Christ Jesus repeatedly emphasized his desire to do the will of God. No scene described in all the Scriptures is more revelatory of his paramount purpose to do God's will than is found in the account of his experience in the garden of Gethsemane, as recorded in the gospel of Matthew. Stirred to the depths of his nature at the prospect of Calvary and the cross, the human sense struggled in him for supremacy. "O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt," he prayed. What greater exemplification of the subordination of human desire to the divine will could he have given? Destined, as he foresaw, to pass through an experience unequaled in its measure of cruelty and suffering, so intent was he upon carrying out the divine purpose concerning himself that he would endure this greatest trial to do the will of his Father, who, he was convinced, had ordained him to be the Saviour of mankind.
To do God's will is the dearest desire of every true Christian. Every Christian Scientist taking Christ Jesus, as interpreted by Mrs. Eddy, for his great Exemplar has as his highest aim so to subordinate the desires of the flesh to the demands of Spirit as to bring the spiritual into the ascendancy. Our Leader states the problem thus (Miscellaneous Writings, p.208): "Mortals have only to submit to the law of God, come into sympathy with it, and to let His will be done." And she adds in closing the paragraph: "But who is willing to do His will or to let it be done? Mortals obey their own wills, and so disobey the divine order."
Mankind's necessity is to substitute divine will for human desire. This is the true Christianizing process, and upon one's success in accomplishing it depends one's progress Spiritward. No more essential activity confronts men than this! Judged from human standards, the task is not an easy one; nor is it usually accomplished quickly. It is putting off the old man, the mortal or false desires and wrong concepts, thereby giving full expression to the true man, the man of God's creating. It is gaining the Mind of Christ. So long as the human sense predominates in consciousness the struggle goes on, oftentimes, it seems, with varying success, as alternately Spirit and matter seem to be in the ascendancy. But the right desire, supported by earnest and prayerful effort, will gain the desired goal, where God's will is done,—that is to say, where it is, through obedience, recognized that God already reigns, and that His will is done now '"in earth, as it is in heaven."
