God is working in you
2020-12-12Philippians 2:13 NIVUK
When it comes to doing what pleases God, there are two obstacles we need to overcome – the ‘want to’ and the ‘able to’. Giving up our own plans and embracing God’s doesn’t come easily to us. Our old nature wants what it wants, not what God wants. And even when God’s will is clear, and we want what He wants, we don’t always have the ability or the confidence to do it. That’s where God steps in by working in us to give us the ‘want to’ and the ‘ability to’. The willingness and the capability come from Him, not from us.
So if God’s already working in us, why do we struggle so much to know His will and to follow His plan for our lives? The problem is that our old natures are self-centred and tend to resist God’s will. So what can we do to overcome our old natures?
1) Surrender yourself to God. ‘Offer your bodies as a living sacrifice’ (Romans 12:1 NIV).
2) Renew your mind. ‘Be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – his good, pleasing and perfect will’ (Romans 12:2 NIV). In the original Greek, ‘renewal’ means to be ‘inwardly renovated’ by aligning your thoughts with God’s – to intentionally think like He thinks.
In other words, God initiates the ‘want to’ and the ‘ability to’, and we cooperate by aligning our minds with His. When that happens, we can be confident ‘that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion’ (Philippians 1:6 NIV).