How You Can Influence God

by Ernest L. Martin, Ph.D., 1998

It is the easiest thing in the world for a human being to influence in a positive manner the divine Father of the universe whom we call "God the Father." All we humans have to know is how to do it? That's right! It is essential that you possess the proper knowledge on how to accomplish the task. In this Doctrinal Report, I am going to disclose to you the proper way that you can influence God to do what you wish and you will always be successful if you utilize the knowledge of how it is done, and you always express a boldness in your actions. If you set out to influence God the Father, there can be no guessing in any detail of the procedure. There can be no halting or wavering in intention or sequence of steps. There can be no wishy-washy approaches. God the Father expects and demands that you encounter Him in a particular way. If you do, you will always get His attention. The strategy that you use may even cause Him to change His mind in your favor on certain matters that may be important to you. But to reach His attention (and it is not difficult to do) requires you to approach Him in a correct and proper manner. Remember, when Aaron the High Priest in the time of Moses positioned himself before God, he had to do it with a great deal of preparation and in a manner that God the Father prescribed. You should follow the same procedure. Of course, you should try to discover what His will is and to work within it (I John 5:14), and we should abide by His will even if He decides to change His mind (as He has done on numerous occasions, see for example Jeremiah 18:6-10).

Now let me mention a few things as an introduction. There are divine teachings in the Holy Scriptures that show that Jesus Christ presently sits on the right side of the Father, directly next to Him. To speak with the Father, Christ simply has to turn His head to the left and begin His dialogue. And, in doing this, the Scriptures show that Christ certainly influences the Father in what He says all the time (Romans 8:18-39). Indeed, these verses in Romans show that Christ speaks to the Father about matters that are engendered through His own will and by the exercise of His own ideas and notions. Conversely, God the Father can turn His head to the right and enter into a dialogue with Christ. He also influences Christ Jesus with His own will and His own ideas and notions. As a matter of fact, the two divine beings are so close in their ways of thinking that there is a natural congeniality and unanimity between them. Their dialogues are always consistent and harmonious in every factor encountered within their discussions. And, even if you would desire to engage in a similar discussion with each or both of them, they would allow you to do so if they found that your discourse was worthwhile and productive. They will listen to you with the same consistency and harmonious attention that they enjoy themselves.

The Oneness of God the Father with Christ Jesus and with All of Us IN CHRIST

We are informed in the Scriptures that Christ Jesus is not only in the image of God the Father, but He is in "the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high" (Hebrews 1:3). In Christ's role as our substitute in all things that pleased the Father through obedience to Him or that were demanded by the Father in payments for our sins, Christ became "the captain" (Hebrews 2:10) of all of us who inherit our individual salvations in Christ. Christ became a substitute for each of us. Indeed, as Christ is now called the Son of God (Hebrews 1:5), also the firstbegotten (verse 6) as well as the "firstborn among many brethren" (Romans 8:29), so are we also reckoned to be His own personal and intimate brethren. "He [Christ] is not ashamed to call them brethren, saying, I will declare thy name unto my brethren, in the midst of the church [ekklesia, God's divine community of brothers and sisters] will I sing praise unto thee.… And again, I and the children which God hath given me" (Hebrews 2:11-13). These children are both males and females. "Ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty" (II Corinthians 6:18). This whole congregation of brothers and sisters (with Christ as our Elder Brother) is called in the last part of the Book of Hebrews "the general assembly and church [Ekklesia] of the firstborn [the original Greek is plural: firstborn ones]" (Hebrews 12:23). Legally speaking, we Christians are right now sitting on the right hand of the Father "in Christ" (Ephesians 2:6). We are now considered to be exactly like Christ (to be firstborn ones of the Father). When the Father sees Christ sitting on His right hand, He also sees each of us (individually and collectively) sitting on the same right hand throne "in Christ" (Ephesians chapters one to three). This privilege is yours at the present.

How Long Have We Been In Christ?

We were allotted and chosen to be "in Christ" before the foundation of the world, or to put it another way, before Adam and Eve (our first parents) were ever created to become human beings. The apostle Paul wrote under divine inspiration: "Who [God the Father] hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began" (II Timothy 1:9). This predestined award to us (and I mean you personally) was not according to any works (good or bad) that we have done or would do (because none of us was actually in existence at the time). It was purely by grace (God's divine gift) that secured for us our individual and collective salvations. Or, as Paul explained it in his previous epistle to Timothy. "Who will have all men to be saved and to come unto the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one mediator between God and men [all men], the man Christ Jesus [Paul still called Christ an anthropos though Christ was then glorified and a member of the Family of God]; who gave himself a ransom for all [for all mankind], to be testified in due time [Greek: in its own time periods]" (I Timothy 2:4-6).

God Knows All Things from the Beginning

At the first Jerusalem conference of the apostles, James stood among them and gave a divine dictum that each of the apostles knew to be true. He said: "Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world" (Acts 15:18). God the Father and Christ Jesus were fully aware before the creation of mankind that all mankind are saved (they were saved before the world's foundation). But not all come to accept Christ in this life, nor in other ages of the past. But God has consigned His "own time periods" (see the Greek at I Timothy 2:6) when God the Father will dispense the knowledge of Christ and the full truth of His plan of salvation to each human being (individually and collectively). Indeed, no man or woman can come to God and learn of His truth, and to accept Christ Jesus as savior (as they are all destined to do at a time God has designed for each person). Look at John 6:44. "No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I [Christ Jesus] will raise him up at the last day." See also John 6:65. "Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me [Christ Jesus], except it were given unto him of my Father." However, all men will eventually be called in their "own time periods."

