Have you ever thought about what is God’s deepest desire? Have you ever thought about what would God want for your life? 2 Peter 3:9 says that God’s desired Will is that everyone should come to repentance and not have to perish. God’s will operates at three levels that reflect His Holy Character.
- His Sovereign Will (Those things that are going to happen).
- His Desired Will (Those things that He would like to happen).
- His Permissive Will (Those things that He allows to happen).
God’s desired will is that everyone get pardoned of their sin and saved. Yet He will not override their personal will if they desire not to do so. God is so gracious to let you or I choose to reject Him. It is because of God’s grace and mercy that allows you and me to rebel against Him without being destroyed.
It’s not easy to stop trusting ourselves and rely on Christ. Our will and choice is being permitted by God to show His mercy and grace against us as fallen sinful people. Everyone must realize that without God they can do nothing.
Unless a person understands this, they will be trying to repair and fix their own lives. Their life will be come a prolonged struggle forever because there will be no way to fix their thinking without God’s provision of Christ. Any human self repair will not work without our holy God intervening.
The Pharisees asked Jesus, (John 6:28) “What shall we do that we might work the works of God?” Answer, Nothing. There is nothing that they can do to work and get to heaven. Jesus says to them, if you want to see the work that has been done, then look to whom God has sent. (John 6:29) “Jesus answered and said to them. This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent.” That person that God the father sent was Jesus the Christ. Question, what have you done with Him?
Every person will have to answer to God on what they have done with His Son Jesus Christ. And so it will come down to this: Everyone will be judged on the basis of what they did with Christ’s work. His death, burial, and resurrection is God’s only finish work. Some lessons will never be learned like the following illustration.
A guy is notorious for waiting until the needle is on empty before filling his gas tank. Finally his car died on him, and he and his friend had to push it to the nearest filling station.
After he finished pumping gas, the cashier attendant asked if he had learned anything. “Yeah,” the guy muttered, “I learned I have a 15-gallon tank.”
We as fallen people will never change unless we allow God to change us. Note the order Save us then, change us.
- Save Us
- Change Us
God wants you to come to Him as you are, then once he has saved you then he will change you. Don’t try to change yourself before you come to God. Just come and be sure you are saved. Change will come after salvation. But you must know where you stand with God.
Do you know your situation with God? Are you a believer? We as believers should be able to know when something is going on like the father and son going for a drive.
The son invited his father to ride with him in his new GTO sport car. After buckling up their seat belts the son took off fast spinning the tires and burning rubber.
The smoke rises from the tires and the GTO zooms down the street like lightning. The son asked the father, “Can you smell it?” The father responds, “Smell it, Yeah, I’m sitting in it!”
Do you know the situation you are in and what is going on? It is God’s desire to save us and change us but we must let Him. Are you willing to trust God’s work through Christ? Remember it is His desire that we not perish and that everyone come to repentance. Do you understand, what God’s desire is? (2 Peter 3:9).