Willing And Able

Little Anne was anxious for her birthday to arrive. It was a day of celebration filled with presents and a party with her best friends. 

One morning before school she asked, “Mom, when’s my birthday? How long before it’s here? You know, how much time do I have to spend being good ‘cause you know it’s hard for me to be good.”  

How true of all of us! 

If we truly want to be good and do good, however, we need to listen to the advice of Paul: “For God is working in you, giving you the power to do what pleases Him.” 

To do good we begin by first being willing “to please Him” - we must be willing to be willing. For the Christian, “doing good” is being Christ-like. For some of us, it takes time. We know that our goal is to have an attitude like Jesus and act as He did. But what do we do until that happens? Many of us have had that as a goal for years and still have not achieved the results we want: to think and act like Jesus. Perhaps our “want” does not match our “will.” 

Look at it this way: If we are will-ing – surrender our wills to the Lord -  God will en-able – make us able -  to do what He would have us to do. If we read the Gospel message, we can see what Jesus did and then go into His world and do whatever He did to honor His Father. Willingness always precedes ability. Ability will come from God when He knows we are willing. 

Prayer:  Lord, sometimes we really try to complicate things to get out of doing them. Truth is if we want to do good we can do good because You promised to help us. In Jesus’ Name, Amen. 

Scripture For Today: Philippians 2:13  For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him.