A Willing Heart...

 Take from among you an offering to the LORD. Whoever is of a willing heart, let him bring it as an offering to the LORD: gold, silver, and bronze; 6 blue, purple, and scarlet thread, fine linen, and goats’ hair; 7 ram skins dyed red, badger skins, and acacia wood; 8 oil for the light, and spices for the anointing oil and for the sweet incense; 9 onyx stones, and stones to be set in the ephod and in the breastplate.—Exodus 35:5-9

Beloved, our heart is the “seat” of our will. God wants our hearts surrendered to Him to do His will...not our own. The beautiful thing about this is that it is what is best for us anyway. Read Psalm 33:11 and also Jeremiah 29:11:

The counsel of the LORD stands forever,

The plans of His heart to all generations.—Psalm 33:11

For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.—Jeremiah 29:11

I have always loved what Warren Wiersbe says about Psalm 33:11:

“The will of God for His children comes from the heart of God and is an expression of His love for them, so there is no cause for us to be alarmed or afraid (Jer. 29:11).”

How wonderful is that.  God wants the best for us.  We can trust Him. Jesus illustrates this in the Garden of Gethsemane saying:

“My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death. Stay here and watch with Me.”

39 He went a little farther and fell on His face, and prayed, saying, “O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will.”—Matt 26:38-39

John MacArthur says that Jesus’ cry of anguish here reflects the extreme bitterness of the cup of wrath He was given.  Not as I will but as You will implies no conflict between the Persons of the Godhead. Rather, it graphically reveals how Christ in His humanity voluntarily surrendered His will to the will of the Father in all things precisely so that there would be no conflict between the divine will and His desires. (See John 4:34; 6:38; 8:29; Phil. 2:8)

Praying today that I can make His footsteps my pathway and surrender what I want — not only for His glory but also for my own temporal and eternal good. I want to be like the people I read about in Exodus today whose hearts were willing to bring an offering to the Lord. Stir up my own heart, Father, and make it voluntarily willing to do Your will so joyfully that I need to be restrained from giving. (Exodus 36:6-7) Thinking of Romans 12:1-2

I beseech[a] you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your [b]reasonable service. 2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.