Doing the will of the Father

This is the first of five blogs intended to help you to DISCOVER and ACTUALISE the will of the Father for you.

Christ lived for the Father

Jesus Christ, our model and saviour, from the very first moment of his life till the last breath on the cross, was guided by the Holy Spirit to do the Will of the Father:

“My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work” (John 4:34, cf. 6:38).

The conscious aim of Christ from an early age

This inspiration of the Spirit to do the Will of the Father was made clear to him early in life. At least from the age of twelve. This is manifested in the answer he gave to his mother Mary and Joseph, who had been looking for him anxiously for him:

“Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” (Luke 2:49)

Chose the Father over the temptations

That Christ was always focused on actualising the will of the Father, is also manifested in a special way in his replies to the devil when he was tempted just before starting his ministry. When tempted to “command these stones to become loaves of bread” and “All these [kingdoms of the world and their splendour] I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me” (Mattew 4:3,9), Jesus replied:

“One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4).

“Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him” (Matthew 4:10).

Called God ‘Daddy’

Christ’s intimacy with the Father is also shown in the language he used while relating to Him. In Mark 14:36 Jesus is seen addressing God the Father as “Abba.” This “Aramaic word, which we can translate into contemporary language as “dad” or “daddy”, expresses the affectionate tenderness of a child […]. “Abba” indicates the extraordinary closeness that exists between Jesus and God the Father, an intimacy unprecedented in the biblical or non-biblical religious context” (Saint John Paul II, General Audience, March 3 1999, n.4).

A unique relationship

Jesus knows he is always heard. We can observe this in the episode of the raising of Lazarus:

“Father, I thank you for having heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me”  (John 11:41-42).

Because of this intimate understanding, Jesus can present himself as the One who reveals the Father as he is portrayed expressing himself in the gospel:

“All things have been handed over to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him” (Matthew 11:27)

It is important to note however that, although he felt united with the Father in so intimate a way, Jesus admitted that he did not know the hour of the final and decisive coming of the kingdom. “But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father” (Matthew 24:36).

Invited his disciples to direct their life to the Father

This intimacy of Christ with his Father, is also manifested in his teachings. In fact, when asked by a scribe “Which commandment is the first of all?” Jesus answered,

“The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one;  you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength’” (Mark 12:28-30).

This intimacy with the Father is also manifested in his teaching on prayer.

No compromise with this Will

For Jesus, there was no compromise with accomplishing the Will of the Father. He expressed this thought in the parable of the dishonest manager

“No slave can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth” (Luke 16:13).

To the Jews who had been persecuting him because he had worked a miraculous cure on the Sabbath, he replied: “My Father is working still, and I am working” (John 5:17).

The climax of this non-compromise to the will of the Father is manifested at the end of his life when he chose the will of the Father over his own life:

“Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me; yet, not my will but yours be done” (Luke 22:42). 

Following the footsteps of Christ, we are called to live for the Father

Now, since “those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son”(Romans 8:28), “in order that the faithful may reach this perfection […], they must follow in His [Christ’s] footsteps and conform themselves to His image seeking the will of the Father in all things” (Lumen Gentium, n. 40).

Prompted from within by the Holy Spirit

As the Holy Spirit guided Jesus to do the will of the Father, this same Spirit who dwells in our heart (1 Corinthians 6:19), prompts each one of us from within to do the will of Father, since

“God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’” (Galatians 4:6).

Authentic guidance of the Holy Spirit leads to this will, since “when the work which the Father gave the Son to do on earth was accomplished, the Holy Spirit was sent on the day of Pentecost in order that He might continually sanctify the Church, and thus, all those who believe would have access through Christ in one Spirit to the Father” (Lumen Gentium, n. 4).

Stimulated by Christ’s presecnce

Furthermore, the living in the presence of Christ also leads to this will, since “For Jesus the climax of this life and actions was the Father, his living in union with the Father. He lived for the Father, with the Father, and in the Father; that is why he took on himself the mystery of the Passion, till its climax in his death on the cross” (The Bible and Morality, n. 138). More than this, “Christ proposed to His disciples this form of life, which He, as the Son of God, accepted in entering this world to do the will of the Father” (Lumen Gentium, n. 44).

Taking all this into consideration, like Christ, we are called to live in tension to discover this Will for our life. And thus, while allowing ourselves to be guided by the Holy Spirit, the question to be answered here is:

What might I do to understand the personal will of the Father for me?

Humanly speaking, two of the things that might help in the understanding of this will, is the awareness of one’s existential situation and personal mission.