But I Just Can't!

[aiki]

Philippians 2:13
13 For it is God who works in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.

​

"I don't want to. I just can't do what God wants me to do. I don't feel any desire to obey God. I guess I can't then. I'll just have to wait until God makes me want what He wants."

Have you ever run into this sort of thinking in a Christian? I have. Many times. Some fellow believers who encounter this kind of Christian, respond with "boot-strap" theology: "You just have to make yourself. You don't want to go to the dentist, right? But you go anyway. This is what you have to do as a Christian, too. Obey anyway, no matter how you feel about it or what you want. Just do it."

Other Christians take a more...puppet-ish view of walking with God: "Well, sovereign God will compel you to His will and way when He wants to. Until then, you're sunk. Your obedience is under God's meticulous control, who will order your conduct just as He likes when and how He likes. So, you've got to wait 'til He makes you want His way. Sooner or later, He will. Just wait. Oh, and by the way, you're still totally responsible for not being obedient and will be held accountable for what He hasn't made you able to do."

What's the biblical response to the person who doesn't want to do God's will, who feels they can't even get started doing so? There is some truth in both the boot-strap approach and the God-must-make-you one. A positive feeling, a strong desire, for God's will and way isn't always necessary to doing His will. Christ didn't relish the prospect of crucifixion in his pursuit of the will of his Father, but he subjected himself to his Father's will regardless, enduring the cross for our sakes (Luke 22:42-44). Paul didn't hunger for the beatings, imprisonments, threats and near-drownings he suffered in fulfilling the will of God, but these things, bitter as they were, did not turn Paul from serving God (2 Corinthians 11:23-28; Philippians 3:7-10). Sometimes, then, there are moments in following God's will when feeling excited or strongly positive about doing so is very difficult, even unnatural.

It's true, too, that God must supply to us the wherewithal to do His will. As Christ said, "Without me, you can do nothing." (John 15:5) God draws us to Christ (John 6:44), gives us repentance to the acknowledging of the truth (2 Timothy 2:25), convicts us of our sin (John 16:8), and has made a way through Christ to restore us to fellowship with Himself (John 3:16-17). All of these things God must - and has - done for every genuinely born-again believer. But He goes further, promising to strengthen the believer in their walk with Him, giving them both the desire and ability to do His will (Philippians 2:13; Philippians 4:13; Ephesians 6:10; Romans 8:13; Ephesians 3:16, etc.).

The question is: When? Is the Christian who doesn't feel any motivation at all to walk God's way, to submit themselves to His will, requiring something more from God in order to do so? Is it the case that the born-again believer just has to grab hold of their bootstraps and pull themselves up into a holy, Christ-centered life wrestling all the while with low, fleshly, selfish desires? Or is it that God just hasn't got 'round yet to making them do what He wants them to do?

The truth is that the moment a person is born-again, baptized into Christ by the Holy Spirit (Titus 3:5; Romans 6:1-6; Romans 8:7-11; 1 Corinthians 6:19-20, 2 Corinthians 5:17, etc.), they possess everything they need to be who God has called them to be. In the Person of the Holy Spirit every believer has obtained God Himself. There is nothing more, nothing greater, that is yet to be had whereby the born-again believer will be able to walk, finally, in God's will and way. All of the commands of God to the believer in the New Testament are predicated on this fact. When Paul wrote, then, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me" (Philippians 4:13) he understood that the Spirit of Christ, the Holy Spirit (Romans 8:9), dwelt within him, imparting to him all that was necessary to be all that God has commanded all of His children to be.

So, the believer who declares "I just can't do what God wants me to do!" is mistaken. God says to this believer in His word that they have Himself, in the Person of the Holy Spirit, enabling them to will and to do of His good pleasure. (Philippians 2:13) The ability to submit to God, the capacity to love Him above all else, the wherewithal to forsake besetting sins, the means of living the crucified life of a disciple of Jesus is present within every Christian in the Person of the Holy Spirit.

