K Neill Foster

Welcome to Classic Christianity

First published by Christian Publications, Inc., 3825 Hartzdale Drive,Camp Hill, Pennsylvania 17011 Republished by www.kneillfoster.com in 2005. K. Neill Foster, Publisher. Paul L. King, Editor. A.W. Tozer, 1897-1963, Editorial Voice.


WELCOME TO:

#20 CLASSIC-CHRISTIANITY/THE E-ZINE


CLASSIC-CHRISTIANITY/THE INDEX

THEME: WILL OF GOD


1) THE PUBLISHER ON "DEEP WITHIN THE HEART OF GOD"

2) THE EDITOR ON "CAN WE REALLY KNOW GOD'S WILL?"

3) K. NEILL FOSTER ON "THE SHEPHERD’S VOICE"

4) A.W. TOZER ON "LIFE'S HIGHEST GOAL"

5) FRANCOIS FENELON ON "GOD'S WILL IS OUR UNDIVIDED WILL"

6) RECOMMENDED READING

7) CHARLES H. SPURGEON ON "PRAYING WITH CERTAINTY OF GOD'S WILL"

8) HANNAH WHITALL SMITH ON "THE JOY OF SURRENDER TO GOD'S WILL"

9) OSWALD CHAMBERS ON "CLEARLY SEEING THE WILL OF GOD"

10) F.B. MEYER ON "A SURRENDERED WILL, NOT AN EXTINGUISHED WILL"

11) ANDREW MURRAY ON "ASCERTAINING THE MIND OF GOD"

12) RECOMMENDED READING

13) ANDREW MURRAY ON "PRAYING IF IT BE THY WILL"

14) JOHN MACMILLAN ON "PASSIVITY IS NOT THE WILL OF GOD"

15) INVITATION TO SUBSCRIBE


1) THE PUBLISHER ON "DEEP WITHIN THE HEART OF GOD"

According to the writer of the Book of Hebrews, Jesus said, "I want to do your will, O God" (10:17). Down through the centuries many believers have uttered those same words--but not with the same impassioned focus that Jesus had. Jesus spoke from the depths of His heart, not merely form the shallowness of His lips. To be in sync with the will of God, then, requires hiding our entire lives--our identity, our desires, our self-will--deep within the heart of God.


2) THE EDITOR ON "CAN WE REALLY KNOW GOD'S WILL?"

We sometimes struggle to know the will of God. In fact, as a young man, I was often afraid of making decisions because I was afraid of missing God's will. I had the mistaken notion that the will of God is mysterious and illusive. But I discovered that God desires to show us His will, and Romans 12:2 gives us the key to knowing His will: "Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but 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." We CAN know the will of God as our minds are conformed to the mind of God. In the last issue, we gave attention to divine guidance. As a follow-up on this theme, this issue focuses on counsel from the wisdom and experience of godly classic Christian leaders concerning how to know what the will of God is. These writers show us that there is a proper time to pray submissively, "Thy will be done," but there is also a proper time to pray aggressively and claim with certainty the will of God.


3) K. NEILL FOSTER ON "THE SHEPHERD'S VOICE"

The Lord's sheep know His voice. That is Bible. The children of God are led by the Spirit of God. That is Bible. And if this is so, as surely it is, how is it that there are so many crazies complicating the world's perception of God's will?

The reality is that there are many voices in this world. The discerning Christian has learned to sort out the voices and to recognize the Shepherd's voice. Sometimes the cacophony of voices come from the depraved human soul. Sometimes the Enemy is sowing tares among the wheat.

In some dire cases, we may sometimes discover God's will and hear His voice once we know what the devil or the flesh is up to.

But the best procedure by far is to know the Shepherd and to have learned to hear His voice discerningly and accurately.


4) A.W. TOZER (1897-1963) ON "LIFE'S HIGHEST GOAL"

The curse of modern Christian leadership is the pattern of looking around and taking our spiritual bearing from what we see, rather than from what the Lord has said. . . . We are likely to listen carefully to see which way things are moving and then act accordingly. But the Spirit of God will never lead us into that mistake. . . . Led by the Spirit of God, the members of the Body of Christ will always be right in their spirit, right in their wisdom and right in their judgment. . . .

I believe God wants to do something new and blessed for every believer who has the inner desire to know Him better. I am aware of the fact that it takes a store of patience and persistence and a lot of courage to find and pursue the will of God in this day.(1)

To will the will of God is to do more than give unprotesting consent to it; it is rather to choose God's will with positive determination. As the work of God advances the Christian finds himself free to choose whatever he will, and he gladly chooses the will of God as his highest conceivable good. Such a person has found life's highest goal.(2)

(1) A.W. Tozer, TRAGEDY IN THE CHURCH: THE MISSING GIFTS (Harrisburg, PA: Christian Publications, 1978), 65-66.

