“I came that they may have life and may have it abundantly.
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God is life, and the will-source of life. In the outflowing of the life, I know him; and when I am told that he is love, I see that if he were not love he would not, could not, create. The being of God is love, therefore creation. I imagine that from all eternity he has been creating. As he saw it was not good for man to be alone, so has he never been alone himself; from all eternity the father has had the Son, and the never-begun existence of that Son I imagine an easy outgoing of the Father’s nature; while to make other beings like us, I imagine the labor of a God, an eternal labor. I imagine that God has never been contented to be alone even with the Son of his love, the prime and perfect idea of humanity, but that he has from the first willed and labored to give existence to other creatures who should be blessed with his blessedness—creatures whom he is now and has always been developing into likeness with that Son—a likeness for long to be distant and small, but forever growing.
Let no soul think that to say God undertook a hard labor in willing that many sons and daughters should be sharers of the divine nature, is to abate his glory! The greater the difficulty, the greater is the glory. He knew what it would cost! Sore suffering such as we cannot imagine, and could only be God’s, in the bringing out of the God-life in the individual soul. Man finds it hard to get what he wants, because he does not want the best; God finds it hard to give, because he would give the best, and man will not take it.
Commentary
by Earle Canty
This message concerns the perspective that a Christian needs to have with regard to life. The Father gave man free will, a character attribute that confuses many, particularly non-believers. Free will means we are free to make choices, often times between good and evil, right and wrong. The Father did not have to give us free will. He could have forced us to adhere to His will, but that would have been inconsistent with His nature. How different history would be had He forced us to adhere to His perfect will!
The Son, during his time as a man, had perfect peace, even when He was in situations that were not conducive to being in peace. He did many hard things, but because He knew that He was doing the will of The Father and He knew that doing the will of The Father was the best thing He could do, He conformed His will to The Father’s and did whatever was necessary. Jesus’s prayer to The Father in the Garden of Gethsemane is the example for us {Luke 22:42}. While the sweating of blood may seem contrary to being at peace, He was at peace, a paradoxical peace, despite the agony of knowing the arduous task to which The Father had called him
The great challenge for a Christian is making the right choice. It is about walking the talk, about recognizing that we need to conform our will to The Father’s, not just hear about conforming our will and dismiss it as uncomfortable or too hard. That goes contrary to our penchant for wanting to be in control and wanting comfort. It also requires hard work, because we live in a world that is constantly at odds with The Father’s will and frequently seeks the easy path. The Father knows what is best for each one of us and wants to give us the best. The best might not be our choice or our perspective regarding what is best, but that doesn’t change the fact that it really is the best. If we choose to conform our will to the Father’s, our life will be what it is supposed to be and the world will be a better place.