To know God is the greatest blessing any human being can have! Can you imagine? Not even the angels are allowed intimacy with the God we call our Father!
However, sometimes we believe that how much He can work in our lives depends on the decisions we make. It is true that our decisions seem to “limit” His work, but thankfully we have a God who is greater than our hearts [1 John 3:20] and who works everything out for our good [Romans 8:28]! We are indeed most blessed that we have the Holy Spirit and can depend on His direction and guidance, but more so to know that our Father loves us so much!
God doesn't make mistakes. He knows what is best for us and is willing to give it to us. Proverbs counsels us: "Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths." Proverbs 3:5-6
Wrong decisions are a result of doing things our way and not taking God's advice into account. This can happen becausewe don't realize that He is interested in the small things, or sometimes when we don't believe that He loves us so much and wants the best for us.
Interestingly, although we admire people in the Bible, we do not need to be like them since God already gave us the greatest gift, His Son Jesus Christ in the flesh, who died and rose again for us to live in communion with God Himself!
God’s will: His ultimate desire for human beings
God created man in his own image and likeness, [Genesis 2:27] with His heart burning with the desire to live in perfect, unbroken fellowship with us. The concept of the “will of God” being separate from the “will of man” only became distinctly an issue when Adam fell and caused the entire human race and the entire creation to fall.
First and foremost, what is God’s will? Let’s look at how God Himself defines His will for us:
Romans 12:2 calls God’s will “his good, pleasing and perfect will.”
This verse expresses three truths about the will of God - It is good, acceptable (pleasing), and perfect.
The word "good" is a translation of the Greek word"agathos", which means, "something that is good in
character with beneficial results". It is good because it comes from God whose nature is kind. He desires to give us the best, so that we can fully enjoy the life that Christ won for us on the cross. Pleasing (acceptable) means that it is satisfying for us in every respect. God knows what we like and
according to this He chooses the best for us.
Some people fear submitting their emotions to God. They think that God will give them the opposite of their desires and believe that He ignores their needs. Some men who don't like talkative women think that the Lord will give them a wife who is like a parrot. Women who do not like unemotional and cold men are almost certain that God will give them one who never expresses his feelings. But God is
not cruel. In fact, the desires that are in our new heart now that we belong to Him are actually an expression of what He Himself desires for us!
"Perfect" is a translation of the Greek word "teleios", which means the true end or purpose for our existence. The Beacon Commentary says that "teleios" means "the experience of fullness, to be complete". This shows us that God’s desire is for us to experience fullness beyond what we can imagine. As Jesus says in John 10:10, “I came that they might have life, and have it more abundantly.”
Jeremiah 29:11 also affirms,
“…For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
God never makes mistakes and chooses the best for us. He loves us and His thoughts are good and not evil. He wants to give us the things we dream of and the happiness we long for.
To believe God and trust in Him is the best way to secure our future. God is like a pilot that sees the whole picture. He knows the things that benefit us and the things that would hinder us. A beloved pastor quotes, “It is difficult to love someone you don’t trust, and it is difficult to trust someone
you do not know.” Our faith in Jesus grows as we know Him better, and we come to realize that God knows us better than we know ourselves and He gives us the best. How do we know this is true?
Romans 5:6-8
[6] You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. [7] Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. [8] But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
S H O W T O K N O W T H E W I L L O F G O D
Romans 8:32
He who did not spare his own Son, but gave Him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?
The ultimate picture of God’s will for us? The cross of Jesus Christ. How can God’s will be anything less than the best for us when He gave up His ultimate Treasure, His One and only Son?
Jesus confirms this in John 6:40:
For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.
HOW TO KNOW THE WILL OF GOD
(1) Know which covenant you’re in!
Christian leaders hold to one common advice when it comes to knowing the will of God: First know His general will before you zoom in on the specific will.
What is God’s general will for us as Christians?
First we need to know what covenant we’re under!
What is a covenant? A covenant is an agreement cut by two parties; it is greater than a contract, in that a contract, when one party fails to keep his part, the other can also not keep his part. However in a covenant, even if one fails, the other still keeps his part. The only way out is death, as symbolized by the way the Old Testament characters cut covenant: by cutting an animal in half, and the two parties cross, meaning, “if any of us fails to keep his part, may it be done to him what has been done to this animal.”
That being said, we see that a covenant is cut with blood involved. Hebrews 8:6,7 tells us,
[6] But the ministry Jesus has received is as superior to theirs as the covenant of which he is mediator is superior to the old one, and it is founded on better promises. [7] For if
there had been nothing wrong with that first covenant, no place would have been sought for another…
P O S T E N C O U N T E R L E S S O N S H O W T O K N O W T H E W I L L O F G O D
What covenant is this referring to? A synonym of the term “Old Testament” is “old covenant,” referring to the time period in history wherein God would bless the people according to their obedience to the law, as in the list of blessings and curses stated in Deuteronomy 28.
When Jesus died on the cross and rose from the dead, He fulfilled perfectly every requirement in the Law, and His death opened a new and living way to God, as stated in Hebrews 10:19,20:
[19] (Therefore brothers,) since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, [20] by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body…
Under the old covenant, God’s people would have the Holy Spirit come UPON them, but never IN them. In the new covenant, God says,
Hebrews 8:8-13 (quoted from Jeremiah 31:31-34)
[8] But God found fault with the people and said: “The time is coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. [9] It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they did not remain faithful to my covenant, and I turned away from them, declares the Lord. [10] This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time, declares the Lord. I will put my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. [11] No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, “Know the Lord,” because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest. [12] For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.” [13] By calling this covenant “new,” he has made the first one obsolete, and what is obsolete and aging will soon disappear.
