When it comes to doing what pleases God, there are two major hurdles you need to overcome\u2014the \u2018want to\u2019 and the \u2018able to\u2019. Relinquishing your own plans and embracing God\u2019s will doesn\u2019t come easily. Your old fleshly nature wants what it wants, not what God wants. And even when God\u2019s will is clear, and you want what He wants, you lack the necessary ability to do it. Fortunately, that\u2019s where God steps into your dilemma by working in you to give you the \u2018want to\u2019 and the \u2018ability to\u2019. But the willingness and the capability both come from Him, not you. You ask, \u2018Since God is working in me, why is there such a struggle to know and to do His will?\u2019 The problem is, your natural mind is self-centred and tends to resist God\u2019s will. So what\u2019s the answer? <\/p>\n
(1) Surrender your body and its appetites to God. \u2018Offer your bodies as a living sacrifice.\u2019<\/i> (Romans\u00a012:1\u00a0NIV<\/sup>) <\/p>\n (2) Renew your mind. \u2018Be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God\u2019s will is\u2014His good, pleasing and perfect will.\u2019<\/i> (Romans\u00a012:2\u00a0NIV<\/sup>) In the original Greek, \u2018renewing\u2019<\/i> means to be \u2018inwardly renovated\u2019 by aligning your thoughts with God\u2019s\u2014to intentionally think like He thinks. In other words, God initiates the \u2018want to\u2019 and the \u2018ability to\u2019, and you cooperate by aligning your mind with His. When that happens, you can be confident \u2018that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion.\u2019<\/i> (Philippians\u00a01:6\u00a0NIV<\/sup>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When it comes to doing what pleases God, there are two major hurdles you need to overcome\u2014the \u2018want to\u2019 and the \u2018able to\u2019. Relinquishing your own plans and embracing God\u2019s will doesn\u2019t come easily. Your old fleshly nature wants what it wants, not what God wants. And even when God\u2019s will is clear, and you […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1455"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1455"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1455\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}