By Pastor Daniel

Introduction
I am presently in Maui, Hawaii when I wrote this reflection.  When Jesus was praying in the garden of Gethsemane, he prayed, “Nevertheless, thy will be done.”  We all know this prayer very well which happened the night before Jesus was arrested.’

A willful life
We must all admit that many times in our life, there is always this struggle between the will of God and our own will.  There are so many times, when we are in this position either to fulfill the will of God in our lives or to fulfill ours.

The question then is this - how do I determine what the will of God is?  There are books and teachings about discovering the will of God.  There are signposts which guide us, like, the godly counsel of godly men or women in our lives, the Word of God that speaks to our hearts, the prompting of the Holy Spirit accompanied by the sense of peace, the circumstances around us and others.

In reality there is the struggle between the will of God and my own desires.  Oftentimes, the line between them is very thin.  This is simply because we have a will and many of us are willful in that which we do.  There are certain things we do and the certain ways we do them have become a habit or a lifestyle.

How then do we determine the will of God?

A need or a conviction
I do not venture to share in this reflection any structured teaching of any kind.  A meditation that I heard in this place that I am in caused me to think deeper on our willfulness that I would like to share with all of you.

What governs our decision many times is the question of need and the question of God’s voice or God’s word.

If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.
Let us go back to the temptation of Jesus.  After the fasting of 40 days in the wilderness, the Bible in Matthew 4 tells us that Satan came to Jesus and tempted him.  He said, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become bread.”

What is the temptation all about?  We have heard and read many aspects of it; namely it is the temptation appealing to the desires of the flesh.  So my question is this:  “Is it really so?  If so, what about the flesh that is wrong?”.  What really was in question?

The Identity of Jesus
Could it be the temptation to the identity of Christ?  Satan appealed to the fact that in changing those stones to bread will ascertain his identity in Christ.  Is there really a struggle in Jesus about proving his identity?  Is the temptation that we are going to relate to, is about the temptation to our identity in Christ?  That if I am truly a child of God, then I should be doing miracles or perform some powerful acts.

What is so wrong about turning stones to become bread?
Then we have this question - what is wrong with turning stones into bread?  Do we detect anything sinful about this act?  Honestly I don’t think so.  It is just bread and we need bread to eat.  It is like going to take our bowl of rice when we are hungry.  After all, the fasting was over as other gospel writers also mentioned.  After the 40 days of fasting is over, Satan came to Jesus.

So what is wrong with that?  You may have probably heard that the wrong is found in the person who asked him, meaning the devil.   If that be the case, then what would it be like if Satan is taken off from the picture?  Would it make it alright for the disciples to ask Jesus to turn stones to become bread?  Would it then not be a temptation?

A decision based on needs?
Obviously it is not about his identity.  After all, Satan repeated the same address in his second temptation, “If you are the Son of God...”. What then is the temptation all about?  May I suggest to you this question instead, “On what basis do we make our decisions in life?”

Often times, it is based on our needs, isn’t it?  I need more money, so I take the job that pays me more.  I love to travel, so I take the job that enables me to travel.  I need recognition, therefore I take the job that gives me that.....

There is nothing wrong about that but Jesus shows us that there is something else higher than our needs - God’s word.  He said, “Man shall not live by bread ALONE....”, indicating that there is something else besides a decision that is need base - “but by every word that comes out of the mouth of God.” - a decision that is God base.

Conclusion
As we make this journey, looking at the theme of “More for Jesus, more like Jesus”, let us be like Jesus in making our decisions - that it would be God based.  We would like Jesus “do what we see our Father doing.”