(2) A.W. Tozer, THE DIVINE CONQUEST (Old Tappan, NJ: Fleming H. Revell, 1950), 105.


5) FRANCOIS FENELON (1651-1715) ON "GOD'S WILL IS OUR UNDIVIDED WILL"

What God asks of us is a will that is no longer divided between Him and any creature. It is a will pliant in His hands which neither seeks nor rejects anything, which wants without reserve whatever he wants, and which never wants under any pretext anything which he does not want. . . . Happy are they who give themselves to God! They are delivered from their passions, from the judgments of others, from their malice, from the tyranny of their sayings, from their cold and wretched mocking, from the misfortunes which the world distributes to wealth, from the unfaithfulness and inconstancy of friends, from the wiles and snares of the enemy, from our own weakness, from the misery and brevity of life, from the horrors of a profane death, from the cruel remorse attached to wicked pleasures, and in the end from the eternal condemnation of God.

We are delivered from this countless mass of evils, because placing our will entirely in the hands of God, we want only what God wants.

Francois Fenelon, "Excerpts from Christian Perfection," cited by Richard J. Foster and James Bryan Smith, ed., DEVOTIONAL CLASSICS (San Francisco, CA: HarperSanFrancisco, 1990, 1991, 1993), 47.


6) RECOMMENDED READING

BORN AFTER MIDNIGHT

by A.W. Tozer

"Always and always God must be first."--A.W. Tozer

This book will urge you to find your place in the realm of intimate union with Christ.

Order from Christian Publications by calling 1-800-233-4443 (in North America) or fax 1-717-761-7273 or web: www.christianpublications.com.


7) CHARLES H. SPURGEON (1834-1892) ON "PRAYING WITH CERTAINTY OF GOD'S WILL"

It has grown into a habit with me to spread my case before God with the absolute certainty that whatever I ask of God He will give to me. . . .

Still remember that prayer is always to be offered in submission to God's will. . . . We never offer up a prayer without inserting the clause, either in spirit or words, "Yet not as I will, but as you will" (Matthew 26:39). We can only pray without an "if" when we are quite sure that that our will must be God's will, because God's will is fully our will. . . .

When we live in fellowship with God we will assuredly succeed in prayer. If we dwell in God and God dwells in us, we will desire what God desires. . . . We know we have desires that are not according to God's will, but we provide for this defect by always adding to the end of our prayer, "Lord, if I have asked for anything that is not according to Your mind, I ask you to disregard it. And if any wish that I have expressed to you--even though it is the desire that burns in my bosom above all other wishes--is a wish that is not right in Your sight, disregard it, my Father. But in Your infinite love and compassion, do something better for Your servant than I know how to ask." When a prayer is after that fashion, how can it fail? 

Charles H. Spurgeon, THE POWER OF PRAYER IN A BELIEVER'S LIFE, Robert Hall, comp. and ed. (Lynnwood, WA:  Emerald Books, 1993), 53, 116.


8) HANNAH WHITALL SMITH (1832-1911) ON "THE JOY OF SURRENDER TO GOD'S WILL"

If I were lost in a trackless wilderness and could see no way out, and a skillful guide should offer to lead me to safety, would I consider it a hard thing to surrender myself into his hands, and say, "Thy will be done" to His guidance?  And can it be a hard thing to surrender myself to my Heavenly Guide, and say, "Thy will be done" to His guidance? No, a thousand times no!

Hannah Whitall Smith, THE UNSELFISHNESS OF GOD (Princeton, NJ: Littlebrook Publishing Co., 1987), 224.


9) OSWALD CHAMBERS (1874-1917) ON "CLEARLY SEEING THE WILL OF GOD"

When God brings the blank space, see that you do not fill it in, but wait. The blank space may come in order to teach you what sanctification means; or it may come after sanctification to teach you what service means. . . .

In the beginning you may see clearly what God's will is--the severance of a friendship, the breaking off of a business relationship, something you feel distinctly before God is His will for you to do, never do it on the impulse of that feeling. If you do, you will end in making difficulties that will take years of time to put right. Wait for God's time to bring it round and He will do it without any heartbreak or disappointment. When it is a question of the providential will of God, wait for God to move.(1)

The child of God is not conscious of the will of God because he is the will of God. When there has been the slightest deviation from the will of God, we begin to ask, "What is Thy will?"(2)

We are not to be like jelly-fish saying, "It's the Lord's will." We have not to put up a fight before God, not to wrestle with God, but to wrestle before God with things. Beware of squatting lazily before God instead of putting up a glorious fight so that you may lay hold of His strength.(3)

(1) Oswald Chambers, MY UTMOST FOR HIS HIGHEST (United Kingdom: Marshall Morgan & Scott, 1927), January 4.

(2) Oswald Chambers, MY UTMOST FOR HIS HIGHEST (United Kingdom: Marshall Morgan & Scott, 1927), August 20.

