The "I" in W-I-L-L

We have a saying in the coaching world: There's no "I" in TEAM. 

I've been saying that over and over these past day with an addition: But there is an "I" in WILL.

Frankly I've been sick, I've been irritable, and I've been too tired to care.  So as I've been mulling silently in my head this saying a part of me says back, "WHO CARES!"  Until I read Matthew 7:21.

"Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven." 

Did you notice it's God's will we're suppose to do?  Not whatever I feel like doing, even if it is good and righteous.  But the will of my Father.  How much easier would life be if I took myself out of the equation and just did God's will?  I wonder what that would look like? 

I suppose some would say, "That's EASY, life would go smoothly."  But I think I'd have to challenge that.  Is it easy to love those who hate us?  Is it easy to turn the other cheek time and time again?  So just because it's God's will for us, doesn't mean it's going to be easy. 

One of my favorite things to do when I'm looking for meaning in a word is to look at different bible versions to see the richness of a word.  You know what I found when I looked up the word "will" in the different versions?  WILL.

"That's a lot of help!."  (NOT!)

Then I looked at the concordance. 

Thelema means:

1) what one wishes or has determined shall be done

     a) of the purpose of God to bless mankind through Christ

     b) of what God wishes to be done by us

1) commands, precepts

2) will, choice, inclination, desire, pleasure

But how do we know what God wants us to do?  Does he want us to adopt?  This of course is the big question. 

 

John Piper has the following to say about the will of God, which requires the renewing of our minds to think like Him:

Three Stages of Knowing and Doing the Revealed Will of God

Stage One
"First, God’s will of command is revealed with final, decisive authority only in the Bible. And we need the renewed mind to understand and embrace what God commands in the Scripture. Without the renewed mind, we will distort the Scriptures to avoid their radical commands for self-denial, and love, and purity, and supreme satisfaction in Christ alone. God’s authoritative will of command is found only in the Bible.
 

Stage Two
The second stage of God’s will of command is our application of the biblical truth to new situations that may or may not be explicitly addressed in the Bible. The Bible does not tell you which person to marry, or which car to drive, or whether to own a home, where you take your vacation, what cell-phone plan to buy, or which brand of orange juice to drink. Or a thousand other choices you must make.
 
What is necessary is that we have a renewed mind, that is so shaped and so governed by the revealed will of God in the Bible, that we see and assess all relevant factors with the mind of Christ, and discern what God is calling us to do. This is very different from constantly trying to hear God’s voice saying do this and do that. People who try to lead their lives by hearing voices are not in sync with Romans 12:2. There is a world of difference between praying and laboring for a renewed mind that discerns how to apply God’s Word, on the one hand, and the habit of asking God to give you new revelation of what to do, on the other hand. Divination does not require transformation. God’s aim is a new mind, a new way of thinking and judging, not just new information. His aim is that we be transformed, sanctified, freed by the truth of his revealed Word (John 8:32; 17:17). So the second stage of God’s will of command is the discerning application of the Scriptures to new situations in life by means of a renewed mind.
 

Stage Three
Finally, the third stage of God’s will of command is the vast majority of living where there is no conscious reflection before we act. I venture to say that a good 95% of your behavior you do not premeditate. That is, most of your thoughts, attitudes, and actions are spontaneous. They are just spillover from what’s inside. Jesus said, “Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. The good person out of his good treasure brings forth good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth evil. I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak” (Matthew 12:34-36).  Why do I call this part of God’s will of command? For one reason. Because God commands things like: Don’t be angry. Don’t be prideful. Don’t covet. Don’t be anxious. Don’t be jealous. Don’t envy. And none of those actions are premeditated. Anger, pride, covetousness, anxiety, jealousy, envy—they all just rise up out of the heart with no conscious reflection or intention. And we are guilty because of them. They break the commandment of God. Is it not plain therefore that there is one great task of the Christian life: Be transformed by the renewing of your mind. We need new hearts and new minds. Make the tree good and the fruit will be good (Matthew 12:33). That’s the great challenge. That is what God calls you to. You can’t do it on your own. You need Christ, who died for your sins. And you need the Holy Spirit to lead you into Christ-exalting truth and work in you truth-embracing humility.
  

Give yourself to this. Immerse yourself in the written Word of God; saturate your mind with it. And pray that the Spirit of Christ would make you so new that the spillover would be good, acceptable, and perfect—the will of God."

http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/sermons/what-is-the-will-of-god-and-how-do-we-know-it

My prayer today is that my mind would be like God's mind.  That the Scriptures will be written on my heart and that every time I open the Bible revelation will be made so that I can know the good and perfect will of God.  I pray that for you too!

Candie