What's happened, then, to the Christian who is mired in selfishness and the anxiety, lust, temper, bitterness, addiction and despair that selfishness always produces? How has someone in whom the Holy Spirit dwells come to a place of bondage to sin and coldness toward God? Well, the first possibility - and a far more common one than many Christians want to admit - is that such a person is not actually saved, whatever they may claim. The marks of the indwelling Spirit are many and plain:

- A love of the brethren. (1 John 3:14)
- A hunger for the Word of God. (Jeremiah 15:16)
- The conviction of the Holy Spirit. (John 16:8)
- The strengthening of the Holy Spirit. (Ephesians 3:16; Romans 8:13; Philippians 4:13)
- The comfort of the Holy Spirit. (2 Corinthians 1:3-5)
- The illumination of the Holy Spirit (John 16:13; John 14:26, 1 Corinthians 2:10-16)
- The discipline of God. (Hebrews 12:5-11)

The idea that the Spirit of the Almighty Creator and Sustainer of the Universe could take up residence within a person and they remain unchanged is bizarre. But this is what many Christians today accept as true, taking the bare claim of salvation as proof positive of the reality of that claim. "Who are we to say who is and isn't saved? Who can really know the heart of the next person?" they say. To such people Paul replies,

2 Corinthians 13:5-6
5 Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves! Or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you—unless indeed you fail the test?
6 But I trust that you will realize that we ourselves do not fail the test.

Not only did Paul think that there was an objective standard by which believers could assess the truth of their own claim to being "in the faith," but they could make the same assessment of Paul and see whether or not he was in or out of the faith! (vs. 6)

Very often those who say they are impotent spiritually, immobilized in their walk with God by apathy and sin, unable to win free of anxiety, depression, addiction, bitterness and so on are not "in the faith," failing the test of the presence of the Holy Spirit within. Until this state-of-affairs is resolved, they really are unable to walk rightly with God, conformed to the image of Christ, free of bondage to Self and Sin.

Another possibility (actually two possibilities operating in concert) is that the born-again believer has not been living in daily surrender to God, controlled by the Spirit throughout the mundane events of each day. Commonly, this is the result of ignorance, the failing believer unaware of their identity in Christ and the basic spiritual principles of walking with God. The inevitable product of this ignorance is sin. And as sin piles up in the ignorant believer's life, their love for God cools, and the transforming work of the Holy Spirit halts in their life. Such a believer becomes double-minded (James 1:8; James 4:8), seared in their conscience (1 Timothy 4:2), hardened by the deceitfulness of sin (Hebrews 3:13), unable to choose God's way over their own (Jeremiah 13:23).

In both instances - the false convert or the ignorant, sinning believer - the same steps to a Spirit-transformed life are essentially the same:

- Repentance (changing one's mind about one's sin - Acts 8:22; James 4:6-10; 2 Chronicles 7:14).
- Confession (agreeing with God that one's sin is actually sin - 1 John 1:9).
- Submission (consciously putting oneself under the Holy Spirit's control all day, every day - Romans 6:13-22; Romans 8:14; Romans 12:1; 1 Peter 5:6).

In the case of the false convert, there must also be a trusting in Christ as Savior and Lord with the intent, the expectation, that such trust will fundamentally order their living. (John 3:16; Romans 10:9-10; James 2:14-26)

In the Person of the indwelling Holy Spirit, God has given to every one of His children all that they require to live godly in Christ Jesus. For such a person it is never true that they are utterly without the capacity to walk in God's will and way. They can have the "abundant life" that is theirs in Christ; they never have to walk in bondage to Self and Sin. All that God has called them to be and do He has enabled them to achieve in the Person of the Holy Spirit.

Philippians 2:13
13 For it is God who works in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.

 

[Walk together]

Philippians 2:13
13 For it is God who works in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.

