“Thy will be done on earth as is heaven.” (Mathew 6: 10).
The will of God is the ultimate in heaven and which from the tone of the prayer is not so on earth. To understand God’s ultimate will, we have to see it from heavenly perspective because “as in heaven” is set as the standard for us on earth. When our Lord Jesus was manifested in the flesh, He said this of Himself which was written in the book of Psalms chapter 40 and verse 7: “Behold I have come, in the volume of the Book, It is written of Me, to do your will O God.” For our Lord Jesus, to do the will of God was His ultimate.
What is the will of God? The will of God is the sovereign desire, wisdom, thought, and perspective of God, couched in His word. To understand and accept the will of God is to see Him and accept Him as the sole Ruler over all the universe. Beside Him, there is no other God. His disposition is loving-kindness, judgement, justice, and righteousness. His thoughts are good and not evil, and there is no variableness in Him. To yield to the will of God is to give His goodness, His Omniscience, His Omnipotence pre-eminence in our lives.
Good created man in His own image and likeness (Genesis 1: 26) and thus endowed him with a Godly repertoire, “self-will.” This, however, was not to make man contend with God. A will of any created being that is not exercised within the ambit of God’s will ends in death as we saw in Adam. Adam had the truth, the wisdom and counsel of God set before him in Gen 2: 17, but he acted contrary, followed after his own discretion in total disregard of what God set before him. Proverbs chapter 8: 36 reads: ” But he that sins against Me, wrongs His own soul.” This was true for Adam, and it is true for everyone that exercised his will outside of God’s will. God’s will is the path of life because He is life. Just as a foetus in the mother’s womb, cannot survive apart from his mother, so also can no man survive apart from the will of God.
The story of the parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11- 32) demonstrated the story of a son who stepped out of his father’s will, and the consequences of it were apparent. The will of God is a demonstration of His love for His whole creation. Which farmer will not clear and prepare the ground for the seeds before they are planted, and even when he plants, will not weed, water, and manure it for full growth. We are the planting of the LORD, we are the sheep of His pasture and well before the foundation of the world, He has made and shown man the path of life (Psalm 16: 11) in addition to the atoning sacrifice for the sins of man. His will couched in His word shows man the right path, it is left for us to exercise our senses in His word which reveals His will. Man was not created apart from God, and neither was he created to be apart from God. God is Spirit and therefore eternal. If we want to be eternal, we cannot be apart from Him. God is Light, if we want to be light and walk in the light, we cannot be apart from Him. God is Omniscience, He gives wisdom, and out of His mouth proceeds knowledge. If we want to walk in understanding, we cannot be apart from Him. It is the inspiration of the Almighty that gives understanding (Job 32: 8). God is Love. If we want to know what love is, love, and be loved, we cannot walk apart from Him. God is Life. If we want to live, we cannot walk apart from Him and from His will. So the will of God is our existential divine blessing.
Our Lord Jesus is our living example. Adam, our precursor, was supposed to replenish the earth, to refresh the earth with God’s presence through his obedience to God’s will. Before Adam’s fall, he refreshed the earth with God’s presence because God was with him in the cool of each day, as accounted in Genesis chapter 3 verse 8. As long as he was in the will of God, Adam was the salt of the earth. But when Adam stepped out of the will of God, he stepped out of Life, he stepped out of Light, he stepped out of immorality, he lost the glory of God and the whole of creation fell with him. But thanks be to God for His redemption. Unlike Adam, our Lord Jesus though He had the nature of God, He did not struggle with God but submitted Himself to the will of God (Phillipians 2: 6). Our Lord Jesus said in John 4: 34 ” My meat is to do the will of the Father who sent Me.” As long as He remained on earth, doing the will of God, He was the salt and the light of the world. He brought such hope to mankind because He never stepped outside of the will of God, even when He paid the ultimate price for the sin and rebellion of man against God. He died on the cross, was crucified for the sin which He never committed but as the Lamb of God, slain from the foundation of the world (Revelation 13: 8), He yielded Himself to God and He was given a name that is above every other name and made to sit at God’s own right hand (Colossians 3: 1). The will of God was the ultimate for our Lord Jesus, and it ought to be the ultimate for us too.
The ultimate will of God is to be with men. Revelation 21: 3-4 speaks: “And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.”
