What is the Will of God for Your Life? So many of us
desperately want to know the will of God. But God’s will is more than an
occupation, a place to go, or knowing who to marry. The Bible has much to say
about the will of God, but it’s mostly instructions about how to live a life
pleasing to God rather than how to make specific decisions that will affect the
events in our life. The Bible says that it is God’s will that we live a holy, sanctified
life, that we trust God, that we don’t conform to the world, but instead be
transformed by changing the way that we think, that we be willing to suffer for
doing good for Him, that we are thankful to Him for everything, that we rejoice
in God, pray to Him often, that we seek godly counsel, that we read the Bible,
and that we conform to the image of God’s Son – Jesus. Also 1 Timothy 2 in
verse 4 says that God’s will is for all people to be saved and to understand
the truth about Him. God is foremost concerned about the salvation of people
and that we are living holy lives that please him. But you may have reached a
level of spiritual maturity in which you are now asking how you can make more
specific decisions that line up with God’s will for you.
Pastor John MacArthur says the following about finding
God’s will. If you have salvation through Jesus than you have the Holy Spirit
living within you. And Spirt-filled people do not stumble around trying to find
out what God wants. They just go. People often ask – How do I know my spiritual
gift? And MacArthur says that the best way is to live a Spirit-filled life, see
what God does through you, look back in retrospect and say – Oh, that’s what I
do when God has control of me. Apparently, that is my gift. There is no need to
get analytical. The whole point is that we need the Spirit of God to be
released in our lives. The Spirit-filled life is living every moment as though
you are standing in the presence of Jesus Christ. It is being saturated with the
things of Christ with His Word, and His person. The only way - is to study the
Bible which discloses all that He is. To be spirit-filled is to live a
Christ-conscious life saturated with the thoughts of Christ – spending time
with His word and spending time with Him. And there is no shortcut to that.
Basically, if you’re not interested in reading His word
and growing close to Him, then there’s no point in trying to discover His will
for your life. Because His will is all about Him. The purpose of His will is to
bring people to Him. Finding His will for our life is not about us feeling
accomplished or fulfilled. So, if you’re not interested in living a
Christ-conscious life, then there’s no reason to do His will
You may be asking - what is it that God wants you to do?
Well, what do you like to do? What do you do for fun? What are you interested
in? What things excite you? What are you good at? What opportunities do you
have? Look at what you are doing now and see how you can do those things to
serve God. I don’t think that finding God’s will is as complicated as we sometimes
make it out to be. Get doing things to serve Jesus and the Holy Spirit will
help you figure it out. So where do you start? Well, you could look at the
different ministry opportunities that are available to you and try some of them?
If you start serving meals at the homeless shelter and find that you really
don’t enjoy it, then it’s probably not God’s will for you to be doing this. God
is going to work with your personality and your interests. He wants you to
enjoy serving Him and to become passionate about it. The main point is to get
started and explore areas that are interesting to you. John MacArthur expands
on this and says that it’s important to “keep moving. So many people sit around
waiting for that celestial crane to move them, saying – I don’t know what God
wants me to do. They need to start moving so God can steer them to that area of
service He has planned. Knowing God’s will may mean pushing down a narrow line
until you hit a dead end. At that point, God will open a door so wide, you
won’t be able to see around it – only through it. You may bounce off a lot of
closed doors, but that is God’s way of forcing you into His open one. Get
rolling and be persistent. You see, the will of God is not primarily a place.
The will of God is not, first of all, for you to go there or work here. The
will of God concerns you as a person. If you are the right you, you can follow
your desires and you will fulfill His will.” Being the right you is spoken
about in Romans 12:1-2 “And so, dear brothers and sisters, I
plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you.
Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind He will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship
Him. Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God
transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will
learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.” So –
Offer yourself in sacrificial service to God and think like God. This way you
will know His perfect will for you.
Lets’ say that you do have clarity and you know exactly
what you are going to do and you believe that it’s God’s will. Now that doesn’t
mean that you won’t have opposition and obstacles to overcome. Sometimes
family, friends, and church leaders don’t have the same excitement that you do. It is helpful to have input and
confirmation and encouragement from your church, but it’s not required. The
Holy Spirit will lead you and give you confirmation. Your church leaders might
have a different vision than what you want to do. So, if you really feel that
God is leading you to do something, then go do it. We need to obey God, not
other people – in reality they are just humans and see things through human
eyes with their own human biases. Yes. It is important to get wise counsel from
spiritually mature people, but you are the one that gets to make the final
decision. If you have accepted Jesus’ salvation
and you follow Jesus then you have the Holy Spirit living in you. And the Holy
Spirit will tell you what He wants you to do with your life. This is something
that does not come from someone else, this comes from the Holy Spirit. You do
not need a priest or a pastor or a spouse to intercede between you and God. The
Holy Spirit will directly lead you. Instead of waiting around to get permission
or an invitation – you may need to just go do it.
