Will of God

“ And to tell such a man of the beauty of holiness, or call him to the denial of his own will, for this reason, because the true foundation of virtue, is the will of God, would be to as much purpose, as if you was only to require him never to sleep any more, because holy angels never sleep in heaven. ”

“ Every providence is God’s will; whatever happens, meet God in it in humble worship. Every precept is God’s will; meet God in it with loving obedience. Every promise is God’s will; meet God in it with full trust. A life in the will of God is rest and strength and blessing. ”

“ Shall we attempt to accept Christ as a Saviour without accepting His will? Shall we profess to be the Father’s children, and yet spend our life in debating how much of His will we shall perform? Shall we be content to go on from day to day with the painful consciousness that our will is not in harmony with God’s will? Or shall we not at once and for ever give up our will as sinful to His,—to that Will which He has already written on our heart? ”

“ Then bend your will again and again to the Will of God, willing as He wills you to will. Strive to perform some action with such fulness and purity of intention, as if in it alone all perfection consisted, and the whole pleasure and honour of God. ”

“ And Thou dost will that we be patient and meek not only in injuries and temporal losses, but universally, in everything that may be contrary to my will: as Thou didst not will Thine own will to be done in anything, but the will of Thy Father. How then shall we lift up our head against the goodness of God, wishing that our perverted wills should be fulfilled? How shall we not will that the will of God be fulfilled? ”

“ The whole of philosophy is contained in that phrase: ‘May the will of God be done!’ He has realized that all the woes of humanity are the outcome of the exercise of human will as distinct from the will divine. ”

“ What is virtue according to theology? It is, we are told, the conformity of the actions of man to the will of God. But, what is God? A being, of whom nobody has the least conception, and whom every one consequently modifies in his own way. What is the will of God? It is what men, who have seen God, or whom God has inspired, have declared to be the will of God. Who are those, who have seen God? They are either fanatics, or rogues, or ambitious men, whom we cannot believe. ”

“ You are the Will of God. Do not accept anything else as your will, or you are denying what you are. Deny this and you will attack, believing you have been attacked. But see the Love of God in you, and you will see it everywhere because it is everywhere. See His abundance in everyone, and you will know that you are in Him with them. They are part of you, as you are part of God. ”

“ In not one single thing is the will of self to be done: Jesus, as He did the will of the Father only, must rule, and not self. To ‘stand perfect and complete in all the will of God’ must be the purpose, the prayer, the expectation of the disciple. ”

“ God’s good will is toward you. He loves you, He wills—and if He wills, what is too hard for Him?—He wills to raise you out of this selfish, quarrelsome life of sin, into a loving, brotherly, peaceful life of righteousness. His spirit, the spirit of love by which He made and guides all heaven and earth, the spirit of love in which He gave His only Son for you, the spirit of love in which His Son Jesus Christ sacrificed Himself for you, and took on Himself a meaner state than any of you can ever have—the likeness of a slave—that spirit is promised to you, and ready for you. ”

“ It assures us, above all, that if we will but definitely and trustingly give ourselves to that will which is Love, it will as Love fill our hearts and make us delight in it, and so become the power that enables us joyfully to do and to bear. Faith reveals to us that the will of God is the power of His love, working out its plan in Divine beauty in each one who wholly yields to it. ”

“ The will, the power of willing, may be created, but the willing is begotten. Because God wills first, man wills also.
When my being is consciously and willedly in the hands of him who called it to live and think and suffer and be glad—given back to him by a perfect obedience—I thenceforward breathe the breath, share the life of God himself. ”

“ He comes in some one single point in which His will crosses our most cherished affection or desire, and asks the surrender of what we will to what He wills. When this is done willingly and lovingly, He leads the soul on to see how the claim for the sacrifice in the individual matter is the assertion of a principle—that in everything His will is to be our one desire. Happy the soul to whom affliction is not a series of single acts of conflict and submission to single acts of His will, but an entrance into the school where we prove and approve all the good and perfect and acceptable will of God. ”

