March 3. Good works through good results. To this end, we always pray for you that our God may make

you worthy of His calling and may fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith

by His power. Second Thessalonians 1-11. Seeking the power of God to fulfill our good

resolves does not mean that we don't really resolve or that we don't really use willpower.

The engagement of God's power never takes the place of the engagement of our will. The power of

God in sanctification never makes us passive. The power of God engages itself beneath or behind

and within our will not in place of our will. The evidence of God's power in our lives

is not the absence of our willing but the strength of our willing, the joy of our willing.

Anyone who says, well, I believe in the sovereignty of God and so I will just sit back and do nothing

does not really believe in the sovereignty of God for why would someone who believes in God's

sovereignty so blatantly disobey Him? When you sit back to do nothing, you are not doing nothing.

You are actively engaging your will in a decision to sit back and if that is the way you handle sin

or temptation in your life, it is blatant disobedience because we are commanded to wage a good warfare

1 Timothy 1-18 and to resist the devil James 4-7 and strive for holiness. He bruised 12-14 and put

to death the sinful acts of the body Romans 8-13. Second Thessalonians 1-11 says that it is by the

power of God that we will fulfill our good resolves and works of faith but this does not

nullify the meaning of the word resolve and the word work. Part of the whole process of

walking worthy of God's call is the active engagement of our will in resolving to do righteousness.

If you have lingering sin in your life or if you keep neglecting some good deed just because

you have been waiting around to be saved without a fight, you are compounding your disobedience.

God will never appear with power in your will in any other way than through your exercise of that

will. That is, through your good resolves, your good intentions and plans and purposes.

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