Some Christians are still living with an old covenant mindset, believing that knowing God takes special skill or extreme discipline of praying an hour a day, reading ten chapters of the Bible in a day, or that they need to be perfectly sinless in order to hear from God.
But we see from this passage that we are entitled to know the Lord for the reason He Himself gives in verse 12:
“For (because) I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.”
This tells us that our receiving of Jesus Christ has brought us into the new covenant, and His own death at the cross has already made sure that we get to know God and will continue to know Him more, since, upon receiving His gift, He “put [His] laws in our minds and wrote them on our hearts…” and we will “all know Him, from the least to the greatest.”
Other Christians live in perpetual fear, thinking that if they don’t get their act together, the Holy Spirit can be removed from us like He was removed from Saul. But Saul lived under the Old Covenant. Under the new covenant, Jesus promises to give us “the Holy Spirit who will be with you forever” [John 16:16]. The passage goes on to tell us that He is “[17] the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.”
(2) See more of Jesus through His Word
The Gospel of John sets the stage with:
[1] In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
And goes on to say in verse 14, “The Word became flesh andmade his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.”
· JESUS: the will of God in the flesh!
Jesus IS the will of God in the flesh!
He tells us in John 14:9, “He who has seen Me has seen the Father.”
Sometimes Christian leaders make things complicated by pointing young believers to struggling and knowing specific details as “the will of God.” We do not negate such things, because amazingly, this great uncreated God IS concerned about the tiniest detail of our lives. But let’s begin with the basic will of God as shown in Jesus Christ.
I like this quote from a Pastor:
“It takes supernatural blindness for someone to go through all four Gospels, Matthew Mark Luke and John, and see Jesus always feeding, always healing, always doing good, and then turn around and say, ‘But we never know God’s will. Sometimes He may heal, sometimes He may not. Sometimes He may prosper you, but then He may take away your prosperity.’
But I’ve never seen Jesus take someone’s prosperity and made him poor! I’ve never seen
Jesus take someone close to Him who was perfectly healthy and made him a leper!”
See more of Jesus and who He is, and you will know with certainty what God’s will is in every situation.
· JESUS the Savior, not just Jesus the Example
Take note, however, that it is not about gritting our teeth to imitate everything Jesus did, since He is God incarnate who fulfilled every dot of the Law, in contrast to our still being subject to the presence of sin while we live in this fallen creation. Seeing Jesus merely as an example to follow does not help us much as we struggle with sin. However, as we see Jesus the Savior, who died for us, who took the penalty for our sin, we can rejoice knowing we are weak and in need of this Savior, that we are always forgiven, with every punishment already laid upon His body so that we can live free!
(3) Filter every idea of “God’s will” through the CROSS!
Moreover, Jesus’ work at the Cross shows us more of God’s will through the miracle called the Divine Exchange.
The Divine Exchange
For example, in Isaiah 53 the Bible tells us:
[4] Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, Yet we considered him stricken by God,smitten by him, and afflicted.[5] But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; The punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.
P O S T E N C O U N T E
From this short passage we see at least two things that we are entitled to because of Jesus’ work on the cross:
1st: peace brought to us because the punishment was upon him
2nd: healing because he was wounded in our place
Another example would be 2 Corinthians 5:21:
For God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in him.
From this verse we see that God sees us righteous because Jesus became sin for us. This tells us that God saw Jesus as the worst sinner at the cross, and because of the cross, He sees us just as He sees Jesus.
1 John 4:17 tells us:
… as he is, so are we in this world.
How is Jesus in heaven right now? Is He sick? Nope.
Is He confused? Nope. Is He full of joy and peace? Yes!
What about my heart’s desire?
What did the cross do in terms of our hearts?
How do we know if it is God’s desire or our own?
Sometimes we have this fear that our hearts are “deceitful above all things, and beyond cure, [Jeremiah 17:9]” and rightly so—BEFORE Jesus changed it into the new heart you now have. But once you have been bought by the blood, He has put a “new heart and a new spirit within you [Ezekiel 36:26].” 2 Corinthians 5:17 reaffirms it with, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation, old things have passed away, behold, all things have become new.”
The famous verse Psalms 37:4 states, “Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will grant you the desires of your heart.” This speaks of the heart surrendered to Jesus Christ, that automatically delights in Him; hence the Lord has placed His desires within the person’s heart.
Hearing God’s voice is not something as mystical as hearing an audible voice like Samuel did, who lived at a time when the Holy Spirit could NOT indwell them since it was before the cross. After the cross and Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came, the spirit of man has become cleansed, clean enough to have the Holy Spirit living inside him. This allows God to use our hearts as a channel of letting us know His heart!
For example when someone desires to be prosperous, to be promoted in his job, to be a winner in business or in school, is it his own selfish desire? Is it his own desire for achievement or status? With the new heart that Jesus has given His people, we can actually see His desire reflected in that heart; it is no longer an issue of whether there’s personal pride involved since the new heart that Jesus bought with His precious blood has no room for glory other than forJesus, and this heart automatically glorifies Him! Hence, we can enjoy knowing that our hearts are in His hands!
(4) God’s Will must be KNOWN to be DONE
How will you DO the will of God, If you do not KNOW the will of God? This calls us therefore to listen, to take heed, and to enjoy the possibility of becoming mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ Jesus.
A) ASK counsel from godly advisers. You need People.
B) LOOK at the shape God has designed and created you to be. You must know Purpose.
C) COMMUNE and take time to listen to the Holy Spirit. You must be sensitive to His
Promptings.
D) MAKE the Word of God the final arbiter to His pure, simple, revealed, good and perfect will. You must honor the Bible in every decision. You must be constantly meditating on its Pages.
After we know the Will of God, it must be embraced, enjoyed and done for His honor and glory and power to be displayed.
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