When we think we have the mind of the Lord, we then choose, by the force of our will, to do that which we have seen with the Lord. When we have been set free from worldliness, the law of sin in our members, and the poison of self-will in our will, it is an easy, joyous matter to choose to do what we are seeing with the Lord.

This is how Jesus lives and moves and has His being.

Our release from worldliness will not take place until our will commands the choices that will bring release from worldliness.

Our release from the bondages of sin in our body will not take place until our will commands the choices that will bring release from these bondages.

We cannot enter the rest of God, but are in a state of rebellion and disobedience, until our will commands us to choose to obey the commandments of Christ and His Apostles as well as what we believe the Lord would have us do as an individual.

Christ will not be born in us or come to maturity in us until our will commands us to choose the actions and way of life that will receive and nurture the formation and dwelling of Christ in us.

Our resurrected body will not be clothed with a white robe from Heaven unless our will commands us to choose the life of crucifixion and resurrection that creates the body in Heaven.

Our whole personality will not be filled with the Spirit of Life from God unless our will commands us to obey God at every point, because God gives the Spirit to those who obey Him.

We understand, therefore, that our will causes us to choose to work out, or not to work out, our salvation.

The original sin occurred in Heaven as Satan decided to exercise his will before hearing from the Father. It is not impossible that God already had decided to exalt Satan above the other stars of God.

You said in your heart, "I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God; I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly, on the utmost heights of the sacred mountain." (Isaiah 14:13—NIV)

Sometimes sin is the grasping of something that God was prepared to give us at a later date. The legitimate became illegitimate because we moved before God's time.

Satan entered the Garden of Eden and persuaded Eve and Adam to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, which is the eternal moral law of God. They were not ready to eat of this tree because they had not eaten first of the Tree of Life, the Lord Jesus Christ.

After we receive Christ and have eaten from Him, so to speak, we are ready to grow in the knowledge of good and evil, for we now have the wisdom, strength, and desire that are necessary if we are to be able to choose the good and renounce the evil.

Adam and Eve and their descendants are destined to be the judges and rulers of all the creation of God. So their sin was not in eating from that very necessary Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil but of doing so before the proper time.

To be continued.