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According To Whose Will? - Matthew 26
According To Whose Will? - Matthew 26
One of the aspects of God creating man in His own image was that He bestowed upon humanity the ability not only to think, reason, understand and communicate, but He also bestowed upon men the ability to make choices. Such choices are indeed choices, we are not ‘pre-programmed’. However, with our choices comes responsibility for such choices. We are not free from consequences or judgment by God.
The Ecclesiastes writer long ago wrote: “Rejoice, O young man, in your youth, and let your heart cheer you in the days of your youth. Walk in the ways of your heart and the sight of your eyes. But know that for all these things God will bring you into judgment” (Ecc. 11:9 ). So each of us will choose how we live but we will stand before the judgment seat of Christ and be held accountable for all of our choices and actions. (2Cor. 5:10).
In this chapter of Matthew, we observe that there were many choices being made. The chief priests and the elders of the people chose to kill the son of God. A woman chose to use an expensive ointment and anoint Jesus for His burial. Judas chose to betray Jesus to the chief priests. Peter chose to speak abruptly and deny that he would deny Jesus. The rest of the apostles joined him in that choice and also affirmed their faithfulness would not fail.
Jesus also made a choice. Being sorrowful even unto death, He prayed unto the Father to “let this cup pass from me”. The outstanding thing with Jesus’ choice is that he added “nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will”. This he repeated three times. Then he became obedient even unto death (Heb. 5:8-9). Paul would later say that Jesus ‘humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Phil. 2:8). As difficult and painful as it was, it was the Father’s will and Jesus did it.
We too often find ourselves torn between wills, God's and ours. For many different reasons, we find our will to be different from God’s will. Sometimes this is because of temptation to sin where we are enticed by our own desires. At other times it is because of the difficulty we will face by doing God’s will. Here, Jesus shows us the way to handle such choices. It is not necessarily wrong to have a desire, but we need to put God’s will first. This is part of the crucifying self that often goes missing in people. We need to be able to say as Paul did: "I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me" (Gal. 2:20).
Whose will controls your life? We need to be more like Jesus in this regard. Hugh DeLong