(3) Oswald Chambers, MY UTMOST FOR HIS HIGHEST (United Kingdom: Marshall Morgan & Scott, 1927), December 16.


10) F.B. MEYER (1847-1929) ON "A SURRENDERED WILL, NOT AN EXTINGUISHED WILL"

How much of our Christian work has been abortive because we have persisted in initiating it for ourselves, instead of ascertaining what God was doing, and where He required our presence! We dream bright dreams of success. We try to command it. We call to our aid all kinds of expedients, questionable or otherwise. . . .

Our will must be surrendered. . . . There is all the difference between a will that is extinguished and one that is surrendered. God does not demand that our wills be crushed. . . . He only asks they we say "Yes" to Him. Pliant to Him as the willow twig to the practiced hand. . . . If you cannot give, let Him take. If you are not willing, confess that you are willing to be made willing. Hand yourself over to Him to work in you, to will and to do of His own good pleasure. We must be as plastic clay, ready to take any shape that the Great Potter may choose, so shall we be able to detect His will.

F.B. Meyer, THE SECRET OF GUIDANCE (Chicago, IL: Moody Press, n.d.), 5-6, 11-12.


11) ANDREW MURRAY (1828-1917) ON "ASCERTAINING THE MIND OF GOD"

Our whole relationship to God is ruled in this, that His will is to be done in us and by us as it is in heaven. He has promised to make known His will to us by His Spirit, the guide into all truth. . . . In our church worship, in our prayer meetings, in our conventions, in all our gatherings as managers or directors or committees or helpers in any part of the work for God, our first object must be to ascertain the mind of God. God also works according to the counsel of His will. The more that counsel of His will is sought and found and honored, the more surely and mightily will God do His work for us and through us. . . .

There may be elements of God's will, applications of God's Word, experience of the close presence and leading of God, manifestations of the power of His Spirit, of which we know nothing as yet. God may be willing, no, God IS willing to open up these to the souls who are intently set on allowing Him to have His way entirely, and who are willing, in patience, to wait for Him to make it known.

Andrew Murray, WAITING ON GOD (Springdale, PA: Whitaker House, 1981, 1983), 68-69.


12) RECOMMENDED READING

HOW TO KNOW GOD'S WILL

by Charles Shepson

Questions about God's will for your life? Shepson's book can help guide you! This review of the ways God leads gives faith-building glimpses into the will of God at work in the lives of contemporary and biblical people.

Order from Christian Publications by calling 1-800-233-4443 (in North America) or fax 1-717-761-7273 or web: www.christianpublications.com.


13) ANDREW MURRAY (1828-1917) ON "PRAYING IF IT BE THY WILL"

The tendency of human reason is to intervene with certain qualifiers, such as "if expedient" "if according to God's will.". . . Beware of dealing this way with the Master's words. . . . As we weaken it, we weaken faith. . . . Before we can believe, we must find out and know what God's will is. . . .

Some seek the will of God in an inner feeling or conviction, and expect the Spirit to lead them without the Word. Others seek it in the Word, without the living leading of the Holy Spirit. The two must be united. Only in the Word AND in the Spirit can we know the will of God and learn to pray according to it. . . .

There is often great confusion as to the will of God.  People think that what God wills must inevitably take place. This is by no means the case.  . . . God has made the execution of His will dependent upon the will of man. God's will as revealed in His promises will be fulfilled as much as our faith allows. Prayer is the power by which something comes to pass which otherwise would not have taken place. And faith is the power that determines how much of God's will is done in us. Once God reveals to a soul what He is willing to do for it, the responsibility for the execution of that will rests with us.

Andrew Murray, WITH CHRIST IN THE SCHOOL OF PRAYER

(Springdale, PA: Whitaker House, 1981), 82, 219, 222.


14) JOHN MACMILLAN (1873-1956) ON "PASSIVITY IS NOT THE WILL OF GOD"

How many believers content themselves with the uttering of the words "Thy will be done," in all matters they bring to the Lord. Their spirits assume a passive attitude that accepts anything that comes to them as the will of the Father. This is not Scriptural, and very far from the desire of God for His children. The Holy Spirit teaches a hearty cooperation rather than mere resignation; an active entering into God's plan instead of a vague yielding to circumstances; a definite claiming and appropriating of the promises which are set before us in the Word, as being the expression of the Father's will for His children. We are to positively will the will of God; to seek it out as He willed it; and to maintain our place of quiet assurance before Him until it has been fully accomplished.

John MacMillan, THE AUTHORITY OF THE BELIEVER (Harrisburg, PA: Christian Publications, 1980), 64.


15) INVITATION TO SUBSCRIBE

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VOL. IV, ISSUE 1, April 1, 2002. Published every other month 2/1;
4/1; 6/1; 8/1; 10/1; 12/1. Archives on www.kneillfoster.com.

Republished by www.kneillfoster.com 2005.