When God begins to draw me to Himself, the problem of my will comes in immediately. Will I react positively to the truth that God has revealed? Will I come to Him? To discuss or deliberate over spiritual matters when God calls is inappropriate and disrespectful to Him. When God speaks, never discuss it with anyone as if to decide what your response may be (see Galatians 1:15-16). Belief is not the result of an intellectual act, but the result of an act of my will whereby I deliberately commit myself. But will I commit, placing myself completely and absolutely on God, and be willing to act solely on what He says? If I will, I will find that I am grounded on reality as certain as God’s throne.

In preaching the gospel, always focus on the matter of the will. Belief must come from the will to believe. There must be a surrender of the will, not a surrender to a persuasive or powerful argument. I must deliberately step out, placing my faith in God and in His truth. And I must place no confidence in my own works, but only in God. Trusting in my own mental understanding becomes a hindrance to complete trust in God. I must be willing to ignore and leave my feelings behind. I must will to believe. But this can never be accomplished without my forceful, determined effort to separate myself from my old ways of looking at things. I must surrender myself completely to God.

Everyone has been created with the ability to reach out beyond his own grasp. But it is God who draws me, and my relationship to Him in the first place is an inner, personal one, not an intellectual one. I come into the relationship through the miracle of God and through my own will to believe. Then I begin to get an intelligent appreciation and understanding of the wonder of the transformation in my life.

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December 22, 2010

Journal Entry for Today-JDV

Walking completely by faith and in your will feels like stepping off into the dark, placing my next step in an area that is completely uncertain, and unknown; like driving in the Tule fog here in the San Joaquin Valley, when we often cannot see 6 feet in front of the car. I am completely surrendered to you in these circumstances. And for the life of me I do not know why I cannot simply let go of my fear and anxiety in these circumstances, because you have met me at the point of my needs over and over and over. I believe…..help me in my unbelief.

And God says…”I only ask you to trust one step out at any time….like the lamp that lights your feet a step at a time. I know that you are not capable of understanding and accepting the larger picture of the future. You must follow Me in faith. That is why the magnitude of My sacrifice was so great. If I love you so much as to give you My Son, imagine the magnitude of My love. My ways are not your ways and you cannot hope to understand the “what and why” of tomorrow. But you can understand the sacrifice of Jesus. Focus on Jesus and His sacrifice and you will move into an understanding and trust that transcends knowing so that you can confidently step into My will and your future, one step at a time.