“ I resolve to conform myself to Thy holy will, and particularly in those things which are contrary to my inclinations, saying always : May the most just, most high, most adorable will of God be in all things done, and praised, and for ever magnified.
6. I resolve to fly from all sin this day, and especially such a one (here mention the fault into which you fall the oftenest,) and I beg of Thee to give me perseverance for the love of Jesus Christ. ”

“ Nor is there any possibility of abandonment to the will of God in general, as the mystic seems often to feel. God's will means particulars all along the way of our life; and there is no communion with God except in this ethical will in particulars. ”

“ Why not complain of these evils when looked at in themselves? but wherefore murmur when we look upon them as the will of God? God wills it! Ah, that has a great weight with a man who has faith, who knows and loves God. ”

“ If you bow down before that actual will of God, that it may save you from your real sins, and that He may use you in saving the dead around you; if you adore it, and worship it, and account it the best thing in your life, and give yourself up to it, as the one thing worth {150} doing, though there be many a forsaking and many a return to God, if you hold on through your life, doing the will of God, then you are a man of faith. ”

“ Lord, I desire that in all things Thy will may be done, because it is Thy will, in the manner Thou willest, and as long as Thou willest.
I beg of Thee to enlighten my understanding, to inflame my will, to purify my body, and to sanctify my soul.
Grant that I be not puffed up with pride, moved by flattery, deceived by the world, or duped by the devil. ”

“ Beloved, are you willing to say this? Are you willing to give up your sins, to walk with God continually, to submit yourself wholly to the will of God, and have no will of your own apart from His will? Are you going to live a perfect life? I hope you are, for I believe in such a life; --not perhaps in the sense in which you understand "perfection"--entire freedom from wrong-doing and all inclination to it, for while we live in the flesh the flesh will lust against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh; ”

“ For our natural [7] Will is to have God, and the Good Will of God is to have us; and we may never cease from willing nor from longing till we have Him in fullness of joy: and then may we no more desire. ”

“ For the will of God, in every creature, is manifested by that kind of nature, which it hath only from God. Therefore earthly creatures, by being earthly minded, pay as full obedience to the will of God, as pure heavenly spirits by their being heavenly minded. ”

“ It is the will of God in general that we should be holy, because he that called us is holy, and because we are chosen unto salvation through the sanctification of the Spirit; and not only does God require holiness in the heart, but also purity in our bodies, and that we should cleanse ourselves from all filthiness both of flesh and spirit, 2 Cor. ”

“ Third, the blessed Spirit has bowed your will, or rather given you another will, a new will, by which, you have made a most blessed choice of the Lord Jesus, who is the object of the Father’s delight, so that you could see your will and the will of God, perfectly correspond. ”

“ What may make me more to love mine even-Christians than to see in God that He loveth all that shall be saved as it were all one soul?
For in every soul that shall be saved is a Godly Will that never assented to sin, nor ever shall. ”

“ When his will allows a free passage to the will of God, without resistance or deflection, as light travels through transparent glass; when his will responds to the touch of God's finger upon the keys, like the telegraphic needle to the operator's hand, then man has attained all that God and religion can do for him, all that his nature is capable of ”

“ Not that it would be possible for human nature to make anybody saved, but God was so completely identified in Love with Him that all the Will of God was the will of this Person, and the sufferings of this Person were and counted as the sufferings of God Himself. ”

“ Not only does the will act an important part in securing the salvation of the soul through the offered mercies of God, but it is the purpose of God that the will act an important part all along the Christian way. ”

“ In this highest stage "the essential will of God is practiced," without strain or effort, because God Himself has now become the inner Life and Being of the person, the spring and power of the new-formed will. ”

“ Thy will alone is ever good, and just, and perfect, in all things. To the know* ledge of this he gently leads us by counsel, by precept, and by inspiration, as well as by the commands of those who are set over us in God’s name. To do this will it is enough for us that God wills and enjoins what we are to perform, so that if I obey him, and keep his commandments, I shall merit life, 'but if otherwise, death. ”

“ Whosoever wills to do the will of God shall comprehend the validity of spiritual values. This is the nearest approach that can be made on the mortal level to offering proofs of the reality of religious experience. ”