​

"I don't want to. I just can't do what God wants me to do. I don't feel any desire to obey God. I guess I can't then. I'll just have to wait until God makes me want what He wants."

Have you ever run into this sort of thinking in a Christian? I have. Many times. Some fellow believers who encounter this kind of Christian, respond with "boot-strap" theology: "You just have to make yourself. You don't want to go to the dentist, right? But you go anyway. This is what you have to do as a Christian, too. Obey anyway, no matter how you feel about it or what you want. Just do it."

Other Christians take a more...puppet-ish view of walking with God: "Well, sovereign God will compel you to His will and way when He wants to. Until then, you're sunk. Your obedience is under God's meticulous control, who will order your conduct just as He likes when and how He likes. So, you've got to wait 'til He makes you want His way. Sooner or later, He will. Just wait. Oh, and by the way, you're still totally responsible for not being obedient and will be held accountable for what He hasn't made you able to do."

What's the biblical response to the person who doesn't want to do God's will, who feels they can't even get started doing so? There is some truth in both the boot-strap approach and the God-must-make-you one. A positive feeling, a strong desire, for God's will and way isn't always necessary to doing His will. Christ didn't relish the prospect of crucifixion in his pursuit of the will of his Father, but he subjected himself to his Father's will regardless, enduring the cross for our sakes (Luke 22:42-44). Paul didn't hunger for the beatings, imprisonments, threats and near-drownings he suffered in fulfilling the will of God, but these things, bitter as they were, did not turn Paul from serving God (2 Corinthians 11:23-28; Philippians 3:7-10). Sometimes, then, there are moments in following God's will when feeling excited or strongly positive about doing so is very difficult, even unnatural.

It's true, too, that God must supply to us the wherewithal to do His will. As Christ said, "Without me, you can do nothing." (John 15:5) God draws us to Christ (John 6:44), gives us repentance to the acknowledging of the truth (2 Timothy 2:25), convicts us of our sin (John 16:8), and has made a way through Christ to restore us to fellowship with Himself (John 3:16-17). All of these things God must - and has - done for every genuinely born-again believer. But He goes further, promising to strengthen the believer in their walk with Him, giving them both the desire and ability to do His will (Philippians 2:13; Philippians 4:13; Ephesians 6:10; Romans 8:13; Ephesians 3:16, etc.).

The question is: When? Is the Christian who doesn't feel any motivation at all to walk God's way, to submit themselves to His will, requiring something more from God in order to do so? Is it the case that the born-again believer just has to grab hold of their bootstraps and pull themselves up into a holy, Christ-centered life wrestling all the while with low, fleshly, selfish desires? Or is it that God just hasn't got 'round yet to making them do what He wants them to do?

The truth is that the moment a person is born-again, baptized into Christ by the Holy Spirit (Titus 3:5; Romans 6:1-6; Romans 8:7-11; 1 Corinthians 6:19-20, 2 Corinthians 5:17, etc.), they possess everything they need to be who God has called them to be. In the Person of the Holy Spirit every believer has obtained God Himself. There is nothing more, nothing greater, that is yet to be had whereby the born-again believer will be able to walk, finally, in God's will and way. All of the commands of God to the believer in the New Testament are predicated on this fact. When Paul wrote, then, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me" (Philippians 4:13) he understood that the Spirit of Christ, the Holy Spirit (Romans 8:9), dwelt within him, imparting to him all that was necessary to be all that God has commanded all of His children to be.

So, the believer who declares "I just can't do what God wants me to do!" is mistaken. God says to this believer in His word that they have Himself, in the Person of the Holy Spirit, enabling them to will and to do of His good pleasure. (Philippians 2:13) The ability to submit to God, the capacity to love Him above all else, the wherewithal to forsake besetting sins, the means of living the crucified life of a disciple of Jesus is present within every Christian in the Person of the Holy Spirit.

