What I am about to write took me many years of struggle, prayer and fasting to learn simply because by nature I am hard (some say bull) headed. I was determined to “walk with God by being in agreement with Him” (Amos 3:3), which meant being on the same spiritual level with Him relative to holiness and righteousness. My failures in that regard were regular and heart-wrenching. Coming from a farming, “If it’s going to get done I’ve got to do it” background, I never failed to fail in my efforts to “walk as Jesus walked” and to “overcome as I (Jesus) overcame” in order to “sit with Him on His throne” in the coming kingdom of God. What I had to learn involved allowing God to do what I “knew” I was supposed to do for myself. As already noted, I failed miserably. I became so frustrated that I even contemplated suicide.

But God knew my heart, had mercy on me and, in accordance with His timing, arranged for me to read a message written by one much wiser than I, a man named Herbert W. Armstrong. Having been told by God to “Listen to him. He is important,” I finally “saw the light” and followed it to God’s Truth concerning the taming of my will. The will is the “self” that man must allow God to tame and control if he is to have any chance at eternal life. This series features the instruction that we must follow in order to spend eternity with the Father and the Son in the Kingdom of God.

In Revelation 3:21 Jesus tells us what we must do in order to sit with Him on His throne in New Jerusalem. The key is to quit sin utterly and permanently. Impossible, we are told by pastors, evangelists, missionaries and laity alike. Satan smiles each time the lie is repeated. In the Revelation statement Jesus tells us that we must “… overcome even as I overcame.” The former Word Who created the universe (Jn. 1:1-4,14) had to face Satan’s and self’s temptations and overcome them exactly as we must do. Jesus had to prove His love for God by obeying Him (Jn. 15:10). The same goes for those who would spend eternity with Him (Jn. 15:10).

Satan is one of the factors that must be overcome. But the main, and most powerful enemy man must overcome is himself, meaning his will. As this series will prove, man cannot do this using His own power. Trust me, no one had more will power than yours truly. But my power was not sufficient to get to where God was calling me. He was telling me to “come up hither” to where He is spiritually. And He is calling you to join Him also. Jesus did it and so must we. However, He could not get it done by Himself, and neither can we. Read “Come up Hither.” Key word–Hither.

Not even the Son of God could master His own will using His own human powers. He said that He could do nothing of (by) Himself, that everything He did He did by the power of His Father as delivered by the Holy Spirit. Even the words He spoke were given to Him from on high through the Holy Spirit (Jn. 12:49,50). For this reason He will judge us by “… every Word that I have spoken” (vs 48). Notice that He also said that we must live by “… every Word that comes from the mouth of God” (Mat. 4:4). God spoke; His Words were carried to the man Jesus by the Holy Spirit; Jesus spoke them. EVERY WORD IN THE HOLY BIBLE WAS FIRST SPOKEN BY GOD, THEN SPOKEN AND WRITTEN BY THOSE WHO HEARD HIM. I know how hard this is to comprehend. But we must remember, His ways are unknowable. That’s what makes Him God. He does not owe us an explanation as to why and how He does what He does. We are fortunate that we know what little we do know.

Through the power of God we must gain and maintain mastery over Satan and self, as did Jesus–by the power of

God. Upon coming to earth as a man He left behind all godly power (Phil. 2:5-8). “He made Himself of no reputation” literally means that He “poured out” all of His Godly powers. He “learned obedience by the things (temptations) that He suffered” and His prayers were “heard because He feared” God (Heb. 5:7,8). Isaiah 7:14-17 tells us that Jesus had to learn to choose the good over the bad. That’s right: AS A HUMAN, JESUS HAD TO LEARN TO OBEY GOD. HE HAD CHOICES TO MAKE AND NEEDED GOD’S HELP IN MAKING THE RIGHT CHOICES. HE FEARED THAT HE MIGHT NOT. JESUS LEARNED AND FOLLOWED WHAT HE LEARNED PERFECTLY, SETTING US THE PERFECT EXAMPLE. Read Jesus of Nazareth: God, Man or God-man? Key word–Nazareth.

As a man, Jesus had the same inner desires as you and I, otherwise He could not be our example which we must emulate in order to rise in the first resurrection. Read the Three Resurrections and The Kingdom of God. Key words–Three and kingdom respectively. However, when tempted, He did not look to Himself alone in order to overcome the devil’s test. HE DID NOT EXERT HIS OWN POWER IN ORDER TO NOT DO WHAT HE REALLY WANTED TO DO. HE REALLY DID NOT WANT (WILL) TO DO WHAT HE WAS NOT SUPPOSED TO DO. That is the key to overcoming the temptations and pulls of Satan and self. We must come to the point that we really do not want to do what the world’s unconverted want to do. True conversion reverses this process and the power of the Holy Spirit enables us to turn to the Father for help in CHANGING OUR WILL TO MATCH THAT OF THE FATHER SO THAT WE DO NOT WANT TO WANT TO SIN. SEEING OUR DETERMINATION, GOD WILL THEN CONTROL OUR WILL AND ALIGN IT WITH HIS WILL. THE KEY IS TO SURRENDER OUR WILL TO HIM. As Jesus said, He could do NOTHING using His own power. Total surrender is what it takes. Satan will do everything in his power to prevent us from doing that because he knows that once we have reached that level, changing us is ALMOST impossible. Christ’s sweating great drops of blood on the night before His death tells us that even the Son of God was capable of sinning by giving in to the devil to save Himself from what He knew what was coming. He won the war by submitting His will to the hand of God, saying: “Nevertheless, not My will but thine be done” (Lk. 22:42). With those Words He placed His will in the hands of the Father.

