Accepting God’s Will—why Is It so Difficult for Us?
I delight to do your will, my God. Yes, your law is within my heart." — Psalms 40:8
Don't be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what is the good, well-pleasing, and perfect will of God. — Romans 12:2
Author
Faustino de Jesús Zamora Vargas
Summary: Receiving Christ is not the same as following him: salvation is received freely by grace, but living the new life and bearing fruit requires costly and glorious discipleship. We must not conform to the values of the world—self-sufficiency, vainglory, and the desires of the flesh—because they oppose God’s design. The gospel is reflected in the cross of Christ, not in prosperity or false promises. Knowing and accepting God’s will requires us to submit to him, walk with Christ, and make sacrifices. We honor those who suffer for their faith by living transformed lives, proclaiming reconciliation, and sharing eternal life with a world marked by greed and hatred.
It is one thing to receive Christ and another to follow Christ. It is one thing to celebrate salvation and another to bear fruit in salvation. It is one thing to be born into a new life and another to live the new life.
Even though the Lord teaches us in the Bible that salvation is free, following Christ is astonishingly costly—but, proportionally, even more glorious. What a shame that sometimes even we Christians completely forget this. We often settle for the foolishness and promises of this world and its culture of exalting self-esteem, self-sufficiency, and self-confidence, and without realizing it, we take Christ down from the cross; that is, we fail to appreciate the true value of His precious blood, which set us free forever and made us His children for all eternity. Paul exhorts us on God’s behalf: “Do not conform to the world of today,” or, in other words, do not imitate or become contaminated by the madness of this age. The world is a system of values incompatible with the way and design of life that the Lord desires for us. The world seeks to mold us, to force us into its own mold so as to destroy us and keep us lulled to sleep so that we will not give glory to God. The world is a kingdom opposed to God, governed by the desires of the flesh and the pride of life. The world, with its own culture, religions, and lifestyles, is moving in the opposite direction from the glory of God.
The gospel is a coin with only one side. The days of “…now close your eyes, bow your head, and repeat this prayer after me” are giving way to a gospel that demands greater commitment, entails more suffering, is less sugarcoated, and is decidedly more biblical. A gospel that looks to the cross of Christ as its mirror, rather than to prosperity and the false promises they seek to sell us as the guarantee of a salvation that we can do nothing to earn, but can only receive by grace.
If we want to know the will of God, we will have to make sacrifices, submit to Him, and walk with Him with our backs turned to the promises of this world, of this age. According to the 1997 World Christian Encyclopedia, approximately more than 160,000 Christians die around the world each year; they die for Christ, for refusing to deny their faith; they die as victims of hatred and violence, of religious fanaticism that denies the sovereignty of the one and only Savior. We must honor these modern Christian martyrs with the testimony of truly transformed lives. We cannot conform to this age, nor to the next. Many of us live out Christianity with a certain degree of comfort. We are rejected but not persecuted; we are insulted but not tortured. Let us devote ourselves to living with our eyes fixed on Christ, bearing the fruits of salvation and preaching the gospel of reconciliation with our Heavenly Father. Let us use the gift of eternal life to share it with a world that is destroying itself through greed and hatred. You and I have much to share, much to offer, and always more to sacrifice for Christ and for others. That is God’s will, our beautiful task, and our rich inheritance. May God help us to be worthy of this privilege!