Drafting a good will
Finding a good will in your hands would surely make someone happy. At least at first.
This is probably what many think, but few experience.
There's nothing wrong with expecting to have a will in your hands; after all, that is exactly the purpose of a will: knowing you can change your life.
Even though I've written only three lines of this article, I feel I can see your face as you wonder about the topic. Probably because you're going over in your mind whether there's anyone in the world who could leave you something and radically change your life.
To have a will, someone has to die
The final thought is surely finding yourself with something concrete in your hands, but the fact is that someone would have to die for your wish to come true. So you hadn't realised that you were wishing, in a broad sense, for someone's death!
I don't mean you thought of making someone die, but one thing I know for sure is that a dead person gains esteem precisely after their final absence, that is, death. Believe me, I've heard people praise even the worst of men, after his death, with the title of "good man".
Don't think I'm against this, but I've always seen hypocrisy in this statement, let's call it final. I believe that if a person hates me or keeps despising me, even behind my back, and after my death changes their judgement, declaring I was a good man, sorry, but I see hypocrisy in that. Lies from the living about the dead.
OK, now the usual line that nobody's perfect, but what we should analyse in these cases is precisely our behaviour while alive. Surely not excellent; who doesn't have something to say about someone? I get it wrong on this too, and many times I've found myself apologising and confessing my sin, even taking moral slaps for it.
The will written during life
And yet I can say that the good will comes precisely from this radical change, while you're still alive. It's not a change that only concerns the living towards the testator, but also the life of the testator. Usually the good deed, the will, is also made in return for something received. I understand this can be a very convoluted argument, but the ultimate aim is the reciprocity of attitudes, behaviours and various other situations that lead to being repaid, if we want to call it that.
If the testator told you to go and fetch him a glass of water from the Gaza Strip because it was his last wish, I don't know whether you'd call it an acceptable request. Certainly such a request would seem almost ridiculous, but it could also happen in order to test your faithfulness in carrying out an important act and, unconsciously, bring about the change of your life.
'At that time David was in the stronghold, and the Philistine garrison was at Bethlehem. David longed for water and said, "Oh, that someone would get me a drink of water from the well near the gate of Bethlehem!" So the three mighty warriors broke through the Philistine lines, drew water from the well near the gate of Bethlehem and carried it back to David. But he refused to drink it; instead, he poured it out before the Lord. "Far be it from me, Lord, to do this!" he said. "Is it not the blood of men who went at the risk of their lives?" And David would not drink it. Such were the exploits of the three mighty warriors.'
Samuel 23:14-17
It's not that David in this case asked for water only to refuse it, after having put his men's lives at risk; rather, at that moment he had learned an excellent lesson about the faithfulness of these brave warriors in his service. David, as everyone knows, is the man after God's own heart, but that doesn't make him a god on earth; he was simply a man, a king chosen by God, yes, but with his difficulties, his mistakes, his victories.
The actions to receive a good will
A more concrete example, which I won't quote in full and which you can read in your Bible, is found in Galatians chapter 3, as well as in Genesis chapter 15. In this chapter of Galatians, as in Genesis, you'll read about the faithfulness of Abraham, the man who, trusting God, left his land without knowing his destination and certainly without knowing why God was asking it. It is written that God recognised his faithfulness and it was credited to him as righteousness. In practice God recognises that Abraham was faithful to Him, credits this faithfulness as righteousness and makes him this promise: that the nations of all the earth will be blessed in him, because of his faithfulness, for him and for his offspring. Careful: not to his offsprings, but to his offspring. To those who have been faithful like him, and so in turn to the descendants who will imitate this faith. Imitation meaning a replica of faithfulness.
So a will is valid when the promise made concerns the one who receives it and those who will enjoy it in the life to come.
A will draws its validity from faithfulness and NOT from good works. In fact, the righteous will live by faith, not by works.
Believing you will receive an inheritance
If you still think that by not blaspheming, not stealing, honouring your father and mother, not speaking ill of anyone, not committing fornication and so on, you can be right with God, you are greatly mistaken. You will be justified, that is, judged with righteousness, for your faithfulness to God, that is, for what you live through the son, Yeshua. As an example of life, to do what your work is. Living in relationship with God you will know His will, and the faithfulness that follows will be credited to you as righteousness.
It isn't confusion that's running through your thoughts, but a lack of knowledge. I'm only writing all this so you'll go and discover it. It won't be me teaching it to you; it'll be you searching for the answers in the book of answers, the Bible.
Read it, don't tire of getting to know it, and reread it to learn to recognise.
The true will
You are a living will; you only need to discover it to be a blessing and a change for someone who receives all this. Don't worry if you're pointed at as a madman or harmoniously described as free to follow what you believe, but know that God called the last to shame the wise, and there's no need to conform to others to be righteous; take the best from God instead.
Rebellion? No! Just the conviction of a concrete promise from God. They say time will tell, but I'd say that whoever is faithful will live in eternity and will see.
Happy discovering.
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