Our Will ...

As we dive further into what our soul actually is, we come upon 'the will' facet of it. Our wills are the power behind the choices we make. What this means is that we determine and decide with our minds (which is in the heart realm) what we will do or not do, what we will accept as truth or lies, what we will think about or not---but it is our will that causes' those choices to be acted upon. Our minds can be thinking about something and may have come to a choice or decision on a matter, but until our will gets involved, there is no action or power behind the choice. We can choose and decide we are going to lose weight, or not sin in a certain area, but if our wills do not jump in on board 100% the choice has no strength behind it. Our wills' give us the power to carry out our choices---good or bad. That is why what we dwell on is so important, b/c when we get our minds engaged in thoughts, it activates our entire heart realm, and then either God for good or the enemy for evil will take those thoughts and get our soul realm involved. Our self (see yesterday's blog), if not totally submitted to God will be used to guide our will to do its bidding. It all begins with a thought, and this is why the scripture about taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ is so powerful. Let me take a sec here to underscore the second part of that scripture. We hear it quoted all the time with the last part left out. we are to take our thoughts captive and make these thoughts obey Jesus. That takes an act of our will to accomplish. We choose to take the thoughts prisoner so we can contain them safely, but then we must use our will to make it obey God. Our wills will engage what our minds take a hold of----so it is very important our minds are grounded in what is true. if our mind believes a lie as truth, our will is then going to propel us to do just the opposite of what God's will is for us. the big question is, how do we know what we are believing is true? Jesus said you would know by the fruit. is the fruit in your life good—holy, pure, in line with God's Word, does what you believe cause unity or division, is there confusion or clarity, is love or self being served---these are all fruit to look at. Our fruit will reveal to us if our thoughts are actually dwelling on truth. Life---God's abundant life and truth go together. That is not to say that there is no pain in following what is true. Actually there can be more pain than you could imagine when following what is true. Look at Jesus---He followed truth all the way to the cross. But in following the truth there is always a resurrection, which is why I say life and truth go together. We cannot expect to walk in God's will for our lives unless the basis of our thoughts is founded in what is true. Our will gives the power of carrying out the choices our mind makes possible based on what we believe is true, so we had better make sure we know what is true. Jesus said….and we will know the truth, and the truth will make you free. It's in the knowing of the truth we get set free people!—free to will our will to do His will. More later….