There is a pattern in the Bible that not many people speak about. It’s a pattern that, at first glance, would seem to be a major drawback in the “selling” of the Gospel to most people.
A quick summary of the pattern is this. God calls someone to do something for Him. The person agrees to do God’s will and follows that will. The person ends up in a worst state from which they started.
It doesn’t take long to name some of the men of the Bible who have experienced this fate. One in particular comes to mind.
Jeremiah was called to be a prophet. He was faithful to the calling, even though he didn’t like it. The people turned against him, but he continued to preach God’s word. He preached at a time when Judah and Jerusalem were under constant attack by the Babylonians. Repeatedly, Jeremiah was asked what God wanted Israel to do. Jeremiah’s was always the same: God’s judgment was upon them and the best thing to do was to open the gates of Jerusalem and accept God’s judgment.
Not surprisingly, such a message was not favorably received. Imagine the United States after September 11, 2001, being told by someone to not retaliate, to not fight against Al Quaeda, that it was all part of God’s judgment. Such a person would not be favorably received. Thus it was with Jeremiah.
When Jerusalem fell, the people came to Jeremiah and asked him what they should do. Jeremiah said accept the new government and the new ruler. They rebelled instead, and greater judgment was coming. They said to Jeremiah, “Ok, we didn’t listen the last time. But this time, we will. What does God want us to do? Should we run away to Egypt?” Jeremiah said, no, that God wanted them to remain and suffer the consequences.
And what did the people do? They ran off to Egypt, and they took Jeremiah with them.
That’s just one example. And Jeremiah got off easy, compared to others who chose to obey God rather than men.
So is it really a good idea to do God’s will?
The Short-term Answer
Looking at just the short term, the answer would seem to be that it really isn’t a good idea to do God’s will.
Look at the apostles. Disregarding Judas, who never really was a believer, and adding Paul to the list of apostles, we know that tradition tells us each of the apostles, save one, met a martyr’s death. Peter was crucified upside down. Paul was beheaded. James was beheaded. Others were shot with arrows, split asunder by swords and other untimely, violent deaths, all for preaching the word faithfully as God had called them to do.
The one exception was the apostle John, who tradition tells us lived to be a very old man. Tradition also tells us that John was put into a vat of boiling oil, but that he survived. He was then exiled to the island of Patmos. Finally, he was allowed to go to the Ephesus, where he became the pastor emeritus, if you will. It is said that John became so old and feeble that he had to be carried into the worship, and that his message was short but sweet: “Little children, love one another.”
What about Moses? Didn’t he live a long life, and didn’t he gain a reward for his service to God? Yes, he did to both of those questions. He did not get to enter the Promised Land, but that was because of his own sin against God before the people. But, yes, Moses lived a long life, dying at 120 years old, and he did get to see the land that was given to the nation of Israel.
David also is an example of one who was blessed by God, but he is also an example of how God can use us despite our sinfulness. Samson is another, as was Jonah. It’s probably not fair to put David in the same league with Samson and Jonah, but David did indulge his lusts and didn’t always follow God’s will, just as Samson failed to faithfully follow God’s plan for him. And Jonah only did what he did because he wasn’t able to run away from God.
But looking at the lives of most of the men who obeyed God’s calling, we can see that many if not most endured hard lives, rejected by society and persecuted. There are a lot that we don’t know how their lives ended, but we do know they had a difficult ministry. Reading the prophets becomes clear that their messages fell on deaf ears, with the exception of Jonah, ironically. God told Isaiah explicitly that his messages would never be accepted by the people, but he was still called to prophecy, and Isaiah was faithful to his calling.
I realize that most of the people of the Bible were exceptions to the rule. There are probably far more people in the Bible that were faithful to God’s calling, but we don’t know their story. The ones the Bible chooses to tell us, though, speak of hardship and untimely death for the vast majority.
So, the short-term answer to the question whether it is really to our advantage to follow God’s will is, no, it is not.
Why?
There are several instances when people came to Jesus proclaiming their desire to follow Him. In most of these cases, Jesus discouraged them, because it was not easy to follow Him.
A teacher of the law approached Jesus once and said, “Teacher, I will follow You wherever You go” (Matthew 8:19). Jesus’ response was, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay His head” (v.20).
