Seeking Jesus First - May 26, 2023
Why would any father want his children to be sick or live in poverty? Our Heavenly Father’s a higher desire for us to be whole - spirit, soul and body - than we could ever imagine. He has literally given us the grace, the anointing, the strength and the talent to succeed in every good way our hearts desire.
Our Father in Heaven desires for us to believe and receive every word that comes from His mouth. God wants us to have life and have it more abundantly. God’s will for us is good, perfect and acceptable (beneficial, complete and pleasing).
When we want to know the general will of God, all we have to do is read what God has said. His overall will for His people is for them to be loved, joyful, healthy, prosperous and at peace with Him and with other people.
The specific will of God for each person is different for each person. This is why we each need a personal relationship with Our Heavenly Father. God wants to walk through life with each of us. He wants to walk and talk with us. He wants us to encounter His goodness experience His love.
There are people who do not have the love of God. There are hurting people who have not learned to receive and live in the love of God. There are people who have experienced rejection and pain. There are people who live for self and pursue fleshly desires. These people will most likely keep the cycle of pain going. They will hurt others who will hurt others, etc. This is not the will of God.
Jesus did the will of The Father. Jesus is The Father in the flesh. The will of The Father is expressed through the Son. Jesus changed everything, so stop going backwards to look at Jesus. See the past, present and future through Jesus. We do not look at Jesus through the Old Testament. We look at the Old Testament though Jesus. Jesus changed the way we see God. Since the fall of Adam, God was not seen without a veil of sin and flesh. Since Jesus, the veil is removed and God dwells in us by His Spirit. Jesus changed everything.
“For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily;” (Colossians 2:9, NKJV) “Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. “If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; and from now on you know Him and have seen Him.” Philip said to Him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is sufficient for us.” Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; so how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me? The words that I speak to you I do not speak on My own authority; but the Father who dwells in Me does the works. Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father in Me, or else believe Me for the sake of the works themselves.” (John 14:6–11, NKJV)
The will of God is most accurately expressed through the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ and through the outpouring and continued ministry of Holy Spirit in and with us. This is how we endure and overcome the world. This is how we love those who do not know love. This is how we persevere with hope. It is how we overcome the flesh, sin and sickness. It is how we overcome circumstances and poverty.
We trust the will of God by believing His Word even when the circumstances are against us. We continue with a good conversation, words and deeds. We continue in faith doing what we know is right. We continue in loving God and loving each other. We continue in hope trusting for the promise to manifest.
The will of God is not conditional upon what others do. It rests on what God has said and what I am willing to persevere in faith, hope and love to receive. The general will of God is constant based upon what He has said in His word. The specific will of God for my life can be more fluid as I make choices and stay in or out of relationship with God. God doesn’t change. But my relationship with God does. As I pursue Him, His Word, and His Spirit, my choices come more into alignment with His heart and He gives me more specific direction.
Think about relationships and how parts of the relationship may change based upon communication or closeness, while other parts will never change. I will always be my dad’s son, but our relationship has not always been great. We don’t talk every day or live close to each other. I love him and he loves me, but we do not do life together as we could if I lived close to him. His input in my life is important but not as important as my wife’s input.
As we walk with Jesus, his input becomes important. If we put our relationship with Him on the back burner, His input becomes less important. Remember, the most important thing about your relationship with God is that it is YOUR relationship with God.