Lesson 2: Learning His Will
“Teach me to do Your will, for You are my God! Let Your good Spirit lead me on level ground!” – Psalm 143:10

As we read in the closing of the previous lesson, the Will of God is the place in which we live. When we live there, all our actions will become that of doing the Will of God.

When people read, “For the law came by Moses, but grace and truth through Jesus Christ” (John 1:17) do they suppose it means that the law was ungracious and untrue? The law was given for a foundation; the grace (and mercy) and truth for fulfilment; the whole forming one glorious Trinity of judgment, mercy, and truth. If people would but read the text of their Bibles with more deliberate purpose of understanding it, instead of superstitiously, they would see that throughout the parts which they are intended to make their own most personally (the Psalms), it is always the Law which is spoken of with chief joy. The Psalms, when speaking of mercy, are often sorrowful, as if thinking of what it cost; but those respecting the law are always full of delight. David cannot contain himself for joy in thinking of it—he is never weary of its praise. “Oh how I love Your law! It is my meditation all day” (Psalm 119:97). “Your testimonies are my delight; they are my counsellors” (Psalm 119:24). “How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth" (Psalm 119:103).


The Old Testament declares the beginnings of created things, and gives us the history of the race from Creation to four hundred years prior to the coming of Christ. The underlying current of truth running through all its pages has to do with the one subject of the Will of God. Let the panorama of life move before the eye of the mind. Note well its darkness and light, its places of agony and of joy. Mark the deeds which appall, and the heroisms which thrill. From beginning to end, the character of the picture is determined by the relation of men or nations to the Will of God. This is the great message of the Old Testament, that all the rivers that have made sad the life of man have had their source in his departure from that "good and acceptable and perfect Will of God" (Romans 12:2) and all the streams that have made glad the earthly days of individuals, or the cities wherein men have lived, have sprung from the throne of God, which is the seat of His government.

The historical books tell the story of the wandering of man from God again and again, and show how all such wandering resulted in disaster. They also reveal the one unending purpose of God to bring man back into harmony with that Will. The methods were many; the intention one. The devoted of all the ages breathed, if not in words yet in spirit, the same prayer: "Your kingdom come; Your will be done." The very essence of evil lay in the rebellion of the human heart against that Kingdom and that Will.

Let's reflect on, even memorize: “Teach me to do Your will, for You are my God! Let Your good Spirit lead me on level ground!” – Psalm 143:10