|
About Jesus - Steve (Stephen) Sweetman Thy
Will Be Done As a child and as a
youth I was raised in the Methodist theological tradition that is rooted
in the teaching of men like John Wesley and the revival movement known
as the Great Awakening. This
movement spread across England
in the seventeen hundreds and then across North America
in the early eighteen hundreds. Although
I differ with a few Methodist theological emphases, there is one
emphasis with which I am in full agreement.
Over the decades
Methodists have believed in the pre-eminence of God's will.
"Thy will be done" has been primary in their lives.
When those of my Free Methodist church family prayed for my
healing of Juvenile Diabetes at the age of six, they ended their prayer
with "Thy will be done." Obviously
God's will was done. Jesus
miraculously healed me of this deadly disease and I am alive to attest
to that miracle. Those
praying for me were content with God's will, whatever that would be.
I don't hear the words
"Thy will be done" as I did in my youth.
The reality of those words seems to have been relegated to a
long-forgotten past. In many
cases it's no longer about God's will but our will.
Present-day corporate ministry enterprises suggest that to be
true. We have allowed the
gospel of Christ to morph into what I call the "gospel to
get," as in, get saved, get forgiven, get heaven, get healed, and
get all we can get from Jesus. The
fact of the matter is that is not the entire gospel, as suggested by
Jesus' two titles, Lord and Christ.
Jesus' two titles help
explain my point. Christ
implies that Jesus is Saviour. Lord
implies that He is God. As
Christ, Jesus offers all of who He is to us.
As Lord, we offer all of who we are to Him.
Salvation is a two way street, a mutual offering of our lives to
Jesus and His life to us. When
we emphasize Jesus as Saviour but neglect that He is also Lord, our
salvation becomes self-centered. It's
what we can get from Jesus and not what we can give to Him.
The Methodists of old
were correct when they preached "Thy will be done."
It was what Jesus agonized over in the
|