Search My Will - part 2 - Day 17

We have been consistently asking the Lord to examine our heart and I am sure that He has been shining the light of His word on areas in your life. He has been showing me things about myself for sure.

This season of prayer and fasting has been productive for me. I am receiving definite strategies from the Lord to help me overcome some of the things that I have needed to change. I am receiving a new passion to take more initiative on the things that the Lord has asked me to do for along time. I have made excuses in the past by saying, "oh Lord you know that I'm going to get to that...I've just been sooooo busy" And while that has been true...there is a way to rearrange priorities and make time to do what He told me to do. As I turn 60 years old this November, I am expecting to increase in fruitfulness in every area of my life. I will hit a milestone this year and I do not want to miss anything that the Lord has commissioned me to do. So, I've decided that I am done with making the excuse of "well...I just don't have time". It is time to take everything up a notch...and stretch our faith with immediate obedience.

I trust that you have been spending quality time with the Lord and hearing His voice clearly as well. We are praying for you constantly that this month has been the launching pad for a great year.

Remember, our key verse is Psalm 26:2 - Test me, Lord, and try me, examine my heart and my mind. This is a bold prayer of laying everything on the altar...and staying there for the entire examination. Don't get off the altar too soon. Let the Holy Spirit shine His light into every corner of your heart.

We need to go a bit deeper on the subject of the will. Yesterday we laid the foundation of what our will is and why it's important. We cannot over state that probably the greatest gift that God gave to man, besides Jesus, is our will or the ability to choose.

With our will, we get to choose to be obedient to God's will. Faith, and choosing to obey Him is pleasing to our heavenly father.

The apostle Paul, in the seventh chapter of the book of Romans, draws us a clear picture of the struggle of our flesh against our spirit. He says that he knows that nothing good lives within the flesh. He makes a statement about the longings to do what is right that are within him, but the willpower is not enough to accomplish it.

So we can see that having the desire or will to do God's will is important, and that we are being motivated by our spirit to obey God. But we also know that at the same time we're tempted to ignore, disobey or rebel against God's will. In this struggle is when we should stop and pray, to ask the Holy Spirit to shine the word of God on our will.

Once we realize that we are weak, but he is strong, we can choose to be strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might. We can declare by faith that the greater One lives in us, and that greater is He that's in us than he that's in the world. We can stand strong against the temptation and actually do what's right because it's right and we know that it's right.

In Romans seven, Paul makes the point that we are all human and we are all tempted to do what our flesh wants. But the last verse of the seventh chapter is the turning point as Paul declares that he's thankful to God, and that God's mighty power provided the way out of the temptation. He also declares that his mind is renewed and fixed and submitted to God's word.

This is exactly what we need to do with our will each day. We need to choose to resolve our will, to renew our mind, and fix our mind and submit our total being to God's spirit and word.