Is Your Will Aligned with God’s? Overcoming Demonic Pitfalls in Your Mind

Exercising our human will is necessary to accomplish very much in life.

People from various professions have offered a variety of comments on the human will and how it functions. Yet it seems the operation of our human will is one of the least understood parts within the makeup of a human being.

Some believe the human will is subject to no one, that a person will exercise their will independent of any divine influence or force—that a human is in essence a god to himself. Others on the other end of the spectrum say there is no such thing as a person freely exercising their will, that since everything is predestinated according to the foreknowledge of God, the human will is at all times controlled by the will of God. Yet as is often the case, somewhere between these opposing views we can find a scriptural balance concerning our human will.

The Value of Our Human Will

A number of places in Scripture show us the human will is part of our soul. For our soul to prosper, we must discover how the human will functions and how to align our human will to God’s will. When our human will is consecrated and conformed to God’s will, we can make great strides in following God and moving up into new realms of God’s promises.

When He had stopped speaking, He said to Simon, “Launch out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.” But Simon answered and said to Him, “Master, we have toiled all night and caught nothing; nevertheless at Your word I will let down the net.” And when they had done this, they caught a great number of fish, and their net was breaking. So they signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both the boats, so that they began to sink (Luke 5:4-7 NKJV).

Here we see Peter submitting his will to what Jesus told him to do. Peter had fished all night and caught nothing. Yet when Jesus told Peter to let down his nets, he had to go against the natural wisdom he normally used in fishing and obey what Jesus told him to do. After Peter aligned his human will to God’s will, he was greatly rewarded with a large amount of fish.

In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus prayed, “Father, if it is Your will, take this cup away from Me; nevertheless not My will, but Yours, be done” (Luke 22:42 NKJV). He prayed this same prayer three times, showing that submitting our will to God’s will is a continual process. Here in this critical moment, Jesus voluntarily yielded His own will to go to the Cross to die for the sins of all humankind. Without Jesus’ submission to His Father’s will, He could not have accomplished the plan of redemption for humankind.

But submitting His will to His Father’s will enabled Jesus to accomplish the plan of redemption for humankind. This is a powerful example of consecrating and conforming our human will to the will of our heavenly Father, and it provides a pattern of daily consecration in prayer to His will for us.

Defining the Human Will

The human will can be looked at as a person’s ability to control their impulses or instincts. Sometimes a person is referred to as having a strong will or someone who has the capability to control their impulses. Words that describe the human will include determination, choice, purpose, or inclination. These words describe a person who exercises their human will, i.e., “He determined or purposed to go to the ball game,” or “Of her own choice she went with her friend.”

The human will is designed to be in submission, either to God’s will or to satan’s will. A human being cannot exercise their human will independently from the influence of God’s or satan’s will. It is always influenced by either one or the other. For example, when a person is disobedient or in rebellion to God, they have in essence submitted their will to the influence of satan’s will.

A few years ago, Frank Sinatra sang a song entitled, “I Did It My Way.” But the truth is that nobody really lives their life their own way. When someone thinks they did it their own way, they are believing a lie. Either God’s will or satan’s will influences the human will of every human being to do what they do. Invisible, spiritual forces influence people to exercise their human will in certain ways, often without them being conscious of it happening.

God Has A Will

Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created (Revelation 4:11 KJV).

The word pleasure in this verse comes from the same Greek word that is also translated elsewhere in the Scriptures as “will.” By this we can see that God’s will and God’s pleasure are connected and operate in agreement. It was the will of God to originally create all things for His pleasure. At the end of the seven days of creation, God looked at all He had made, and His evaluation was that it was very good, or very pleasing to Him (see Genesis 1:31).

After the fall of man in the Garden of Eden when they disobeyed God, Adam’s lineage existed in sin and unrighteousness for over 5,000 years. Although the children of Israel were selected by God to be His people, they had not been born again since Jesus hadn’t yet provided redemption for all who believe in Him. In the fullness of time, it pleased God to exercise His will to provide redemption for humankind through Jesus Christ and recreate those who believe in Him (see Galatians 4:4).

Therefore, the born-again person is a product of both God’s will and pleasure. The apostle John wrote in his gospel:

But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God (John 1:12-13 NKJV).

Jesus Came to Do the Father’s Will

Jesus was born, not by man’s will, but by the will of God. John 6:38 (NKJV) tells us He lived and ministered by the will of God, “For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.” Also Jesus, in accordance with the will of God the Father, gave Himself for our sins. The apostle Paul tells us that Christ, “gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us from this present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father” (Galatians 1:4 NKJV).

God has written His will for humankind in His Word, and these two things cannot be separated. Just as Jesus came in the flesh to reveal the will of the Father, so the written Word also reveals the will of God to us. God is not a man that He should lie, saying one thing in His Word and then using His divine will to do something different. God is faithful to His Word and will do what He has promised in His Word. Abraham received the promise of God after he became fully persuaded that what God had promised, He was also able to perform (see Romans 4:21).

Satan Also Has A Will

How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How you are cut down to the ground, you who weakened the nations! For you have said in your heart: “I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation on the farthest sides of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High” (Isaiah 14:12-14 NKJV).

In these verses, we find what can be called the five “I wills” of satan. Satan made five different statements and each one began with “I will.” All five of these statements opposed God and show that satan wanted to take over God’s kingdom. By doing this, satan exercised his will against God’s will and rebelled against God. However, he did not prevail in what he wanted to do. In the end, God cast satan out of Heaven along with one third of the angels who chose to follow satan. This is the first recorded act of rebellion against God’s will in the Bible.

Today, satan is continually trying to influence people to rebel against God’s will. People who rebel against God’s plan are being influenced, often without realizing it, by satan and his demonic spirits. Those who are exercising their will against God’s will have yielded their will to satan’s will and are committing iniquity or sin; they are missing the mark of doing God’s will and are rebelling against what God wanted for them.