How to yield the will

[DaveM1936]

The following from Steps to Christ has puzzled me for a long time. After listing all the I CANNOT DO, she then tells all I CAN DO is to yeild to Christ my will (power of choice). What is the take the rest of you have on this passage?

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Many are inquiring, "How am I to make the surrender of myself to God?" You desire to give yourself to Him, but you are weak in moral power, in slavery to doubt, and controlled by the habits of your life of sin. Your promises and resolutions are like ropes of sand. You cannot control your thoughts, your impulses, your affections. The knowledge of your broken promises and forfeited pledges weakens your confidence in your own sincerity, and causes you to feel that God cannot accept you; but you need not despair.[:"red"] What you need to understand is the true force of the will. This is the governing power in the nature of man, the power of decision, or of choice. Everything depends on the right action of the will. The power of choice God has given to men; it is theirs to exercise. [/] You cannot change your heart, you cannot of yourself give to God its affections;[:"red"] but you can choose to serve Him. You can give Him your will; [/] He will then work in you to will and to do according to His good pleasure. Thus your whole nature will be brought under the control of the Spirit of Christ; your affections will be centered upon Him, your thoughts will be in harmony with Him. {SC 47.1}

Desires for goodness and holiness are right as far as they go; but if you stop here, they will avail nothing. Many will be lost while hoping and desiring to be Christians. [:"red"] They do not come to the point of yielding the will to God. They do not now choose to be Christians. [/] {SC 47.2}

Through the right exercise of the will, an entire change may be made in your life. By yielding up your will to Christ, you ally yourself with the power that is above all principalities and powers. You will have strength from above to hold you steadfast, and thus through constant surrender to God you will be enabled to live the new life, even the life of faith. {SC

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Those of you who do not believe in EGW, please put that aside and accept the statement as it reads. What does the yielding of the power of choice mean?

Your friend,

Dave M

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edited for typo in title only

[Nicodema]

One thing I have found that works is to give the decision itself over to God. Rather than praying something like, "Dear Lord, please give me the power to choose not to smoke," or "Dear Lord, please give me victory over the temptation to smoke," it is more effective to pray, "Dear Lord, I give my decision whether to smoke or not over to You. Please make that decision for me and execute it within me."

In that way I am literally giving my power of choice over to God, yielding it to Him. This is the ONLY way that I've found I can experience freedom from whatever urge or impulse is trying to "drive" me from inside my flesh. I do not ask for power to do it myself. I do not ask for victory over myself. Instead, I turn the decision itself over to God and ask Him to make it for me. Why? Because I will make the wrong one if it's left up to me, despite praying for power or victory. If I am volitionally afflicted, that is, if it is my will that is sick, all the power and victory in the world won't make a bit of difference. It would be like asking for endurance and stamina for a running race while my legs are paralyzed.

I don't know if this way works for everyone. I'm sure there are some who have massively intimidating theological arguments about why this is impossible and can't or shouldn't work. I frankly don't care. It fits the criteria of "giving the will to God." It works when I do it, and that's all I care about.

[Pockey]

DaveM1936, thank you for posting this. I was just reading this very passage last night!

The passage emphasizes the bottom line: choice. We are not robots, but have the ability to make a choice about every decision we make. EGW says "Through the right exercise of the will, an entire change may be made in your life". I believe that just as "blaspheming the Holy Spirit" is a constant hardening of the heart, the opposite rings true: a constant choice to serve Him, will enable us to live the new life. As Jesus said, [:"red"]"I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing" John 15:5.[/]

[DaveM1936]

Thank-you for your reply. I am not interested in a theological discussion. I have done exactly what you said. I prayed for victory, for the resistence against tempation. Yet I yeilded. Even while I am praying, I know how much I really want the temptation being offered. I know that trying to not want it is useless.

At the same time, I do not want to lose my connection with the Lord. So I am torn. Getting my mind off myself works at times. I make a phone call. Pet my pets. Watch a movie. etc. At times, I do not want to let the give up whatever I am being tempted with.

One thing I am certain of. I want to spend eternity with Jesus, taking care of the animals. But this desire is not enough. I think I just get down on myself and tend to give up on the better things Jesus is offering.

Your friend,

Dave M

[DaveM1936]

Thank-you for your comments also. I also suffer from depression. It seems that the times I am most vulnerable is when depression is at its worst. I understand that it is uselesss to choose to do right. I can't. Learning to give Jesus my power of choice is the only way. Here is where the real battle is. I have read that I need to ask for the power to actually do this. In theory, I have got it. But in experience, I fall short.

