Principle: The Principle Is The Thing

“Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.”

Luke 22:42

We recently received some disturbing news—excruciating news, actually. Christian friends of ours, Bruce and Ellen, are getting a divorce. With four children ranging from twelve to seventeen, Bruce picked the day after Christmas to tell them he had decided to divorce their mother.

Why do people, ostensibly Christians, deliberately ignore the principles of Scripture? By what rationale do believers exempt themselves from obedience to the known will of God? It is our dual nature—the mind alternately controlled by the Spirit or the flesh. We have the capacity for great good, but we are always mere sheep.

Sheep Stray

We are weak. We are feeble. “We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way” (Isaiah 53:6). Sheep are easily led or influenced. Like sheep we can be easily led astray, or we can follow Christ. Jesus said, “Come. Follow me.”

Jesus is our shepherd, and we are the sheep of His pasture. We are not the lions we suppose we are. We must confess our sheep-ness and not pretend we can lead ourselves. Bruce cannot. I cannot. You cannot.

God knows how difficult it is to stay on the sheep path. He knows we will go astray. He knows we would rather be proud lions than humble sheep. He knows we need a Shepherd, someone to save us. That is why, “the Lord has laid on [Jesus] the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:6).

Christ died to free us from bondage to sheep-ness. “He was oppressed and afflicted…he was led like a lamb to the slaughter…Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer.” (Isaiah 53:7,10). When sin wraps its tenacious tentacles around your will and tempts you to turn astray, remember, the Lamb of God died to empower you to overturn temptation.

Whether the decision is big or small, it is hard to do the will of God when your flesh would rather not. We are sheep, and the natural disposition of sheep is to stray.

Christ the Shepherd

Christ did not stray in His decisions. In His humanity, our Lord felt the desire of the flesh to abandon the Father’s will and stray from the published path. “‘Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done’” (Luke 22:42). Jesus knew how to live by the principle.

Jesus knew that a higher principle must shape the reply to every predicament. He knew He must surrender to a higher order than the desires of the flesh. The moral absolutes must always control. Always appeal to the principle—the will of God, to which you must surrender. Rely upon the Holy Spirit to give you the strength. Never, never, never surrender to your sheep-ness. It will cause you to go astray.

Is there an escape from the path of pain, the path of Bruce and Ellen? How can one get back to the sheep path? The escape is to resurrender your will to the will of the Father. “Yet not my will, but yours be done.”

Live by Principle

The principle is the thing. Live by the principle and not the flesh. Rely upon the Holy Spirit to lead you. The leading of the Holy Spirit is not a feeling; the flesh is a feeling. The leading of the Holy Spirit is perceiving the will of God at the level of the mind and will, not at the level of the emotions. His divinity dwells within you. Call upon Him, and He will answer.

Bruce and Ellen didn’t arrive at the brink of divorce overnight. Years of living by the feel of the flesh rubbed each other the wrong way. Like the building up of a callous, the friction built up a buffer between them. Then one day Bruce decided to rip off the callous.

Are you facing some monumental problem that has your thoughts swirling in indecision? Once you get past news, sports, and weather, everyone has some major problem they are trying to cope with. Someone recently said, “Be kind to each other. Everyone is fighting some major battle.”

What has you suffering? A relationship, an ailment, a lack of direction, a bad temper, a secret thought life, worry, a selfish disposition? Let the will of the Father be done. Since you are a sheep, call on your Shepherd. Don’t try to be a lion.

Surrender the thing that tempts you to stray. Live by perceiving the principle, not feeling the flesh. Go to the Word of God to reveal His will in the matter. “‘Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.’”

If you do not fully surrender to Christ, you will eventually surrender to the flesh. It doesn’t often happen quickly, but slowly, one small choice at a time, like sheep we stray. It might take years, perhaps the same twenty years it took Bruce and Ellen.

When we choose to live by feeling the flesh, and not perceiving the principle, the spiritual callouses build up. Unfortunately, sooner or later, callouses always get ripped away. We must do the will of the Father, or we will stray onto a path of pain.

I SURRENDER

Father, I sense callouses have built up in many areas of my life. I have lived too much by the feel of things and not the principles. I know that I need to live by the principle. I resurrender my will to Your will. If You are willing, I ask that You take away my cup of suffering. Yet, not my will, but Yours be done. Amen.