The Effect God Has On Our Will

The workings and influence of God. We often see His workings but don’t understand it is Him that is doing it. Sometimes we forget that God is the God of nature with nature doing His bidding.  God is God of us and sometimes we don’t realize that we are doing His biddings as well. But isn’t that what we want?

The Book of Haggai, which is composed of only two, brief chapters, demonstrates both how God has influence over the elements and uses this sway to influence us. The book also shows God effecting his children in a more direct manner.

Man believes he has free will, but as we will see, it really isn’t free as he believes it to be. What man does have is a will that he uses freely, within certain confines.

The Book of Haggai is about the return of the Jews to Israel after their 70-year Babylonian captivity. The Jews began to rebuild the destroyed temple in Jerusalem, but soon lost interest in God and the task at hand. The Jews diverted their attention and energies to self-interests and the building of their own homes. But their efforts were being thwarted by God. He tells them to consider their ways.

“Ye have sown much, and bring in little; ye eat, but ye have not enough; ye drink, but ye are not filled with drink; ye clothe you, but there is none warm; and he that earneth wages earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes.” (Haggai 1:6)

Without their knowledge or realizing it, God had been thwarting their efforts. Then God tells them why.

“Ye looked for much, and, lo it came to little; and when ye brought it home, I did blow upon it. Why? saith the Lord of hosts. Because of mine house that is waste, and ye run every man unto his own house.  Therefore the heaven over you is stayed from dew, and the earth is stayed from her fruit. And I called for a drought upon the land, and upon the mountains, and upon the corn, and upon the new wine, and upon the oil, and upon that which the ground bringeth forth, and upon men, and upon cattle, and upon all the labour of the hands.” (Haggai 1:9-11)

Because the Jews had lost interest in God and in rebuilding His Temple and focused their attentions on building their own house, God set about creating a variety of natural adversities and stumblinblocks. These natural events, in which the people were probably praying to God to stop, were in fact caused by God due to their insolence and negligence. The Jewish people got the message.

“Then Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and Joshua the son of Josedech, the high priest, with all the remnant of the people, obeyed the voice of the Lord their God, and the words of Haggai the prophet, as the Lord their God had sent him, and the people did fear before the Lord. Then spake Haggai the Lord's messenger in the Lord's message unto the people, saying, I am with you, saith the Lord. And the Lord stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua the son of Josedech, the high priest, and the spirit of all the remnant of the people; and they came and did work in the house of the Lord of hosts, their God” (Haggai 1:12-14).

It begins with the fear of God. That is the cause. The effect is that Haggai, Zerubbabel, Josedech, and the remnant of the people obeyed the voice of the Lord. Although the order is written obey first then fear, we do not freely obey what we do not first revere and respect. Obedience is a result of our love and admiration for God.

Then God, after the fear and obedience of the people is established says, “I am with you”. We now have that perfect and divine bond between the Lord and His children. His will is our will. Then God stirs the spirit of Zerubbabel, Joshua, and of all the remnant of the people. This is so critical to understand. When God stirs our spirit, this is not an obvious and dramatic event like at the day of Pentecost as described in Acts. God daily stirs our spirit and affects our will, causes us to will, to desire, and to do. It is done so in a manner that we are not always aware of. God guides, directs, encourages, and influences us in specific directions. We believe it is our idea, our creation, and our motivation. It isn’t. It is a gift of God’s grace.

Unlike popular belief, man does not have free will. It would be more accurate to call it bond will. Man will’s freely but does not have free will. It’s analogous to a man in a prison cell. He can freely walk about but is still within the confines of the prison walls. For as Augustine taught, “For what shall be more free than free will, when it shall not be able to serve sin?”

Man’s will is severely and sorely affected by original sin both consciously where he is aware of his carnal self and unconsciously where he isn’t aware of the power and control sin is exerting on him. A blatant demonstration of man’s blindness to sin and its influences are the Ten Commandments. God gave us these commandments, for among other things, so that man would even know what sin was! Man was so blind to sin that he had to be told don’t kill, don’t steal, don’t covet, don’t sleep around, etc. Man was blind. The Ten Commandments enabled him to see.

Think about man’s will unfettered with the no knowledge of sin. It’s a scary proposition.

But man is sin soaked. Our view and perspective of everything is tainted. We do not realize to what degree this is true. This is why we spend our entire life in effort to stay in the path of righteousness aiming at the mark of the high calling of Jesus Christ. We dedicate our being to self-discovery through God’s word, repenting of sin and giving it to God. If all sins and righteousness were clear to us and we had complete awareness of our will then any sin committed would be a knowing and willful act. No true child of God knowingly and willfully sins against God. That’s open rebellion.

While we are unknowingly affected by original sin, the children of God are likewise affected, influenced and motivated by the spirit of God. That’s what is being demonstrated in the above passage in Haggai when the Lord, “stirred up the spirit”. Augustine said, “…in the elect the will is prepared by the Lord” (Predestination of the Saints). God will stir our will to do. He will motivate our will to do His will. After all, is not that our deepest desire? To do the will of God? “I delight to do thy will, O my God” (Psalm 40:8). We even pray for God’s will in probably the most popular prayer ever prayed, the Lord’s Prayer, “Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven”.

The ability to perform the basic and banal to the outrageous and monumental are all gifts of God’s grace. The will to move, breath and have our being are a gift from God. President Obama was right. We didn’t build that. God did. We built our life with the grace of God and His sway over our spirit and will to be and to do.

“What hast thou that thou didst not receive? now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it?” (1 Corinthians 4:7b)

What have we that we did not receive from God first? The answer is nothing, literally nothing. Yes, you thought of the idea, thanks to God. Yes, you were able to somehow travel that last painful, and arduous mile, or finish that project head of schedule, but it’s thanks to God. What ever it is, it is because of God.

The prophet Isaiah said it best. “Shall the axe boast itself against him that heweth therewith? or shall the saw magnify itself against him that shaketh it? as if the rod should shake itself against them that lift it up, or as if the staff should lift up itself, as if it were no wood.” (Isaiah 10:15)

Even our faith is a gift of God. But man’s pride will always assume credit for the good and deny responsibility for the bad. Do you remember the comedian Flip Wilson? During the ‘70’s he had a very popular TV Show. On the show he had a character named Geraldine. This character became famous for saying, “The devil made me do it!”

“Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? of works? Nay: but by the law of faith” (Romans 3:27).

God didn’t create the heaven and the earth and then back off and let what ever happens to happen. God is a very active participant in the lives of each and every one of us. He has influence over our spirit and will, making God the source of our cause and effect. And praise God that He does because we are also unwittingly influenced by sin to the point that our ability to perceive and comprehend righteousness and unrighteousness has been adversely affected.

The Lord stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel, Joshua, and the spirit of all the remnant of the people. God does likewise in our lives. The goal is to acknowledge that influence, to welcome that influence and pray to the Dear Lord that He will increase it!

All the  Glory to God because All His Grace is on Us! 

Bill Hitchcock