As our Lord and Savior hung on the cross in His last hour, His enemies mocked Him saying “He saved others; Himself He cannot save!” (Matt. 27:42a). While hurling insults at the Messiah, these fools had no idea Jesus could have called 12 legions of angels (72,000!) to obliterate them. They were claiming that the one who controlled the behavior of the ocean, the one who cast out demons, diseases, and death from people, the one who fed 9,000 people with only 12 loaves and 5 fish, the one who defeated Satan’s direct attacks in the wilderness, and the one who was the Son of God could not save Himself.

How foolish! For Jesus, it was not a matter of could not, but rather of would not. We learn an incredible lesson from our King that, for Christians, there needs to be a huge gap between what we could do and what we would do.

As human beings, we are capable of many things. If someone wronged us, we could retaliate. If we wanted, we could say things to hurt others. We could watch any movie we want. We could do whatever we want with the person we are dating. We could throw up our hands when life gets tough. We could hold grudges against people. We could slander our brethren behind their backs.

However, as Christians life is not about what we could do, but what we would do, and what we would do needs to be what our Heavenly Father would have us to do. Jesus could have done whatever He wanted with His time on earth, but even from an early age He determined that what he would do was be about His Father’s business (Luke 2:49).

The word “would” is closely associated with the word “will.” What we “would” do in a certain situation is based on whatever we “will” to happen. A major part of spiritual growth as Christians is to train our wills to change our “woulds.” However, this change is often unpleasant because it is always easier to give in to our “coulds.”

Brethren, instead of viewing this process as unpleasant, we should learn to enjoy changing the things that we would do in life. Many times we waste so much time fantasizing about what we could do that we forget the great joy, peace, and lasting satisfaction that comes with doing what Jesus would do - “Man I coulda really let that guy have it!” “Man I coulda gone all the way with that girl!” “Man I coulda fought harder to have the last word!” “Man I coulda...” – that we forget the great joy, peace and lasting satisfaction that comes with doing what Jesus would do. We need to forget “man, I coulda” and be thankful for the times we make the decision to bring our will into subjection to the Lord’s.

Let us press on and embrace the process of changing our mindsets to an attitude of “not my would, but Yours be done.”

Brian Messerli