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'Christ in You...'

    by Dale Krebbs

The Grand Design
Date Posted: April 14, 2019

If you were asked just “what is God’s will“, what would you say? Is the answer something that is mysterious and vague? Is it something that just cannot be really known, even through the Bible? Assuming that we can know His will, how could we define it? Would it need to involve a voluminous treatise on theology, or years of study at a seminary? Believe it or not, God's will is relatively easy to state and define. However, the Bible cannot be eliminated from our consideration. There is no other source to consult. The answer is in the Bible - and only in the Bible. God’s “will” - as revealed in the Bible from Genesis to Revelation - can be stated very simply:

God is reproducing Himself.

All of history, all of human experience, all that is happening in the world, and in the vastness of the Universe is summed up in these four words. The Bible is also summarized in the same words. This is not reproduction of other “gods” in the sense that at first this might seem to imply - God as God is God, cannot be added to or taken from. However, Jesus Himself in referring to entering God’s family, stated that we must be “born (begotten) again”. Born and begotten are “family values”. In Genesis chapter one (v. 26-27) God said He wanted to make something in “our image” (Father, Son, Holy Spirit). The Bible is the only book that reveals God’s grand plan to increase His family. He has a family plan! Over and over we - if we are truly His - are referred to as His children, even as “sons and daughters” (2 Corinthians 6:17-18). Our human limitations will not allow us to begin to take in all that means. The Bible is all about the process by which He will accomplish this. He begins with “clay models” - what we call “man” and “woman”. His plan is to eventually share all that He is and has with many children eventually entering His family. It is His overarching single purpose to increase Himself through what the Bible calls “adoption”, and yet we will have the same life, the same substance, and the same immortality as God. We will not, however, have His limitless powers, authority, and other attributes that He has as God. We may be surprised however, as to just how much of God we will be. God’s “will” then, is to eventually bring more children into His family.

However, difficulties arise when we, the objects of His will, attempt to grasp, understand, and function as part of this plan. We have all struggled with the will of God. Not because we are consciously struggling or resisting God (although that is possible), but because we would like to know it, but we also know that we just don’t. Either in our own lives, or in the lives of others. At times it seems like a nebulous, strange, and even mysterious something - abstract and unknowable. It is like God is hiding something from us, at least in that respect. You have probably heard the expression meant to sum up a relationship with God in four words: “let go, let God” Over simplification? Perhaps. But as we will see, it fits.

What can happen in this is that prior to our having given up our self to God completely, we can create an agenda that we would like, and subconsciously think it is God’s will. Our natures are masters of self-deception. We can honestly believe it is all God’s will. Some have gone their entire lives, living with this self-imposed “will of God” conviction about all that they do. Anything they desire to do is God’s will...the self has been created in an image of “God”, that He has not created. The reason it is so, is because it all functions like it would if it were truly God’s will. Those living by God’s will experience the same certainty as those deceived by their own will! Satan know our natures much better than we do...

The key to the mystery does involve letting go - letting go of striving to consciously "know" His will for us. It is somewhat like the matter of the acquisition of knowledge: the more we know, the more we know we do not know. If we approach the knowledge of God's will in like manner, we will arrive at the same destination: we know less of God's will than we did before, and are even more confused. Remember, God's mind does not work like ours - similar, but not like His (Isaiah 55:8; 65:2). Understanding of God’s will can only come after surrender to God’s will...since we are not yet living His will. We are tempted to try to reason with this by objecting, "how can I surrender to something that I do not know what is?"

Now enters the supreme catalyst - faith. Our faith (rather, the faith of God in us) then releases the power of the Holy Spirit that causes us to live His will. Here is where we begin to realize that we are really “not our own”, but His. This is what the Apostle Paul saw being worked out in his calling (Ephesians 1:1). Then we will see that which we have not seen yet - His will in action, which is also the result of His faith in us. After surrendering to His will, it will be actualizing into every moment of your life. Then look at your life - what you now begin to see is the will of God for you. If you look at your life before surrendering to His will, you will only see your will, because our natural self will automatically operate from there. It is our will, not His. We now are assured by the Holy Spirit, and sense and know it really is God’s will - as we live it (Philippians 2:13).

However, if we only give up our wills partially, our hearts will not respond in yieldedness to His will. God’s will for us should now be originating from our heart (Ephesians 6:6), not only from the our head. But, as has often be observed, there can be a distance between the two - at least at first. As this occurs, we begin to see what God has had in His mind and heart all along - our setting apart from the world and its ways (1 Thessalonians 4:3). Those ways that once seemed so attractive are becoming less and less so. Since our whole being is becoming more and more changed through the new heart in us (Ezekiel 36:26-27), we begin to do automatically those things pleasing to Him - the things that now are His will. We see the end from our beginning. Our nature is being changed. We begin to sense that what we really need is a “new me”so that we can fit into His family. And that is what he is giving us as we walk along the line of what He is actively doing in our lives. Our will is steadily being replaced with His. His will and grand design is to have you born into His family, having His nature, personality, character - and His immortality. With millions, perhaps billions of real brothers and sisters, living where He lives, with His quality of life that is pure love (1 John 4:8).

That is His plan. That is His will. That is His Grand Design for you, but as in the TV Series Mission Impossible, only “if you wish to accept” the assignment. Surrender to Him and His will - and you will ...

"You will guide me with Your counsel, and afterward receive me to honor and glory. Whom have I in heaven but You? And I have no delight or desire on earth besides You. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the Rock and firm Strength of my heart and my Portion forever" - Psalm 73:24-26 (AB)

"Even to your old age I am He, and even to hair white with age will I carry you. I have made you, and I will bear; yes, I will carry and will save you." - Isaiah 46:4 (AB)

"'Winging It" from Stan Smith

The Word of God

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Biography Information:
Dale Krebbs served as an Elder, preaching, counseling, and conducting Bible studies for over 25 years in Texas, California, and Arizona. He is now retired, lives in Arizona, and continues the study and research of Gods Word.
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