All the commandments: ” Be ye holy for I the LORD thy God I am holy” (1 Peter 1: 16); This is the will of God even your sanctification that you abstain from fornication” (1Thessalonians 4: 3); ” You shall love the LORD thy God with all your heart, soul, mind, strength, and you shall love others as yourself” (Mathew 22: 37), and all other commandments are to draw man close to God. For God so loved the world and He reconciled the world unto Himself through His Son Jesus Christ so He can tabernacle with them. This is the ultimate will of God. The tabernacle of Moses was a shadow of God’s ultimate will for man. It shows the existential essence of God’s will for man.
In Exodus 26 verse 30, God told Moses: “So you are to set up the tabernacle according to the pattern shown you on the mountain.” The tabernacle of Moses had three segments, namely the outer court, the inner court, and the Holy of Holies. The journey from the outer court through the inner court into the Holy of Holies is a journey into God’s presence made complete by the atoning work of Christ. The gospel of Mathew chapter 27 verse 51 accounted that the veil that separated the Holy of Holies was torn from top down, man once again has access into God’s presence by Christ’s death on the cross.
Each segment of the tabernacle of Moses tells a story. The outer court has the brazen lava filled with water and the altar upon which the animal sacrifice is laid (Exodus 30: 18-21). This depicts our need as sinful men for cleansing from every filthiness and then presenting our bodies as a living sacrifice to God, which is our daily reasonable service (Romans12:1). The outer court tells the story of our redemption, our Lord Jesus paid the ultimate price by shedding his own blood to atone for all our sin, and He became an offering for sin on our behalf. God raised Him up on the third day to give us a lively hope seeing that by His blood He has made us new creation, no more alienated sinners but as kings and priests unto our God (Revelation 5: 1).
The inner court has emblems that only priests can partake of. It has the table of shewbread, the golden lampstand, and the altar of incense (Hebrews 9: 2). The shewbread is a reminder of the new covenant ratified by the broken body and the shed blood of Christ. It connotes the perpetuity of fellowship and union between God and man by the body and the blood of Christ. The altar of incense depicts the prayer and worship of saints, for we have been called to offer up praises unto Him that saved us. It connotes our devotion to God, like the angels in His presence. The lampstand represents the perpetuity of God’s presence with us. Without the atoning work of Christ, we cannot be made a holy nation and a royal priesthood (1 Peter 2: 9) that offers spiritual sacrifice of praises and worship, acceptable unto God our Father.
The last segment is the Holy of Holies, where the presence and the glory of God dwell. In the Old Testament before the atoning work of Christ, only the high priest can enter in, and that once a year (Hebrews 9: 7). But now, our Lord Jesus, who is our High Priest had entered within the veil for us ( Hebrews 9: 11- 12) and has made us priests and kings of our God (Revelation 5: 11-12) and by His blood we can enter in, into the Holy of Holies into God’s presence to obtain mercy and receive more grace. The only furniture here in the Holy of Holies is the Ark of the Covenant. Upon it is the golden Mercy seat overshadowed by two cherubims. Unlike in the days of Moses when the tabernacle is dismantled and carried about by only the priests, now we are God’s tabernacle, the temple of the Spirit of the LORD (1Corinthians 3: 16).
It is God’s ultimate will to dwell with His people and within them just as we also dwell in Him by abiding in His will, doing those things that are well pleasing in His sight.
Some may ask, how do I know the will of God. We know the will of God in His written word as well as in spoken words. We do the will of God by obedience to His word. Whatever the word of God dictates, we do. In John 8 verse 28, our Lord Jesus said He does nothing or say anything on His own, but He speaks what the Father has taught Him. The book of Isaiah in chapter 29, verse 9, asked: “To whom will he teach knowledge, and to whom will he explain the message? Those who are weaned from the milk, those taken from the breast?” We must be a people weaned from the milk of His word (1 Peter 2:2) and taken from the fountain of every blessing, the El-Shaddai. The word of God shows us the path of life, the path to God ( Psalm 19: 1-11). By the word of God, we are warned, and in keeping them, there is a great reward that brings purpose and fulfilment to our existence.
To know the will of God, do the will of God, and stay in His will is a decision and a lifetime commitment. It is an intentional choice. Paul prayed for the Colossians believers that they might be “filled with the knowledge of God’s will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding.” A thing done with wisdom and spiritual understanding demonstrates intentionality and spiritual mindedness, and we see this exemplified in the life of our Lord Jesus. For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritual minded is life and peace. The pursuit of the will of God attracts the presence of God, and it is for our life, and our eternal peace for nothing compares with God’s presence. David knew of this in Psalm 84: 10, and Moses craved for nothing but God’s presence in Exodus 33:15.