One's calling goes much further than simply making an opportunity available for people to accept Christ, and they in turn revere Him according to their own wills. In no way. Look at Philippians 2:13. "For it is God which worketh in you both TO WILL and TO DO [to perform] of His good pleasure." In this scripture we are informed in the clearest of language that it is NOT your own WILL that accepts Christ. Your salvation was given to you by grace before the foundation of the world. It is God's WILL that grants you salvation. Not only that, it is NOT your own WORKS (that is, your own doing) that performs the necessary requirements to get you saved. Again, it is God who performs the works and provides you with the will. These attributes are of divine (not human) origin.

In things that pertain to salvation, or your relationship with God the Father or Christ, you have no will of your own to accept or to reject any inspiration of belief placed in you engendered by the actions of the divine Family. The WILL and the ABILITY to do things pertaining to your salvation are expressed by the supernatural will and ability that God attaches to you by His grace and power (Philippians 2:13). Though you may be completely unaware of it (because of your physical limitations), it is God's will in action, not yours.

However, in all matters NOT pertaining to salvation (such as affairs of the family, job, sickness, health, money, relationships with others, talents, likes and dislikes, etc.), you can do as you like. Even here, moreover, God is still in charge of your wills and abilities so that you can never accept or do anything that is contrary to His overall will for you and mankind. No one can ever thwart God's will either for good or evil that He has devised (and remember God is the creator of both good and evil, Isaiah 45:7). In these matters, it is like God tying a horse to an iron pole with a twenty feet tether and let the horse do as he pleases within that radius. But brethren, let us realize that even the pole, the tether and the horse (or say the human being) are also created and used exactly as God wants. There is no WILL of man involved in the creation by God of those physical or spiritual limits.

What makes each of us a person is something that God gives each of us by His singular creative power. Our abilities to do such and such things or to show our likes and the dislikes for some things in life are a reflection of God's own creative powers working in us. Let's face it, each of us is a product of God (fully and completely with all our idiosyncrasies, even the ones we may not like). We are not creations that we ourselves have devised. Truthfully, I would have created myself quite differently than God made me (and I bet most of you would say the same thing). Even the things that we ourselves desire to create in our own lives have been supernaturally initiated and instilled within us by God. He created us the way He wanted us to be in the first place. So, even our own creative powers are simply a reflection of God and His will and His creation. We have nothing to do with the issue. To teach us lessons in life, God can even punish us for using in an outward manner the potential for illicit desires and lusts which He placed within each of us that is contrary to His teachings in the Holy Scriptures or to society in general.

Actually, God the Father selected all members of the human race to be His child- ren before the foundation of the world. We were back at that time placed "in Christ" (II Timothy 1:9). But we were not yet born nor had we become human beings. Still, the Father wanted us to have some experiences to teach us to become educated and mature "children" of His. He gave His firstborn Son, Christ Jesus, the role in being our captain to give us teaching and leadership in bringing all of us into the divine Family of God. That is what Ephesians and Colossians describe in detail. And in the Gospel of John we discover some intimate details on what all of us (individually and collectively) are to become.

Pay particular attention to what Christ taught from John 13 to 17 inclusively. Summing up, Christ said: "Neither pray I for these alone [the eleven apostles who were being taught], but for them also which shall believe on me through their word [this is all of us and soon the rest of the world]; that THEY may ALL BE ONE; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that THEY also may be ONE IN US: that THE WORLD [the whole system of human beings who now make up the entirety of the world] may believe that thou hast sent me. And the glory which thou gavest me I HAVE GIVEN THEM [all of us]: that THEY MAY BE ONE, even as WE ARE ONE; I IN THEM, and THOU IN ME, that THEY [all of us] MAY BE MADE PERFECT [as "perfect" as God is now "perfect"] IN ONE; and that THE WORLD may know that THOU [GOD THE FATHER] HAST LOVED THEM [all of us along with the apostles], as THOU HAST LOVED ME" (John 17:20-23).

We find being described in the above verses the ONENESS of the divine Family of God. It is the true "Godhead." And note that it is ONE God, but it includes the Father, Christ, the apostles, and all the rest of us, and eventually all humanity. The modern pagan Trinity doctrine of Christendom falsely believes that the Godhead is God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. The biblical Trinity is God the Father, God the Son and God the Us [the human race who were selected to be "in Christ" before world's foundation].

How Can We Influence God the Father?

Even now (as human beings and with our lack of spiritual knowledge in many things), we are members of the divine Family of God. We represent the sacred Trinity: God the Father, God the Son and God the Us. We are even now reckoned a part of the Godhead as is Christ, and even as God the Father (but we are NOT the head, the Father is the head). The WILL and the ABILITY that we have to accept Christ and God's ways are things supernatural that have been placed in us by the Head (Philippians 2:13). It is NOT our own wills in action, it is the Father's will. We are a part of the divine Family required to obey and to submit to the Head, because this is good for us. So, if the Father wants to change His mind (and He can do so if He pleases), the Father will inspire our Elder Brother (Christ Jesus) to motivate us to encourage God to go ahead and change His mind.

This is a privilege God grants to Christ and to Us. He will listen to US (and to Christ). He will change His mind since it is He who inspired each of us (who are ONE with HIM) to have Him change His mind in the first place. Yes, we are that powerful. I hope that we use our privileges as His divine children to influence Him to do what He has planned to perform. We can encourage Him to change His mind if He so desires. He will let us know when He does. It is then our duty to support Him. This is not circular reasoning. It is exercising our executive powers in the Godhead that sustains the universe. Brethren, we humans are (even now) an indivisible and an essential part of that ONE divine Family. Let us not give up our sacred inheritance by believing in erroneous follies of mankind.]

Ernest L. Martin