Jesus “was tempted on all points as we are, yet without sin” (Heb. 4:15). What was it about this man that enabled Him to undergo the same temptation that we all do AND REPEL THEM EVERY TIME? Did He have some special ability to do that? The answer is “NO.” Jesus of Nazareth did not sin BECAUSE HE DID NOT WANT TO SIN. His “wanter” (will) had been changed so that it was not like that of other men. Our will is our mind. We are told that true saints “have the mind of Christ,” and that those who do not have His mind must “allow the mind which was in Christ to abide in you (us)” (1 Cor. 2:16/ Phil. 2:5). Impossible, we are told. Then why did God lie about it–twice? It is said about Christ that “There was no darkness in Him at all,” and there was not so much as a “shadow of turning” (to sin) in Him (1 Jn. 1:5/ Jam. 1:17). The Lord’s mind was clear of sin at all times. Why? BECAUSE HE DID NOT WANT TO SIN–THAT WAS HIS MIND-SET. HE HATED SIN AND LOVED RIGHTEOUSNESS. IT WAS A MATTER OF ATTITUDE (WILL/MINDSET). We can have that same attitude which God provides only to those whose ONLY desire in this life is to walk in oneness with the Lord in perfect obedience to His will. He will take care of everything else. This is perfectly spoken in Matthew 6:33 where we are told to “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS, and “all these (needed) things will be added unto you.”

No matter how spiritual we are, we cannot overcome Satan’s “fiery darts” of temptation using our own power, Jesus of Nazareth being our perfect example. No amount of self-resistance, self-discipline and willpower can prevent us from going the way of the world. WE MUST BE CONQUERED BY ALMIGHTY GOD. Our minds/wills must be placed under the power of God in order to “walk as He (Jesus) walked” (1 Jn. 2:6) and to overcome as Jesus overcame, both of which we must do in order to rise in the first resurrection.

In order to “walk as He walked” in this life we must become human gods as was Jesus, our example. Recall that when Thomas saw Him following His death and resurrection , he exclaimed: “My Lord and my God.” Note that Jesus did not correct Him (Jn. 20:28). Recall that when the recently impregnated Mary visited her cousin Elizabeth who was pregnant with John the Baptist, Elizabeth exclaimed upon seeing Mary: “… the mother of my God has come to me” (Lk. 1:43). We fellow humans must become human gods as the human Jesus became a human God by obeying His heavenly Father. As a man by ruled by God Himself, Jesus was spiritually a God. And so must we be. These Truths are the objects of ridicule within the Institutional Church, which is why God commands those who want only to “Be ye holy as your heavenly Father is holy” (1 Pet. 1:15,16; 2:5,9) to leave “the church” and to have nothing to do with “that unclean thing” (2 Cor. 6:14-7:1). That is a command which is obeyed by those who will join Christ in the air upon His Second Advent.

Impossible, even blasphemous we are told from Satan’s spokespersons. However, that man can become a god in this life is Biblical. Jesus, while talking to some Jews, said in reference to an Old Testament passage: “Did I not say in your Law, ‘Ye are (potential) gods?’ He called them gods to whom the Word of God came (human beings), and the Scripture cannot be broken ….” (10:35). Those Jews were accusing Him of blasphemy because, being a man, He had called God His Father, making Him equal with God. He was telling them that they too could become gods as He was a God if they followed His example of obedience. In First John 2:6 the apostle said that, if we call ourselves children of God we must “walk as He (Jesus) walked (lived).” Jesus was a man who was also a God because of His obedience to the spirit God. So must we be if we are to join Him in the Kingdom of God on earth. He said of Himself as a man: “When men have seen Me, they have seen the Father.” We must live (“walk”) in such a way that we can truthfully say that about ourselves.

If we cannot stop committing sins, or if we fail to do what we are supposed to do, then we must take the problem to the Lord. We must allow Him to replace our minds with His mind so that we DO NOT WANT TO SIN. THIS REQUIRES A CHANGE OF WILL, WHICH ONLY GOD CAN ACCOMPLISH. WE MUST ALLOW HIM TO DO WHAT HE WANTS TO DO–REPLACE OUR WILL WITH HIS BY REPLACING OUR MINDS WITH THE MIND OF CHRIST.

This series will bring to light God’s will that we become gods in human form as was Jesus of Nazareth. His relationship with the Father constituted a hand-in-glove situation. Jesus was the glove; God was the hand. A glove moves only when the hand inside it moves. We must also have that hand-in-glove relationship with the Father. We must become gods in human form. Impossible? Not only possible, but mandatory. To be a glove relative to God’s hand requires that we be totally conquered by Him. There is no other way to enter the soon-coming Kingdom of God. Read about that kingdom using the key word Kingdom. The death of self now is the price of entrance. The prize will be well worth the cost. L.J.