What's happened, then, to the Christian who is mired in selfishness and the anxiety, lust, temper, bitterness, addiction and despair that selfishness always produces? How has someone in whom the Holy Spirit dwells come to a place of bondage to sin and coldness toward God? Well, the first possibility - and a far more common one than many Christians want to admit - is that such a person is not actually saved, whatever they may claim. The marks of the indwelling Spirit are many and plain:

- A love of the brethren. (1 John 3:14)
- A hunger for the Word of God. (Jeremiah 15:16)
- The conviction of the Holy Spirit. (John 16:8)
- The strengthening of the Holy Spirit. (Ephesians 3:16; Romans 8:13; Philippians 4:13)
- The comfort of the Holy Spirit. (2 Corinthians 1:3-5)
- The illumination of the Holy Spirit (John 16:13; John 14:26, 1 Corinthians 2:10-16)
- The discipline of God. (Hebrews 12:5-11)

The idea that the Spirit of the Almighty Creator and Sustainer of the Universe could take up residence within a person and they remain unchanged is bizarre. But this is what many Christians today accept as true, taking the bare claim of salvation as proof positive of the reality of that claim. "Who are we to say who is and isn't saved? Who can really know the heart of the next person?" they say. To such people Paul replies,

2 Corinthians 13:5-6
5 Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves! Or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you—unless indeed you fail the test?
6 But I trust that you will realize that we ourselves do not fail the test.

Not only did Paul think that there was an objective standard by which believers could assess the truth of their own claim to being "in the faith," but they could make the same assessment of Paul and see whether or not he was in or out of the faith! (vs. 6)

Very often those who say they are impotent spiritually, immobilized in their walk with God by apathy and sin, unable to win free of anxiety, depression, addiction, bitterness and so on are not "in the faith," failing the test of the presence of the Holy Spirit within. Until this state-of-affairs is resolved, they really are unable to walk rightly with God, conformed to the image of Christ, free of bondage to Self and Sin.

Another possibility (actually two possibilities operating in concert) is that the born-again believer has not been living in daily surrender to God, controlled by the Spirit throughout the mundane events of each day. Commonly, this is the result of ignorance, the failing believer unaware of their identity in Christ and the basic spiritual principles of walking with God. The inevitable product of this ignorance is sin. And as sin piles up in the ignorant believer's life, their love for God cools, and the transforming work of the Holy Spirit halts in their life. Such a believer becomes double-minded (James 1:8; James 4:8), seared in their conscience (1 Timothy 4:2), hardened by the deceitfulness of sin (Hebrews 3:13), unable to choose God's way over their own (Jeremiah 13:23).

In both instances - the false convert or the ignorant, sinning believer - the same steps to a Spirit-transformed life is essentially the same:

Repentance (changing one's mind about one's sin - Acts 8:22; James 4:6-10; 2 Chronicles 7:14).
Confession (agreeing with God that one's sin is actually sin - 1 John 1:9).
Submission (consciously putting oneself under the Holy Spirit's control all day, every day - Romans 6:13-22; Romans 8:14; Romans 12:1; 1 Peter 5:6).

In the case of the false convert, there must also be a trusting in Christ as Savior and Lord with the intent, the expectation, that such trust will fundamentally order their living. (John 3:16; Romans 10:9-10; James 2:14-26)

In the Person of the indwelling Holy Spirit, God has given to every one of His children all that they require to live godly in Christ Jesus. For such a person it is never true that they are utterly without the capacity to walk in God's will and way. They can have the "abundant life" that is theirs in Christ; they never have to walk in bondage to Self and Sin. All that God has called them to be and do He has enabled them to achieve in the Person of the Holy Spirit.

Philippians 2:13
13 For it is God who works in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.

The bottom line is Jesus died for our sins and we can be forgiven when we come to him in prayer. We are all sinners every day from the little bad thoughts to the big bad deeds there is no in between in God's eye. Maybe you are going through a strange time and it will pass just stay in prayer you are a Christion and a Christion stands the best chance for salvation don't give up on yourself if you can't trust your self pray for authority over your consciousness and take control.