Your friend

Dave M

[cricket]

First of all, thank you Nico for pointing me to this thread. Very interesting thoughts. I really like what you've said about this topic--all of you. In another forum, I mentioned that I was interested in the concept of giving the heavenly angels power of thought for me: a new concept for me--I'd always felt it was a struggle to keep the evil angels from getting ahold of my power of thought and choice, but never grasped the concept of giving my power of choice away to the heavenly.

My question then, is once we have it in theory, how do we follow through in experience? I mean, same questions as you, Dave, really.

I'm picturing tomorrow morning. Praying in bed and asking God to begin making the choices in life for me. What then? Will I lie in bed until He chooses that I should get up? I think I'll be lying in bed for a really long time, if that's the case!

What do we do? How do we know if we're allowing Him to make the choices for us, or if we're just acting on what we think His choices for us will be?

And, even if we're just acting on what we think, is that really so bad??

[Nicodema]

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Thank-you for your reply. I am not interested in a theological discussion. I have done exactly what you said. I prayed for victory, for the resistence against tempation. Yet I yeilded. Even while I am praying, I know how much I really want the temptation being offered. I know that trying to not want it is useless.

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I was not looking for a theological discussion either. I was saying that praying for victory and for resistance did NOT work. I, too, have had times where I prayed either for victory or for resistance and I ended up yielding to the sin even while praying. I too know that trying to not want it is futile. The only thing that ever DID work (for me) was giving the decision itself over to God.

Mostly what I struggle with now is what I never thought would be my struggle ever: simply praying at all, or spending ANY time in devotion at all. I want to pray that He will be truly Lord of my Life in ALL Things.

[Nicodema]

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And, even if we're just acting on what we think, is that really so bad??

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I believe that God wants me to go back to school. Specifically to go to Andrews. I don't know how ... I have no money ... I would have to uproot myself and move 800 or whatever miles away ... no plan ... no clue ... but I believe I heard Him tell me to go and that He "would make a way." I can either believe that was Him or I can look at the difficulties and believe it was just my head and it's better to stay put where I don't gotta think about it. I won't know unless I get up and do it and then see if He indeed makes that way or not.

Lots of risk involved in letting God decide ... it's not always comfortable. But think of all those with incredible experiences! Would they have had those had they said "oh it's just my head"? Not likely.

[Pockey]

Wow Nico! I think that is awesome. I know He is wonderful plans for you, just as He says in Jeremiah 29:11-13. I wish there was some way we at CA can help. Suggestions anyone?

[DaveM1936]

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I'm picturing tomorrow morning. Praying in bed and asking God to begin making the choices in life for me. What then? Will I lie in bed until He chooses that I should get up? I think I'll be lying in bed for a really long time, if that's the case!

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You picked a very good illustration. Depression insists that I sleep all day. If the choice is left up to me, I would sleep 10 hours at night. Then I would go back to bed and sleep all afternoon. Today was a good example. I got up a little after 9 (I have gone to bed at 10:30) I put the dogs out and then went right back to bed. Less than an hour later, Shep, my big lab\husky, began barking, insisting I get up. He probably wanted attention. I took this as the Lord's way of getting me up out of bed for the day.

The choice for me was not whether to get up or not. Rather, I accepted that the Lord was helping me make the right choice. Once up, I will not go to bed again today. I do not consider this my choice. Rather, I accepted that this is what the Lord wanted for me today. Once I accepted this, He gave me power to perform.

But this is a constant battle. Sometimes I make the choice without letting the Lord take part. Then I mess up.

I have been taught that I need to pray for the will (choice) to let the Lord take my power of choice. How to do this I have never been able to experience or understand.

Thank all for your imput. I think this is a problem all of us face every day.

YOur friend,

Dave M

[Taylor]

This is my opinion:

THere is a part we are to do in yielding the will. God never forces anyone thus, unless we choose to put our will on God's side and at the same time cry out to God to help us leave our will with him, he will not step in as he would not force us to give over our will.

Surrendering our will to God means the following to me:

1. It means I make a conscious choice to follow God and to do what he asks of me, even if I have fallen in that area before.

2. It means that as soon as that decision is made, simultaneously I am on my knees asking God for strength to carry through on following God's will.

3. It means that I take all human measures to take myself out of the way of temptation. This might mean forcing my mind to think on other things by listening to a music or sermon CD, to read something inspirational, to walk away from the temptation (if it resides in a physical place), to fill the "empty time of my life" with something useful, either in prayer and time with God or with helping others.

4. It means that I cultivate the habbit of saying "yes" to God no matter what He asks me to do, no matter what it cuts accrossed.

5. As I do these things, God's voice, impressions, leading through his still small voice, through my conscience, through the advice of godly people, through reading His word etc, God's will for my life will become clearer, louder, and easier to descern.

