When Willingness Meets Divine Purpose

This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.        1 Timothy 2:3-4

A healthy relationship with God begins with the divine truth that He wishes salvation, an eternal relationship with Him, for all men. Acts 2:23 tells us that this was the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, and that God, Himself, through His Son would need to be the solution. This solution would not be easy, but the result of an extended struggle, culminating in the seed of the woman, Jesus the Messiah bruising the head of the serpent [Satan] (Genesis 3:15). This solution is intended for everyone, but there is a condition. It is dependent on man’s heart attitude toward God. 

Godly Fear

Surely His salvation is near to those who fear [reverence] Him, that glory may dwell in our land. Lovingkindness and truth have met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other. Truth springs from the earth, and righteousness looks down from heaven. Indeed, the Lord will give what is good, and our land will yield its produce. Righteousness will go before Him and will make His footsteps into a way.      Psalm 85:9-13

Romans 9:8 tells us that a relationship with God has always been based on faith in the promises of God, a willingness to trust God for something he could not accomplish on his own. Psalm 85:9 refers to it as a reverence for God, recognizing Him as deliverer and savior. Just as Paul wrote of all the amazing supernatural blessings associated with salvation in Ephesians 1, this psalm gives us an inside view at what salvation looks like. Keil and Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament says:

The glory that has been far removed again takes up its abode in the land. Mercy or loving-kindness walks along the streets of Jerusalem, and there meets fidelity, like one guardian angel meeting the other. Righteousness and peace or prosperity, these two inseparable brothers, kiss each other there, and fall lovingly into each other's arms. The poet pursues this charming picture of the future further. After God's emet, i.e., faithfulness to the promises, has descended like dew, His faithfulness to the covenant, springs up out of the land, the fruit of that fertilizing influence. And sedeq, gracious justice, looks down from heaven, smiling favour and dispensing blessing. 

Integrity & Uprightness

What connects the Old Testament believer to these divine realities? According to Isaiah 45:22, “Turn to Me [panah – turn the face toward God] and be saved, all the ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is no other. The uniqueness of God makes Him the only source. The fulcrum of the decision centers on man’s willingness, a decision of the will, to place his total confidence in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. King David understood this principle as a perfect heart, a heart of integrity and uprightness. In 1 Chronicles 29:14-19:

“But who am I and who are my people that we should be able to offer as generously as this? For all things come from You, and from Your hand we have given You. “For we are sojourners before You, and tenants, as all our fathers were, our days on the earth are like a shadow, and there is no hope. “O Lord our God, all this abundance that we have provided to build You a house for Your holy name, it is from Your hand, and all is Yours. “Since I know, O my God, that You try the heart and delight in uprightness [meyshar – rightness, equity, smoothness] I, in the integrity [yoeser – straightness, uprightness] of my heart, have willingly offered all these things; so now with joy I have seen Your people, who are present here, make their offerings willingly to You. “O Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, our fathers, preserve this forever in the intentions of the heart of Your people, and direct their heart to You; and give to my son Solomon a perfect heart to keep Your commandments, Your testimonies and Your statutes, and to do them all, and to build the temple, for which I have made provision. 

Godly Examples 

2 Corinthians 1:12 says it this way: For our proud confidence [glorying] is this: the testimony of our conscience, that in holiness [haplotes – singleness of mind] and godly sincerity [eilikroneia – sincerity, purity], not in fleshly wisdom but in [according to] the grace of God, we have conducted ourselves in the world, and especially [more abundantly] toward you. Paul makes it clear that it must be according to the grace of God, where the divine attributes of holiness and purity become the believer’s motivation and an eagerness to represent these attributes as an example to the flock of God (1 Peter 5:2-3). Without this divine exchange of attributes, man will operate in his own limited ability and character, where there is no clear discernment of good and evil. Isaiah 5:19-21 says: 

Who say, “Let Him make speed, let Him hasten His work, that we may see it; and let the purpose of the Holy One of Israel draw near and come to pass, that we may know it!” Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness; who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter! Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and clever in their own sight!

Fulfillment of the Divine Will

The completion and fulfillment of the Divine Will are experienced in Christ within the new covenant relationship purchased by Jesus at His first coming and as defined by the Gospel. It is a mystery to the Old Testament believer but is realized in the fullness of the times, where redemption is complete, where forgiveness is according to the riches of His grace, as Paul documents in Ephesians 1. Paul used the term “in Christ” or “in Him” more than 170 times in his letters to identify the spiritual reality of knowing Christ. Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown Commentary says the following about “in Christ:” The repetition of "in Christ" implies the paramount importance of the truth that it is in Him, by virtue of union to Him, the Second Adam, the Restorer ordained for us from everlasting, the Head of redeemed humanity, believers have all their blessings. 

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love, He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. In Him, we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace which He lavished on us. In all wisdom and insight, He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His kind intention, which He purposed in Him with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of the times, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth.                Ephesians 1:3-10 

Under Compulsion 

When Paul accepted the commissioning of God to be the Apostle to the Gentiles, he was sacrificing his will to the divine purpose for not only his life but for the very future of the New Testament church. It is not much different than the compulsion Jonah felt after spending time in the big fish. Paul speaks of this dynamic in Philippians 3:12 when he said, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus. Paul’s labor to fulfill his call would be accomplished as he recognized and surrendered to the grace of God. He was acknowledging that it would be the grace of God that was laboring with him (1 Corinthians 15:10). 

But I have used none of these things. And I am not writing these things so that it will be done so in my case; for it would be better for me to die than have any man make my boast an empty one. For if I preach the gospel, I have nothing to boast of, for I am under compulsion; for woe is me if I do not preach the gospel. For if I do this voluntarily, I have a reward; but if against my will, I have a stewardship entrusted to me. What, then, is my reward? That, when I preach the gospel, I may offer the gospel without charge so as not to make full use of my right in the gospel.      

1 Corinthians 9:15-18

Finding the divine purpose is for all who make a conscious decision of the will to follow Christ no matter what the cost. Paul understood this when he spoke these words in Acts 20:27: For I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole purpose of God. 

Man’s willingness meets divine purpose at the cross. The religious man looks up and sees Jesus on the cross, but the spiritual man, in Christ, sees himself on the cross with Christ and, therefore, sees the world from a totally different vantage point, as the resurrected Lord sees it. Believers have been buried with Him through baptism into death so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have become united with Him in His death’s likeness, we shall certainly be in the likeness of His resurrection (Romans 6:4-5).