This subject is definitely worthy of our attention. It's amazing how we pick up ideas of cause and effect, as we grow up.Of course, we should never forget that prayer changes things, including how we atribute blame -which at times, should indeed be placed elsewhere - not on ourselves - or, at the feet of sin and the flesh.There is a verse I'd like to share, which always comes to mind when 'the will' is being considered. Mark 11:4 And they went their way, and found the colt tied by the door without in a place where two ways met; and they loose him. In this snapshot, the colt represents the will. This was a colt on whom no man had ever sat. It had always done what it liked, but, Jesus was soon to be taking control of it, and it would be doing what He liked. How happy are we when Jesus wants to control our will?The colt was living at a place of choices - the two ways. I wonder which way it would have chosen had it not been tied up? We can be sure that if Jesus had come to the colt, He would have taken it on the 'right' road.In fact, the colt had to go somewhere else to meet Jesus - neutral territory. Before that though, it had to be loosed. This reminds me of what Jesus told those who met Lazarus as he came out of the tomb, bound up in death-clothes - 'loose him'. These words should be music to our ears, if we have been so locked in the death grip of our own will, it represents a tomb to us. The man called Legion, who chose to live in the tombs in Gadarene country, knew about that kind of living death. He also knew what was wrong with him 'we are many' but could not get free. However, he did have some willpower left to him. Mark 52 And when He was come out of the ship, immediately there met Him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit,3 Who had his dwelling among the tombs; and no man could bind him, no, not with chains:4 Because that he had been often bound with fetters and chains, and the chains had been plucked asunder by him, and the fetters broken in pieces: neither could any tame him.5 And always, night and day, he was in the mountains, and in the tombs, crying, and cutting himself with stones.6 But when he saw Jesus afar off, he ran and worshipped Him,7 And cried with a loud voice, and said, What have I to do with thee, Jesus, Son of the most high God? I adjure thee by God, that thou torment me not. Notice too, not only could he run towards Jesus in this condition, he knew who He was and was able to worship Him WHILE HE WAS STILL DEMON-POSSESSED. Learn from this. You can follow after the Lord and His righteousness and demons will leave you.But not until the word of God sent his inner tormentors away, could he be in his 'right mind'.
