For Christians everywhere, Jesus is the perfect model of what it means to do the will of God. While we often bring to God sacrifices that fall short of His clearly defined standards, we also tend to say and do things that are inconsistent with His expressed will. We know that in the Word of God we find the will of God, and so we are without excuse and cannot claim ignorance as to what is expected of us in thoughts, words, and deeds. In our humanity, the war between the flesh and the spirit is a constant struggle and doing the will of God is not always our first course of action (see Romans 7:18-25).
However, in the life of Jesus we see an incredible consistency. In conversations with His disciples, He made the startling statements, among others: “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by Himself; He can do only what He sees His Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. . . . For I have not spoken of myself; but the Father which sent me, He gave me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak. I know that His commandment is eternal life; therefore the things I speak, I speak just as the Father has told Me” (John 5:19; 12:49, 50). With those statements, He affirms some profound truths: 1) He does nothing by Himself; 2) He does only what the Father does; 3) He speaks only what the Father tells Him.
It is worth remembering that though He was the Son of God, Jesus walked the earth as a man, born of a woman, and as such was subjected to the same limitations we are (see John 1:14; Philippians 2:5-8). For Him to speak the way He did was a result of the intimate relationship between Himself and the Father; a relationship of oneness that was forged by times of solitude and prayer. In Jesus, we see how surrendering our will for that of the Father puts us in the position of God working not only in us but through us. Jesus puts it this way: “Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing His work” (John 14:10).
Clearly, Jesus’ mission was to do the will of the Father and to finish His work (John 4:34; 6:38). With Christ having returned to the Father, our mission is to do the will of the Father and to continue His work in the earth. By looking at Jesus’ life we see the best way to accomplish this. It starts with solitude, prayer, and a surrendering of self and our will; getting to know the Father and what He wishes to accomplish in the earth in and through us, then going out and doing it. That is what Jesus did. Are you ready to be like Jesus?