One of my favorite heroes is Gladys
Alyward. After hearing about China, she became passionate about going there to
teach people about Jesus. But after only 3 months of missionary training, the
mission agency told her that she was not qualified to go to China and that they
felt she would never be able to learn the language. So she had no agency to
send her there. But Gladys saved up money working as a housemaid and then she went
to China. There in China- she did learn the Chinese language, she preached
about Jesus, and she cared for unwanted children. One of her most memorable
accomplishments was during wartime when she successfully led 100 orphaned
children on a 100 mile walk from their bombed out village to a safer part of
China. It’s a good thing that Gladys listened to God instead of the missionary
agency that had told her she wasn’t qualified to go. I’ll read a quote from
Gladys Alyward. “If
God has called you to China or any other place and you are sure in your own
heart, let nothing deter you. Remember, it is God who has called you and it is
the same as when He called Moses or Samuel.”
Theologian
Martin Luther forever changed Christianity when he rejected the practices of
the Roman Catholic church. Based on his understanding of the Bible, Martin
Luther publicly declared that the Bible did not
give the pope the exclusive right to interpret scripture. Luther felt that God
was calling him to tell others that the key to spiritual salvation was not to
fear God or be enslaved by religious dogma, but to believe that faith alone
would bring salvation. He decided to ignore the strong requests from the church
officials that told him to stop speaking out against them. That led to his
official excommunication from the Roman Catholic Church. But as a result of
following God’s will, Luther translated the Bible from Latin into the German
language, which gave ordinary people the opportunity to read God’s word for
themselves. Martin Luther started protestant Christianity. He is the one that said:
“Peace if possible, but truth at any
rate.”
Elisabeth Elliot went with her husband to Ecuador to
minister to the Auca tribe. Despite the fact that they killed her husband with
a spear, Elizabeth felt that it was God’s will for her to stay and live with
the tribe. As a result, she was able to witness to these people and display
Christ’s forgiveness and reconciliation. Many people made decisions to follow
Jesus, because she chose to stay. I’ll give you a quote from Elizabeth Elliot,
too. “Does it make sense to pray for guidance about the future if we are not
obeying in the thing that lies before us today? How many momentous events in
Scripture depended on one person's seemingly small act of obedience! Rest
assured: Do what God tells you to do now, and, depend upon it, you will be
shown what to do next.”
You might find yourself if a similar
situation in which the opposition is strong, but the personal call of God is
stronger. Here’s an example: Let’s say that there is a woman that feels like
the Holy Spirit is leading her to preach about Jesus. But maybe she belongs to a
church that doesn’t want women to preach. Maybe that’s their belief or just their
tradition. That’s okay. She doesn’t need to change them in order for her to do
God’s will. She can still find a way to preach. She could find a different
church that encourages women to preach. She could start her own church and
preach there. She could invite people to her home and preach to them. She could
preach through videos over the Internet or preach downtown on the street
corner. She could rent a conference room at a hotel, advertise, and then preach
her message. Or, she could be a guest speaker at another church. I think that
God is thrilled when a person – man or woman – wants to speak publicly about
Him, telling others about how they too can have eternal salvation through Jesus
and about how to grow spiritually.
We need to figure out how to get through
the obstacles in order to go do what we are called to do. If you are going to do
the will of God, then you need to expect spiritual opposition from Satan. But
you have got to get through that. God wants you to do His will and he will give
you the means and the abilities to do what he’s called you to do. And we have
that promise straight from Jesus who said in John 14:13 “You
can ask for anything in my name, and I will do it, so that the Son can bring
glory to the Father.” He promises that He
will give us what we need to bring glory to God and further His message, if
we’re asking according to His will.
There are times, when we’re looking for
God’s will, when we may need to slow down and wait it out. Sometimes we find
ourselves in really difficult situations in which it wouldn’t be good to just
go for it and see if God closes the door. In these situations we may need to be
more concerned about the present moment and wait for God to reveal the next
step. When we ask for specific, for the moment guidance, and we obey God, He
will faithfully show us the next step when it’s time. This is how we learn to
walk with God, trusting Him - one step at a time. Psalm 37:23-24 can be very
reassuring to us that – “The Lord
directs the steps of the godly. He
delights in every detail of their lives. Though they stumble, they will never
fall, for the Lord holds them
by the hand.
We can use this same step by step
approach on a daily basis when we want to do God’s will in our everyday normal
life. What do you think would happen if while on your way to work, you said
“God, what do you want me to do today in my workplace? Please show me. Please
give me a special opportunity today to represent You.” It sounds too simple
doesn’t it? But I know from experience that God will answer this question when
you sincerely want to serve him. God knows you better than anyone else knows
you. He knows the perfect situations to send your way. I think it’s important
that we strive for living in His will on a daily basis.
In review: The
most important thing about God’s will is that it is His will for everyone to
know the truth about Him and to have salvation through Jesus.
Then, it is
God’s will for us to live a Christ-conscious life saturated with
the thoughts of Christ – spending time with His word and spending time with
Him.
Then, we can
get busy doing things for Jesus and trust that God will steer
us o that area of service that He has
planned for us. And when we are
pursuing God’s will, we need to expect opposition from the enemy and maybe from
family and friends and people at church. But it’s crucial to obey God rather
than people. God has given us specific interests, talents, gifts, and a special
personality to be successful at doing His will.
I’m going to
end this beautiful passage from Galatians 6:4-5 – “Make a careful exploration of who you are and the work you have been
given, and then sink yourself into that. Don’t be impressed with yourself.
Don’t compare yourself with others. Each of you must take responsibility for
doing the creative best you can with your own life.”
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