When You Can’t Do God’s Will

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Jesus stood up to impossibility. Like the brave kid on the playground who finally tells the bully to knock it off, Jesus walked right up to impossibilities and punched them in the teeth. And the blind saw, the lame walked, the sinner was washed clean, and the outcast came to dinner.

This is so important for you and I today. We seek to faithfully live out God’s will for marriage and sexuality in a world that assumes these are impossibilities, or worse, that they’re harmful.

How could anyone expect me to say no in a situation like that?
I’ll never be able to forgive him.
How could a loving God want me to be lonely for the rest of my life?
My husband and I just fell out of love.
I feel like I’m in the wrong body and I’ll never be happy living as my biological gender.
Keeping this baby would ruin the rest my life.

Do you hear the messages of impossibility?

When we believe something good, pure, or right is impossible for us, we stop looking for it, latch the windows, and settle for less. In a word, we despair. And when we despair, we’re more prone to grasp at whatever pleasures we can find or to assume the wisdom of the world is the best we can do.

It’s not.

Jesus promised, “In this life you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).

How does what Jesus did meet us where we are?

The key is in what John writes at the beginning of his gospel: “The Word [Jesus] became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). Notice John did not write that Jesus pretended to be flesh, but that Jesus became flesh. Jesus was not God in disguise, like Superman dressed as Clark Kent. This conception is the heresy Docetism, it’s not orthodox Christianity. Instead, Jesus took on our full humanity, uniting himself with humanity so that humanity could be united with his divinity. This is at the heart of the Christian faith.

Where does this leave us? Well, it means we can take heart and have faith. Following God’s will when it seems impossible may be difficult, but it is not hopeless any more than Jesus rising from the dead was hopeless. In Christ, God has given himself for humanity. We are not alone. We are not abandoned. He is present within us now through his Holy Spirit.

So if we choose to believe God’s will is impossible for us, we are actually choosing to believe God’s will is impossible for Jesus.

Yes, there are things in life that feel unlikely, things that few have seen and few have experienced. But there’s a night and day difference between impossible and difficult, between never and not yet, between there’s no way and there’s another way. 

One last thing. Do not go it alone. You need the church, Christ’s body on earth, to walk with you, to uphold you in prayer and believe with you (sometimes even to believe for you) that nothing is impossible for God (Luke 1:37). If you need help, Regeneration’s team is here for you.

God has not promised us an easy life, but he has promised us himself. He will work even the hardest things together for our good, that we might become like Christ (Romans 8:28-29).

Friends, impossibility is a bully that means to keep you from aspiring to more than the world holds out for you. It’s high time we stood up to it.

I’d love to hear from you. What helps you carry on in the face of “impossibility”? Where have you stood up to “impossibility” and are glad you did? Any places in your life you’re trying to do that right now?

Thanks For Reading.

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4 comments

  • Brilliant insight in this post. Men and women need to take courage and continue to hunger and thirst for His righteousness. The dry crumbs of compromise are empty of what our spirit truly hungers for. Bless you.

  • hey Josh:
    my Sister in NC is dying of Cancer; and stopping that is impossible.
    I have to focus on God’s gifts for her and me. thanks for a great message.
    Ted

By Josh Glaser

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