6. It means that I get rid of clutter in my life that is like static on a radio whose antena is not connecting. That static could be caused by things that are not "bad" but are not the "best" for my life. For instance, if I am giving 30 Bible studies per week, people might think that was very Godly. However, if by giving those 30 Bible studies I have NO time to study God's word for myself, I have no time for my family then something is out of balance. Yes, we need to reach those around us (one of my greatest passions) but not to the exclusion of those God has already put in our path, and our relationship with God.

Just my 2 cents.

Taylor

[Guest]

This thread caused me to look "will" up in the Index of EGW..which has references which I noted I had checked out before...several were highlighted with a marker...must have been 25 years ago...1978..

[Nicodema]

I struggled SO HARD to understand what that passage meant when I was younger. I did something very similar, looking up and reading everything EGW said about the will and STILL could not parse it.

I perceive some SDAs get into this knot so hard they become "will worshipers" just as is spoken against in the NT. They credit everything to the "right action of the will" (which is actually NOT the right action but their own version of "will power") and fail to recognize their helpless need of Christ like the rest of us common sinners. Their secret hubris? That they chose not to sin. Sure they will tell you Christ gave them the power to choose and He'll do it for you too, but bottom line is this: it's all hubris if we think we can make choices not to sin. We are, by ourselves, incapable of "the right action of the will" and therefore the only "right action" for us is to give the decision over to God to make.

(I'm talking about matters of sin and righteousness, not whether I wear a red shirt or a blue one, or whether I have oatmeal or cream of wheat for breakfast.)

[DaveM1936]

I appreciate your helpfull comments. I am quick to understand the theory of yielding the will. But when it comes down to experiencing it, then I have trouble. I sometimes succeed. I thought of my years canvassing. Many times the words would be given me to speak, or the right action to take. What I am seeking is examples of how others have experienced this yielding. You did offer examples in your post. Something that seems so simple can be very difficult to carry out.

Your friend,

Dave M

[DaveM1936]

The following from Steps to Christ illustrates where I struggle.

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In like manner you are a sinner. You cannot atone for your past sins; you cannot change your heart and make yourself holy. But God promises to do all this for you through Christ. You believe that promise. You confess your sins and give yourself to God.

You will to serve Him.

It is so if you believe it.

Just as surely as you do this, God will fulfill His word to you. If you believe the promise,--believe that you are forgiven and cleansed,--God supplies the fact; you are made whole, just as Christ gave the paralytic power to walk when the man believed that he was healed.

It is so if you believe it.

{SC 51.1}

Do not wait to feel that you are made whole, but say, "I believe it; it is so, not because I feel it, but because God has promised." {SC 51.2}

Jesus says, "What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them." Mark 11:24. There is a condition to this promise--that we pray according to the will of God. But it is the will of God to cleanse us from sin, to make us His children, and to enable us to live a holy life. So we may ask for these blessings, and believe that we receive them, and thank God that we have received them. It is our privilege to go to Jesus and be cleansed, and to stand before the law without shame or remorse. "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." Romans 8:1. {SC 51.3}

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I think I know what the conditions are.

1. I must ask.

2. I must believe Jesus heard my prayer and has already answered it.

3. I claim the promise. In other words, I get up from my knees and plan the answer into my day's duties.

Have any of you experienced this?

Your friend,

Dave M

[Guest]

There is several or more cognitive points here..

Love righteousness >> hate iniquity

Bring thoughts into captivity

Resist the devil

Beholding in a mirror

Choose you this day.

If we walk in the light...

If ye hear his voice...

[Pockey]

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Through the right exercise of the will, an entire change may be made in your life. By yielding up your will to Christ, you ally yourself with the power that is above all principalities and powers. You will have strength from above to hold you steadfast, and thus through constant surrender to God you will be enabled to live the new life, even the life of faith. {SC}

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This is so reassuring! The more we CHOOSE Him, a CHANGE will be made in our lives! That is a miracle. In a similar vein regarding temptation, Rick Warren states "Every time you pass a test, you're given MORE POWER." He also says "Just as the roots grow stronger when the wind blows against a tree, so every time you stand up to a temptation you become more like Jesus."

[Guest]

Quote:

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Quote:

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Through the right exercise of the will, an entire change may be made in your life. By yielding up your will to Christ, you ally yourself with the

power

that is above all principalities and powers. You will have

strength

from above to hold you steadfast, and thus through constant surrender to God you will be enabled to live the new life, even the life of faith. {SC}

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By grace you are saved..

grace- the God given divine influence on the heart that engenders the desire and power to do God's will.

The enmity against the law (Rom 8:7) reducer or eliminator.

The flesh propensity reducer..

Cycle of illumination..

obey>>>Holy Spirit>>>>faith>>> obey>>>