The Knowing and Choosing of the Father’’s Will
Greetings and good morning, brothers and sisters. This is Dr. James Perry continuing with our series
where we seek to explore the deeper meanings of our relationship with Jesus Christ. Over the years,
the heavenly Father has revealed many revelations of spiritual truth to me, and I want to share them
with you. This morning we will ponder our lives as we seek to understand the knowing and choosing
of the Father’’s Will. And now, sit back and listen to today's message.
The Knowing and Choosing of the Father’’s Will
"And he went a little farther, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible,
let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will but as thou wilt." Matthew, Chapter 26, Verse
39
Brothers and sisters, in today’s broadcast we shall explore into more depth the knowing and choosing
of the Father’’s will. We have said in previous discussions, that always will we know him because
we trust him. But today we want to show that knowing him is the same as knowing his will and how
that will is chosen. The basis for knowing the Father is some degree of moral likeness and spiritual
harmony. And since we are made in His image, we meet that criteria of moral likeness and spiritual
harmony; a loving personality can hardly reveal himself to a loveless person. But to know the Father
who is absolute, infinite, and eternal requires our supreme effort. We must be wholly consecrated
to the effort. Halfhearted partial devotion will be unavailing. This may seem a little strange when we
compare this to our human relationships, but closer inspection will show that this is not the case. We
shall examine the knowing of a human being and from there proceed to the knowing of the Father.
We are material personalities; getting to know other material personalities is not easy. Attempting
to know others helps us to realize that knowing a person is different from recognizing them. In
essence, it takes time and experience to really get to know someone. We simply must have sustained
interactions to know how someone responds to various situations; without this knowledge, there is
no basis for knowing a person’s character, which symbolizes knowledge of another person. (We
should recognize that intellectual knowledge of another’s character is not experiential knowledge.)
This process is similar to how we come to know a spiritual personality——the heavenly Father. We
must get to know Him by repeated and consistent experience with Him: the more experience we have
with Him, the more we know Him.
Some may say that we can’t see the heavenly Father as we do a material personality, so the process
isn’t analogous. Though we can see, touch, feel and communicate with a material person, it is the
sense of that person that gives reality to our recognition. The material aspects of a person may and
do change, but we still recognize the person as the one we have known after we have interacted.
With the heavenly Father, the desire to find (discover) Him is proof that we have found him. But our
conscious minds are immature, preventing us from recognizing him in the same way we do with
others (with our five senses). We must wait for our spiritual senses to be perfected before we can,
as it were, recognize him as we now recognize a material personality. The more we worship him, the
more we become like him and thus can recognize and know him.
After recognizing the Father, we must be conscious that we recognize him. We do this from the point
of view of his son, Jesus, the personal revelation of the Father. The Father and his Son are one. When
we want to know what the Father is like, we find the answer by looking at his Son. This Son
incarnated in the form of a human being over 2,000 years ago and revealed the character of the
Father to all mankind. He who has seen the Son has seen the Father’s character. With the Father’s
spirit, the Son’s spirits dwells within our minds and souls.
To gain knowledge of the Father’s character, we acquire knowledge of the Son’s character, which
is the same knowledge of the Father’s character. But for us to acquire this knowledge, we must
acquire a character like the Son, otherwise it remains purely intellectual (factual but not experiential).
We begin the process of knowing the Father’s character by doing the Father’s will. This technique
of doing the Father’s will is the process of becoming like him. From a practical point of view it
means submitting the human will to the divine will. This allows us to take on the "Image of His
Son."
This is a faith process. By faith do we submit our human wills to the Father’s will. The recognition
of the Father’s will is by faith also, as well as the recognition of his Son. The material mind cannot
recognize the Father’s will. It is the soul and the will that recognizes the Father’s will. The Father’s
divine spirit is present within our minds and souls. This spirit itself is the Father’s will and it reveals
itself to the soul and mind through unselfish love. This is contrasted with the urges of the self which
are selfish.
So we identify the will of the Father as the unselfish urge to love our brothers and sisters. We
outlined the intellectual factors of spiritual reality. What is required now to make all of this
absolutely real in our experience is for us actually to make the decision to do the Father’s will. With
the Son serving as the ideal of the Father’s conduct as we respond to unselfish urges to love, we can
now choose the Father’’s will. By choosing the Father’s will, we have submitted our will to his will.
But always must we use wisdom when doing so.
When we act on our highest level of understanding and wisdom, we are in fact choosing to do the
Father’s will: the spirit of the Son, the Spirit of Truth, is always the highest level of understanding
and wisdom that any material being can possess. And this is not strange, seeing that the Son has lived
the mortal life from beginning to end. So it must be that we are currently traversing a level of
spiritual understanding that lies somewhere between the highest level of understanding and the
lowest level. The Son provide us with guidance and direction at each level, so that we can discern
and choose the Father’’s will. We do not passively, slavishly, surrender our will to the Father’s will;
rather we actively, positively, and cooperatively choose to follow His leading when and as they
consciously differ from the desires and impulses of our natural minds.
This concludes today's message on knowing and choosing of the Father’’s will. We hope you find
something in this message to ponder and pray about as you go about your day.
Until next time, this is Dr. James Perry.
Inspirational Messages
By Dr. James Perry
Your Kingdom Come, Your Will Be Done!
The Knowing and Choosing
of the Father’’s Will
