Scripture Reading: Luke 22:41; Heb. 10:5, 7-9; John 6:38; 12:27; Mark 10:45; Gen. 22:1-2, 10; 1 Sam. 15:21-23
When our Lord was in Gethsemane, He prayed, "Not My will, but Yours" (Luke 22:42). In our pursuit to please the Lord, two things are set before us: the cup and the will. The cup should always be secondary to the will. The Lord came to be crucified, and yet He prayed, "Father, if You are willing, remove this cup from Me" (Luke 22:42). Why? This is inexplicable to us (cf. John 12:27). It was possible for the Lord to pray, "If You are willing, remove this cup from Me." But was impossible for Him to pray, "If possible let Me not do Your will." We have no direct connection with the cup, only with the will. We do not take the cross for the cross's sake but only because it is the will of God. "To obey is better than sacrifice" (1 Sam. 15:22).
The cup represents things which are related to God's will, and we get so taken up with them. However, the Lord was wholly taken up with the will of the Father. He drank the cup, but He did not drink it because of the cup, but because it was the will of God for Him. If we seek the will of God, our greatest danger is being taken up with something He has shown us, and it can become a kind of obsession. Even to the last moment, however, the Lord could give up the cup.
Are we holding on to the things which God has shown us? Is the will of God everything to us? We should be fully bound up with the will of God. Our attitude should be, "I am for His will. I am not for anything." Abraham knew God and His will, yet he received two different commands. What did Abraham say? Did he say, "You commanded me to sacrifice Isaac; therefore, I am going to sacrifice him"? God does not call us to a life of offering Isaac, but to a life of doing His will. We must not think that because we have gone through the motions that we are necessarily doing the will of God. Even on that last night the Lord still checked about the cross. If God shows us that this is His will, we should trust that His power will carry it out. We should keep ourselves in direct touch with His will. It should matter little to us whether or not we will do something, and it should matter little if we have to wait. We have to ask God to detach our hearts from the things and hold us to His will. "Father, is this Your present guidance?" If we try to carry a thing out, we will have to use a power that is not spiritual. We should be really flexible. We should not be afraid to stop and take a step back, or even appear to undo things. God is a living God, and He has a living will. One day He may call us to offer up Isaac. The next day He may call us to take Isaac back. We should not be occupied with the killing of Isaac. If we are concerned only with the will and not the thing, we can be stopped without any pain. If the stopping causes pain, this shows that something of us has crept in. "Lord, I want nothing for myself. I only want Your will." We have a peaceful life when there is no expectation of things, because there are no disappointments.
Our trouble is that we are often so certain of what we should do. We should instead pray, "Lord, I am apt to miss Your will." We can never say that we have come to a place where we are above mistakes. Every cup should be held very loosely. It is a blessed thing to be able to be turned back. This attitude keeps us in the most pliable state before God. There are stops in the life of Paul that are recorded in the book of Acts! How many of us can be stopped by God? Brokenness and pliability are more important than sacrifice. We must have no connection with things. We want to love what He wants, not love what He has shown He wants. There must be readiness to do the present will of God.
John 6:38 says, "For I have come down from heaven not to do My own will but the will of Him who sent Me." God's will has nothing to do with our makeup. Many times we can know a person by the kind of guidance he has supposedly received, because the natural strength often intrudes into the will of God. Nothing is more serious than this. The pure will of God is where we are ruled out. So much of the guidance among the children of God has a personal taint to it. A timid brother is always "guided" to take a back seat. A forward brother is always "guided" to take a front seat, and yet both claim to be "guided." "Not my will" means that it has nothing to do with us. I must not color the will of God for my own sake. We must come to the end of our natural strength. The natural strength cuts very deep and must be thoroughly purged. How good it is for one to come to a place of purity, a place where there is no mixture. The Spirit discerns all things (1 Cor. 2). The natural life must be severed from the divine things, and the natural strength must be destroyed and its backbone broken. We should be so filled by the Spirit that those beside us have no way of telling how the Lord is leading. It is only when we have something natural with us that others can discern us.
