The Father Is Willing

One of the greatest obstacles to faith is not always whether we believe God can do something, but whether we believe He is willing to do it for us.

We may confidently say that God can heal, provide, restore, deliver and transform a situation. Yet when the need becomes personal, another question often rises within us:

“Will He do it for me?”

This is why knowing God as Father is so important. We cannot confidently walk as sons if we do not understand the heart of our Father.

Jesus Reveals the Father

The doctrine of Christ introduces us not only to the Son, but also to the Father. Jesus came as the visible expression of the Father, revealing His nature, His thinking and His heart toward humanity.

When Jesus encountered the woman caught in adultery, He refused to condemn her. Instead, He released her and instructed her to leave her life of sin.

Through His response, Jesus was revealing something about the Father.

If we want to understand how the Father thinks, we must look at the Son. Jesus said that if we knew Him, we would know His Father also. His life therefore becomes a window through which we can accurately see the Father's heart.

“If You Are Willing”

In Mark 1:40 a leper came to Jesus, knelt before Him and said:

“If You are willing, You can make me clean.”

The man did not doubt Jesus' ability. He knew Jesus could cleanse him.

His uncertainty concerned Jesus' willingness.

Under the law, a person with leprosy was pronounced unclean and separated from the community. He lived outside the camp and had to identify himself as unclean whenever others approached.

Imagine what years of that experience could do to someone's thinking.

Rejection, isolation and separation could easily produce the belief that you are unwanted, forgotten or undeserving. In the same way, our experiences can shape how we approach God. Years of disappointment, rejection or unanswered questions may eventually cause us to wonder whether God truly wants to intervene in our situation.

But our experiences must never become the final authority for what we believe about our Father.

Moved With Compassion

Jesus' response to the leper gives us a powerful revelation of the Father's heart.

Scripture says Jesus was moved with compassion.

Jesus stretched out His hand, touched the man and said:

“I am willing; be cleansed.”

Jesus was revealing the Father.

The compassion operating through the Son revealed the Father's heart toward the person standing before Him.

Stop Trying to Convince God

Sometimes we pray as though we want something more than God does.

We repeat ourselves, beg and struggle because somewhere within our thinking we imagine that God must first be persuaded to act.

But Jesus taught that the Father already knows what we need before we ask.

Instead of approaching God as though He is unaware or unwilling, we can approach Him knowing that He understands our situation completely.

When we understand what has already been given to us in Christ, prayer begins to move from begging toward faith and thanksgiving in what God has already provided.

Faith becomes stronger when we understand the One in whom our faith rests.

Build Your Life on Truth, Not Experience

Our experiences are real, but they should not define our understanding of God.

Perhaps you have experienced rejection. Perhaps opportunities repeatedly disappeared.

Perhaps you have prayed about something for years without seeing the change you expected.

The answer is not to pretend those experiences never happened. The answer is to renew our minds according to truth. We must learn to focus on Christ in us, rather than continually focusing on everything we believe is wrong with us.

What we continually focus on, we strengthen in our thinking.

If our minds remain fixed on rejection, failure, disappointment and the old man, we can remain trapped in the same emotional cycles even after circumstances begin to change.

Instead, we must exercise our minds on the truth of the new man.

Focus on Christ.

Focus on what God has placed within you.

Focus on who your Father has revealed Himself to be.

Renew Your Mind to the Father's Heart

God does not renew our minds for us. He gives us truth, and we must intentionally renew our thinking with that truth.

When an experience tells you that God does not care, return to the revelation of Jesus.

When disappointment tells you that God is unwilling, remember the leper.

When fear tells you that you have been forgotten, remember the compassion of the Father revealed in the Son.

Train your mind to see Him accurately.

As our understanding of Him changes, our prayers change. Our expectations change. Our confidence changes. Instead of approaching Him like orphans wondering whether He will respond, we begin approaching Him as sons who know the heart of their Father.

Do not allow yesterday's experience to become today's definition of God. Renew your mind with truth, look at the Father revealed through the Son, and settle this within yourself: He is willing.

Check out the full session here.