 

[frank sears]

If you partly fell into a volcano and experienced the horrible heat and knew that you were a goner, and suddenly a friend saved you, you would be aware of that friend for as long as you lived, so are all those who God has saved from hell and the lake of fire and they want to please God. Hey, life is tough, but we never,never,never, give up.

 

[aiki]

It's...very sad how these two responses have almost totally missed the content of the OP, and in particular the many Scripture verses offered in it.

 

[mndgn.j]

It's...very sad how these two responses have almost totally missed the content of the OP, and in particular the many Scripture verses offered in it.

I think God had you write this for me.
I don't know how to submit to God practically. I am a lukewarm Christian. I have been struggling as a lukewarm Christian for about a year or so. Pretty new to the faith as of two years total.
Today, I received two messages both similar. 1 ask seek knock. 2 the parable of the friend at night.
I am afraid that I want freedom from my sin more than I want to know God which could be entirely my flesh nature. My deepest desire is to be with God and leave this place on earth forever. My spirit longs to know God. I delight in reading his word and speaking to people I know about God. When I sin I feel convicted, just not towards every sin. For example the ten commandments I don't feel as bad when I fall into these sins as compared to the greater sins in my life. I need help. Can you explain in simple terms as to a child how I go about yielding my life to God. thanks aiki God bless you sir!

 

[aiki]

I think God had you write this for me.
I don't know how to submit to God practically.

Christ in Gethsemane: The Ultimate Lesson in Submission

I am a lukewarm Christian. I have been struggling as a lukewarm Christian for about a year or so. Pretty new to the faith as of two years total.
Today, I received two messages both similar. 1 ask seek knock. 2 the parable of the friend at night.
I am afraid that I want freedom from my sin more than I want to know God which could be entirely my flesh nature. My deepest desire is to be with God and leave this place on earth forever. My spirit longs to know God. I delight in reading his word and speaking to people I know about God. When I sin I feel convicted, just not towards every sin. For example the ten commandments I don't feel as bad when I fall into these sins as compared to the greater sins in my life. I need help. Can you explain in simple terms as to a child how I go about yielding my life to God. thanks aiki God bless you sir!

Three thoughts come to mind as I consider what you've written here:

You weren't made for you. You were made to know God, and in knowing Him, to love Him and in loving Him, to enjoy Him, and in enjoying Him, to glorify Him. It is for this fundamental purpose God created you. So long as you live in denial of your created purpose, chasing after your own desires and goals, you will never find the deep fulfillment and satisfaction that can ONLY be found in living in accord with God's purposes in creating you.

Sin, the cause of all "lukewarmness," is always an invitation to believe two things:

1.) You aren't who God says you are.

If you are a born-again child of God, you are a "new creature in Christ, old things are passed away, behold, all things are become new." (2 Corinthians 5:17) As a "new creature," the Bible says there are a bunch of things that are true of you that weren't true before you were saved. You have an new spiritual identity that is yours as a result of being "born-again" into Jesus Christ. Here's one very important example of what I mean:

- Spiritually, you have been united with Jesus in his death, burial and resurrection, which has freed you from the power of the "old man," the person you were without Jesus, self-directed, fleshly, focused on earthly things. In being united with Jesus, that "old man" you once were has been made powerless to control you any longer and press you into sin.

Romans 6:1-7
1 What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase?
2 May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it?
3 Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death?
4 Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.
5 For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection,
6 knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin;
7 for he who has died is freed from sin.

When you sin, you live in contradiction to who God says here that you are in Jesus. It's actually very unnatural for a Christian to live this way, to live in sin, which is why Paul starts the passage above in the way he does. No born-again person, freed from sin by their spiritual union with Christ, HAS to sin; because of their position in Christ, they are able to refuse sin and walk in holy communion with God.

