by Toni M. Babcock
Our human will is free — free to commit any sin we want, but as far as being free and willing to love the Lord our God with all our heart and soul and mind, it takes more than human will, it takes supernatural intervention.
It’s important not to make light of this fact.
We’re born ‘dead’ spiritually (cf. Ephesians 2:1) with a nature held by the power of self-will and self-interest.
Why would Jesus say “If the Son therefore shall make you free, you shall be free indeed” (John 8:36 KJV), if our will was already free to love God supremely?
On the contrary, the will is in bondage to sin.
The Apostle John wrote that children of God were born, “not of natural descent, or of the will of the flesh, or of the will of man, but of God,” (John 1:13 CSB).
Putting an ounce of hope in the will only encourages the idea we can meet God on our own terms, on our own time, and expect an eternal reward — yet this teaching is found nowhere in the Scriptures.
God must draw people to repentance and faith in Christ, and He uses the truth to do it.
He either does ALL, or he does NOTHING.
If we are saved, God has drawn us to faith in Christ.
He’s done the work we could never do, (cf. John 6:44 KJV).
The true penitent humbly acknowledges this.
He admits he’d be lost due to sin were it not for the work of Christ. Convinced by the Spirit of his need, he repents and receives Christ into his heart by faith.
It’s the Word and the Spirit that sets him free from guilt and the shame of unbelief – not his will. He ‘calls upon the Lord’ because he heard God calling him first.
God in His holiness has absolute free will — a will that can be moved by believing prayer.
In that faith, pray for the lost and give God the glory.
Toni is author of Reflections from the Heart in Light of the Gospel of Jesus, and The Stone Writer. Contact
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