God’s Will and Spiritual Growth: Part 2

Following God’s will is not only important to your spiritual growth…it is required for your spiritual growth. But following God’s will is never easy.

At one time, my three boys, all 17, shared one car between them. They were not happy about having to share. So they would remind me that if I had continued my investing career we would have a lot more money. But what my kids really meant is if I had not followed God’s will for my life, they could get what they want, in this case each their own car.

It is true if I had continued in my investing career they each would have had their own car. But…at what cost? At what cost to me? At what cost to them?

In part 1 of this post I wrote, “God the Father and Jesus are not about to bend their will to our will. In contrast, they ask us to bend our will to their will. Because of this, daily submitting our will to God’s will is a very important practice of spiritual growth. Submission of our will to God’s must be a daily, intentional practice.”

This is hugely important for the following reason:

In Matthew 7:21 Jesus makes a very interesting statement. He says, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.”

Jesus makes it clear we cannot pick and choose to follow only those parts of God’s will we like, or the parts we don’t find too uncomfortable. We certainly should not make the decision to follow God or not based on the resources we will or will not acquire. The cars we could or could not buy.

For Jesus, doing the will of God is paramount.

In John 6:38, shortly before his arrest, he said that he had come down from heaven not to do his will but to do the will of his heavenly Father who sent him. This is an amazing statement!

The will of God the Father was for Jesus to receive the punishment for our sins through the crucifixion. Did Jesus want to be crucified? No, of course not. Did he like that part of God’s will for him? No way. But he willingly agreed to follow God the Father’s will for him. As a result, we have the opportunity to receive the forgiveness of our sins, righteousness, and eternal life.

So let me ask you a question. Are you willing to follow God’s will for your life? Are you willing to do whatever he asks of you?

I promise you this. If the answer is yes…you will grow spiritually. God will work in your life to help you draw closer to him. It begins with a commitment to follow God’s will.