When a believer sins, then, he is denying what is true of himself as one who has "been made dead to sin and alive unto God through Jesus." (Romans 6:11) Instead, in the face of the temptation to such a denial, the Christian person is to exercise faith in the truth of who they are in Jesus, to stand, unmoved, upon the facts of who they are in Jesus, counting it to be the truth that they are, whatever they feel or experience, truly "freed from sin." Of course, if a believer doesn't know who they are in him, they can't very well stand in faith upon who they are in him. Knowing the facts of one's identity in Jesus is crucial, then, to standing by faith upon those facts.

2.) You're will and way is better than God's will and way.

Every temptation to lust, or temper, or resentment, or whatever, is a temptation to sit in God's place on the throne of your heart. All sin is ultimately an expression of self-will, of rebellion toward God. It's essential, then, when temptation confronts you, to recognize that, at bottom, you are at a crossroads of choice between your will and God's.

Your response in these moments shouldn't be to fight with yourself, to push yourself down, to stifle your sinful, fleshly impulses, but to submit yourself to God. Every temptation to sin is actually an opportunity to submit again to God. And when you do submit, and continue to submit so long as the temptation to sin stabs at you, God acts by the Holy Spirit to move you past that temptation, further into fellowship with Himself.

Romans 6:12-13
12 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in the lusts thereof.
13 Neither yield the members of your body as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and the members of your body as instruments of righteousness unto God.

What does submitting to God look like? The link at the beginning of this post describes submission to God quite well, using Christ's own submission to the Father as an example.

A word on proper expectations:

Very often, believers expect their submission to God to result in spiritual fireworks, in some overt, remarkable filling with supernatural power, that sweeps aside temptation in an instant, driving the submitted believer forward into powerful, even miraculous, spiritual living. But God nowhere in His word promises that this will be the result of submitting to Himself. He does promise that the believer will be "lifted up" as they humbly yield themselves to His will and way (1 Peter 5:6; James 4:6-10), but He does not promise that this will happen instantaneously or with overt, dramatic spiritual events.

When Jesus submitted to the Father in Gethsemane, he was not suddenly filled to bursting with overcoming spiritual power, laughing in defiance at the coming torments of the cross, filled with confidence that he could pass with miraculous strength and ease through his crucifixion. Not at all. Having submitted to the will of the Father, he continued to "sweat, as it were, great drops of blood" in anticipation of the agonies rapidly approaching.

Jesus didn't submit to gain something - extra spiritual power, an overwhelming sense of peace, etc. - but because submission is the normal, natural act of one interacting with God Almighty. There is no other dynamic within which a person can interact properly with God than that of submission to Him. It must always be within this condition of submission to God that walking with Him and being changed by Him occurs. There is, then, no moment, no occasion, in which submission to God is not appropriate. In other words, regular, persistent submission to God is a necessary and normal feature of walking with Him. So, then, the Christian submits to God while brushing their teeth, as well as in the crucible of temptation and testing; they submit to God in the cashier line at the grocery store, as well as in the midst of a battle with a sinful addiction; they submit to God whether they feel like doing so or not, whether they feel desperate, or entirely at peace. As often as it occurs to the believer to submit to God, they do so. Why shouldn't they? This is the normal, necessary dynamic within which they MUST relate with God, the Creator and Sustainer of All Things.

In the midst of persistent, daily submission to God, the Holy Spirit works his supernatural transformation of the believer, altering their desires, thinking and conduct (Philippians 2:13). ONLY in the midst of submission does the Spirit do this. He will not transform the rebel. And when the Spirit is transforming the believer, they change in what they want, in how they think, and in what they do. This change does not exhaust the believer, however, but moves them from strength to strength, filling them more and more with the Holy Spirit and all that he is (Galatians 5:22-23; Ephesians 5:9).

Anyway, hope this helps. Feel free to ask further questions, if you want.