"If my kids were to say to me, 'Dad, this week, we will do whatever you think is best for us,' how do you think I would respond? Would I make their week miserable? Certainly not. I would honor their trust by leading them toward whatever is best for them. Now I'm not perfect, and I don't know what's best for my children 100 percent of the time. But God does. He is a perfect Father, and he makes no mistakes. He desires our good more than we do. Shouldn't we gladly surrender our will to his?" (130)
"Is your heart wholly and unhesitatingly surrendered to the will of God, no matter what it is? If not, then what might that say about your relationship with God? Are you underestimating God's care for you, as if he doesn't know what is best for you? Or are you overestimating your wisdom before God, as if you know better than he does what is best for your life?" (131)
"[God's] ultimate concern is not to get you or me from point A to point B along the quickest, easiest, smoothest, clearest route possible. Instead, his ultimate concern is that you and I would know him more deeply as we trust him more completely." (131)
The Will of God Revealed
"This is God's will in the world: to create, call, save, and bless his people for the spread of his grace and glory among all peoples. This will is not intended to be found; it is intended to be followed. We don't have to wonder about God's will when we've been created to walk in it. We have no need to ask God to reveal his will for our lives; instead, we each ask God to align our lives with the will he has already revealed." (135)
"The Holy Spirit dwells in followers of Christ to comfort and convict, to give gifts, and to provide guidance. THe Holy Spirit is the Christian's Helper and Counselor who opens our minds to understand God's Word and compels our hearts to offer God worship. Yet amid all of these things, one overarching purpose of the Spirit seems particularly evident from the moment he first fills followers of Christ. When Jesus promised to send his Spirit to his disciples, he said, 'You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.' Jesus had already told them to 'make disciples' and preach 'repentance and forgiveness of sins... in his name to all nations,' for they were 'witnesses of these things.' His will for their lives was for them to witness, and he would send his Spirit to enable them to follow and fulfill that will." (136-137)
"So what does it mean to witness? Quite simply, it means to speak--to testify about who Jesus is, what Jesus did, and how Jesus saves." (137)
"If you have the Holy Spirit in you, you can officially consider yourself led to share the gospel! You don't have to wait for a tingly feeling to go down your spine or a special message to appear from heaven to lead you to tell people about Christ. You just open your mouth and talk about the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, and you will be carrying out the purpose of Jesus' presence in you. In other words, when you're telling others about the wonder of the gospel, you're carrying out the will of God." (141)
"[When] Jesus told his disciples that they would receive his Spirit and be his witnesses in the world, he wasn't just calling them to be nice to the people around them. Whether in a courtroom or any other circumstance, the basic function of a witness is to speak... [Ten] of the eleven apostles who heard Jesus' words in Acts 1 were not martyred because they went into the world doing good deeds; they were murdered because they witnessed to the Word of God." (141)
"On our own, we are destined to fail. Just think about the outrageous nature of the gospel we share. We tell people that they are wicked at the core of who they are, condemned by their sin, and destined for hell. Yet two thousand years ago, the son of a Jewish carpenter who claimed to be the Son of God was nailed naked to a wooden cross, and everyone's eternity is now dependent on denying themselves and declaring him Lord, Savior, and King. At first glance, that message certainly seems like a tough sell, doesn't it? How will anyone believe it? They will believe the gospel for the same reason you have believed the gospel: because the Spirit of God opens their eyes to see the glory of God and to receive the grace of God." (144)
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