reason of this is that the man who lives according to God’s will is able spiritually to discern what he may ask for. A Christian may take some promise of God’s word, say, for the conversion of sinners, and begin and pray for someone in the mere power of human love, and without seeking at all to be led by the Spirit into the faith that enables him to pray successfully. It is simply a matter of human will; I would like the conversion of this friend. God wills that all should be saved; I will ask it. While there is no thought of that abiding in Christ through obedience to which the promise of an answer has been given. This is not asking according to the will of God, in the deep consciousness of dependence on the Holy Spirit, in that true obedient abiding in Christ Jesus, which alone is truly asking in His Name. Doing is the only way to knowing the will of God, and therefore the only way of asking according to His will. As long as I only desire to know God’s will with regard to certain things I desire or need, I may find it difficult to know it. A life yielded to and molded by the will of God will know what and how to pray. A heart seeking to be “filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding,” and striving fervently “to stand perfect and complete in all the will of God,” will be able joyfully to appropriate the promise, “This is the boldness we have toward Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.”

Let us try and learn the lessons. Boldness in prayer comes from the assurance that both the spirit of asking and the thing we ask are according to the will of God. . . . In all our prayers that we have learned from His Word, let us take time to realize that they are indeed according to God’s loving, mighty will, and therefore sure to be heard. . . . Let us remember how essentially one our lives and our prayers are, and live wholly to do God’s will — that will ensure our praying according to His will. . . . Let us pray first and wait for the things that God has clearly revealed to be His will, things that concern His love and kingdom and glory — that will give us liberty with the lesser things that concern our interests. . . . Only the Holy Spirit in the spirit of prayer can lead us into the will of God, — as we wait on Him even in the things we know to be according to God’s will. He can give us Divine assurance in regard to things that no human reason could believe beforehand to be God’s will. . . . Let our first desire in regard to every petition ever be: Lord, teach me how to pray only according to Your will.

God’s will is at first a deep hidden mystery. He that lives to do that will as far as he knows it, may count upon being led deeper into it as the manifestation of a holy, mighty, infinite goodness. Let me give myself to it as to Infinite Love. God works out His will equally by the works and the prayers of His people. Yield yourself equally without reserve to that will in working as in praying, in praying as in working. The absolute joyful surrender of our life to that will, in full obedience and in perfect truth, gives boldness in doing and in asking. And this text, instead of being a stumbling-block, will give us new joy and confidence in prayer, because the prayer according to the will of God must prevail.