Another time, Jesus said, “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn ‘a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-i-law—a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.’ Anyone who loves his father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me; and anyone who does not take his cross and follow Me is not worthy of Me” (Matthew 10: 34-38). While Jesus didn’t mean a literal hate, more of a comparative of loving Him first and foremost, He was letting all would-be followers know that doing God’s will in following Him would not be a pleasant walk in the park. In the middle of Jesus’ Upper Room discourse the night of His betrayal, Jesus let His followers know that they should expect persecution and animosity (cf. John 15:18-25).
The answer, then, is that it’s hard to follow Jesus because the powers of the world are aligned against God’s will, and those powers will do all that they can to make it difficult to follow God. There are a lot of people who have a superficial faith in God, but they put a new spin on the phrase, “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” When times get hard in following Jesus, there are a lot of “toughs” who hightail it away from Him. The setbacks in life cause many to turn away. Jesus was aware of this, and He warned against falling short. When He taught about the end times, Jesus said, more than once, “He who stands firm to the end will be saved” (Matthew 24:12b).
But Look at the Long-Term
If it’s so hard, and if it’s so unrewarding, then what is the point of following God’s will? The answer is in the long-term.
The writer of Hebrews includes a chapter on faith toward the end of his book. He begins by defining faith, then gives examples of men and women who lived lives of faith. He summarizes with a list of those who were benefitted by living a life of faithful obedience to God’s will, and he also included a summary of those who suffered greatly because of their faithful obedience. But he caps his summary with this: “These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what was promised. God has planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect” (Hebrews 11:39-40). In other words, the long-term reward for faithful obedience to God is to hear Him say to us, “Well done, good and faithful servant! . . . Come and share your master’s happiness!” (Matthew 25:21).
It’s not just the long-term reward, though, that leads us to seek and do God’s will. For the believer, the presence of the Holy Spirit within us places within us the desire to follow that will. God is at work in us to learn His will and to be able to do His will. Through the work of the Holy Spirit, we are in the process of being sanctified, daily more prepared to be set aside for His exclusive purpose.
When we do God’s will in this life, we find a contentment that is lacking otherwise. Life finds a certainty in the discerning and doing of God’s will. As we yield ourselves to His will, allowing God to live through us by the power of His Spirit, we find a peace that passes all understanding. The doing of God’s will is one of the purest ways we can express our love for Him, and it is a demonstration of our faith.
The amazing thing about faith is that it only grows as we step out in that faith. Much like an athlete who seeks to tone his or her body to perfection for the sport they compete in, so is the faith of the believer honed as we put it to the test.
Paul put it this way: “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our suffering, because we know suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out His love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom He has given us” (Romans 5:1-5). Peter’s “ladder of spiritual growth,” which is found in 2 Peter 1:5-9, is similar. He says the working out of faith leads to goodness, and goodness leads to knowledge, knowledge to self-control, self-control to godliness, godliness to brotherly kindness and that leads to love. Peter says that these qualities, increasing as we put them into practice, keeps us from being unproductive and ineffective, and again the end result is a “rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 1:11).
There is such a rich life in walking with God. It sets things in order, as Jesus stated in Matthew 6:33—seek the kingdom, and everything else falls into place (my rough paraphrase). There is a pleasance in knowing that we are where God wants us to be, even if the circumstances would tell us otherwise.
And perhaps that is the main reason why it is better to do God’s will than not. The one who is earnestly seeking and doing God’s will is not thwarted by circumstances, but rises above them. The person who seeks God’s kingdom first is the one who doesn’t let the things of this world distract us. We rise above because we find ourselves seated at the right hand of the Father, in the presence of the Son by the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit.
Conclusion
There was a country song that was popular in my early teen years. It was a cross-over hit, and the chorus started with the phrase, “I beg your pardon, I never promised you a rose garden.” When God bids us follow Him, He never says it will be easy; in fact, He warns us it won’t be easy at all. But He also promises that it is rewarding and that we will never go it alone. He will be with us; He will equip us, and He will lead us, each step of the way.
Why does God’s will always end badly? It doesn’t; far from it. God’s will always ends up far beyond our expectations. Trust Him. You’ll see. It’s worth every bump and bruise.
© 2019 Glynn Beaty