Jesus says something in the Gospels that captures my heart every time I read it…

My food is to do the will of the one who sent me.

Jesus equates His need to do the will of the Father to His need for food. Besides water, what do we seek more than food for our physical bodies? When hunger sets in, it distracts us from all else. Most of us have three set meals a day and a couple snacks in between. Food is central to all that we are and we cannot live without it. Jesus expresses His love for doing God’s will as though it were what He actually lived off of.

The will of God isn’t just what we live to do, it is the very thing that gives us spiritual life. To do the will of God should be our food.

If we need God to give us anything, it’s wisdom. I think often about the call of God on my life and how I just don’t want to miss it; I don’t want to miss Him.  You too? I think about all the avenues of influence the Lord has placed in my hands…in your hands and all the side paths that tempt us off His path. We live in a world saturated with voices, good ideas, amazing suggestions, compelling truth telling, and we can follow all of them and still miss the will of God. Walking with God is more than just listening to the voice of others; it’s listening to the actual voice of God that sounds forth from His Word. We can do so many right and noble things, but if our ear isn’t pressed up against His truth, we cannot trust that we are living out His will. We cannot follow a voice our souls aren’t accustomed to hearing.

Think about a mother with her children and how much instruction she offers them throughout the day. As a mommy, I can tell you the instruction and encouragement and rebukes are endless. And I think about how Paul says to the church in Thessalonica, But we were gentle among you, like a nursing mother taking care of her own children. Paul imitates the Lord in His care for the saints. This picture folded away in 1 Thessalonians teaches us something about how God relates to us. The Father provides the instruction; He has spoken and the children in right relationship with Him have their ears open to hear. Because, life just isn’t about how many followers we can collectively gather on Instagram (though it’s so much fun) or how many likes or friends we have on Facebook… None of those things are bad things inherently, but the centrality to any of that in your life day to day presents the possibility of distraction from the call and express will of God. This is why you must learn to walk with God. In walking with God, you might reach people by all possible means (including Instagram, Facebook, and the like), and you may reach them for the salvation or their growth or for their encouragement or just for fun. But do not be distracted by anything… Whether it’s texting or television watching or whatever it may be. Our deepest and highest desire should be to do all that God is calling us to and nothing less. And just as He called Isaiah, David, Esther, and Ruth, God is calling you. Do you know what He is calling you to? He called Isaiah to prophesy. He called David to become a King. He called Esther to intercede and save her people. He called Ruth to love a widow and submit to her lead. He calls us to beautiful and hard things, different things, I am simply encouraging us not to miss the call in the slightest.

There are first callings.  You are to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.  That is the first calling of every soul. We are to learn what it is to love the God who created us and to do the things that please Him. There is a temptation though, a temptation to please the created rather than the Creator.  Do you feel it too? I do. There is a temptation to be seen and known and it can suffocate the desire to please God. That temptation is best resisted by drawing  nearer to God than you do to anything else.

We are also to love our neighbor as ourself.  This is hard. Let’s be honest loving oneself is easy and loving one’s nearest neighbors comes only by putting our sin to death, by giving into the Gracious Spirit of our God. How much quick anger, rash impatience still fills up your heart and at the drop of hat? It is easy to string together a series of beautiful words  about how we should count others more significant than ourselves, but I know few who actually live out such a belief. I want to. There is a strong temptation to focus on self and that will be the end of all our influence. Walking in selfishness means walking in direct opposition to the will of God. We worship a Savior who emptied Himself of everything, our calling requires nothing less.

If we are skipping our first callings is it fair to say we are not living as Jesus did whose food was to do His Father’s will?

Yet Jesus statement means even more than this. Jesus did not do the will of God for Peter’s life, Jesus did the will of God for His life. He drank the cup of suffering in His life. He lived out the joys and grace in His life. The will of God for His life was unlike the will of God for any other man. The will of God for each our lives may be similar in some ways (call to being a wife or mom), but it will also be very unlike any other life. You cannot simply watch someone else’s love for the Lord, devotion to His Word, and manner of living and altogether discern what God is calling you to do. You can imitate someone as they imitate the Lord, but moment to moment living must be done by walking with the Holy Spirit. The only way to discern God’s will is to know and understand His voice.

The primary way of hearing God’s voice by hearing God’s Word, and to the degree that you know it, love it, and cherish it, that is the degree to which you will do God’s will.

Are you living off of the will of God? Is it your food? This is the one time you cannot overindulge. We are supposed to be full of the Holy Spirit after all.