Perhaps you, too, have a deep desire to remain in God’s perfect will. That’s a noble thought, but such an accomplishment is humanly impossible.
Only Christ Jesus, the God Man, was able to accomplish total obedience of His Father’s perfect will.
Yet with the help of the Holy Spirit and a loving relationship with our Heavenly Father, we can experience an inkling of what Jesus lived every moment during His short time on Earth.
To understand God’s concept of love, let’s turn to 1 Corinthians 13:4-7. The Apostle Paul instructs us what love is and what it is not:
“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”
The first part of verse 8 clinches it all: “Love never fails.” The love that Paul presents is an unconditional love. Such love asks nothing for what it gives the loved party.
Do you love God with all your heart, with all your mind, with all your spirit and with all your strength without expecting anything in return?
If we truly desire to be in God’s perfect will for our life, we better be able to answer with an emphatic YES.
We must first be open to caring more about pleasing God than anyone here on Earth, including our own needs and desires.
Let me confess that I almost always fall short of being in His perfect will. There’s much in my life that I know is not pleasing to my Heavenly Father.
And, if you are honest with yourselves, you face the same dilemma as well.
Here’s the good news: God does not expect perfection. What He does want is a sincere effort to demonstrate our love for Him.
We need to be intently aware of His permissive will as we boldly face the many trials of this imperfect world.
Paul was quite aware of his human weakness and how often he fell short of pleasing God.
In Romans 7:19-20, he explains his dilemma. “For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do — this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, but it is sin living in me that does it.”
We are all born with a sin nature and live in a world surrounded by sin. Fortunately, God’s Son came into this world to save us from sin and provide a way out of its grip on us.
His Holy Spirit, which resides in all followers of Christ, brings us close to our Father in Heaven. He hears our prayers and will certainly be with us as we walk in His Light.
Do you truly love Him?