Willing & Doing

"And thou, Solomon my son, know thou the God of thy father, and serve him with a perfect heart and with a willing mind..." (I Chronicles 28: 9)

"The children of Israel brought a willing offering unto the LORD, every man and woman, whose heart made them willing to bring..." (Exodus 35: 29)

"if there be first a willing mind, it is accepted..." (II Corinthians 8: 12)

For there to be acceptable works, before the Lord, there must be first a heart or will to do those works.

The moral or immoral works of men are the products of their wills, of their choices and decisions.

The heart is the seat of man's will and affections, of his innermost thoughts and inclinations.

The "willing mind" is the immediate by-product of a "perfect heart." In fact, a "willing" heart is equated with a "perfect" heart. The "perfecting" of the heart is the making an unwilling and stubborn heart to be an obedient and willing heart.

"And ye will not come to me, that ye might have life." (John 5: 40)

It has been said that the sinner's "will not," in his relation to God and his laws, is all the same as his "cannot." Sinful man's inability to come to God savingly, to believe the gospel and to repent of sins, is all traced back to the state of his heart, of the condition of his will. Is it free, or is it bound as a slave?

"Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure." (Philippians 2: 12, 13)

"Obeying" is equated with "working out" in the above verse. It is obedience to God and to his word, especially to the good news message of the coming and work of Christ. But, this spiritual obedience, this believing, repenting, confessing, and becoming a disciple of Christ, is itself the product of the willing heart, and the willing heart is itself the product of God's working in the heart and upon the stubborn will of the sinner.

No sinner can "work out" except God first "work within" him. No man will desire to do God's will unless God first put that desire into his heart. No man will be spiritually willing to become a servant of Christ unless he is first "made willing" by the power of God.

"Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power, in the beauties of holiness from the womb of the morning: thou hast the dew of thy youth." (Psalm 110: 3

The good works of the Christian are not the result of his own working, apart from God, but rather the result of the working of God within his heart and mind. It takes "power" to radically change a man's mind, heart, will, and affections. The big question is simply this - whose power is it? The sinner's power, or God's power?

"Now the God of peace, that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, Make you perfect in every good work to do his will, working in you that which is wellpleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ; to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen." (Hebrews 13: 20, 21)

These words say much the same thing as the preceding verses. They ascribe all the good works and obedience of the believer in Jesus to the personal and immediate work of God himself.

Lord God takes a personal hand in all the good works of the believer. It is his power alone that brings their obedience to pass. Without God's power and grace, or "but for" them, there could be no obedience. The believer then can take no credit for his salvation, nor can he take any credit for any obedience he renders to the law and word of God.

"LORD, You will establish peace for us, For You have also done all our works in us." (Isaiah 26: 12 NKJV)

When the disciple works righteousness, it is because God himself is working righteousness in and through that disciple. Man is not the one preeminently to be thanked, praised, and credited for his acceptable acts of obedience, but only secondarily, for God himself is the first cause of all his pleasing of God.

"For who makes you different from anyone else? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not (receive it graciously)?" (I Corinthians 4: 7 NIV)

God could not be the rhetorical answer to this question if the disciple himself was the cause of his being different from another. His being different could not be the result of God's "gifting" or "empowering" if the disciple himself made the ultimate difference. The sinner and the disciple would then credit themselves, would boast, were not the difference laid to God's election, to his grace, and to his power alone.

"And there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God which worketh all in all." (I Corinthians 12: 6 AV)

"Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us." (Ephesians 3: 20 AV)

"Whereunto I also labour, striving according to his working, which worketh in me mightily." (Colossians 1: 29 AV)

"For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received [it] not [as] the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe." (I Thessalonians 2: 13 AV)

All these verses continue the chorus of praise and ascription of glory to the power of God to make the disciple obedient. There is a power that "works in" the disciple, and all the obedience of the disciple arises from it and it alone.

"The king's heart is in the hand of the LORD, as the rivers of water: he turneth it whithersoever he will." (Proverbs 21: 1)

God, contrary to the thinking of stubborn hearts, has absolute control over the stubborn and unwilling hearts of sinners, and certainly over his own disciples. Their hearts and wills are liberated from bondage to sin, but now enslaved to righteous good, to the will of God in Christ.

Friend, if your deeds are evil, then I urge you to come to the Messiah for a new heart, one that is willing, one that is no longer hard and stubborn, and disobedient. If your heart be unwilling, and unbelieving, and impenitent, then I urge you to recognize it and come to Christ and ask him to renew your heart and spirit.

"If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land: But if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it." (Isaiah 1: 19, 20 KJV)