The Will of God

KNOWING THE WILL OF GOD

Paul has pointed out three pre-conditions for discerning the will of God:

That we no longer think the way the world thinks.

That we are in a process of on-going transformation.

That this transformation results from the renewal of our minds.

When these things are happening, Paul says, ‘you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – his good, pleasing and perfect will.’

Popular theology has redefined and limited the ‘will of God’ to life choices: Who does God want me to marry? What career does God want me to choose? Where does God want me to live? And other choices such as ‘Does God want me to witness to that person? Should I offer to teach in Sunday School?

But, interestingly, the Bible never tells us we have to find ‘God’s will’ about such matters.

So what does Paul mean when he tells us that we will be able to test and approve what God’s will is? Does the Bible give us any idea of what God has in mind when he talks about his ‘will’?

Yes. It does.

According to the Bible, God’s ‘will’ is:

His eternal purpose which he fulfilled in Christ Jesus our Lord (Ephesians 1:9, 10).

The involvement of individual humans, with or without their knowledge or consent, in this over-riding purpose (Isaiah 46:11; Romans 9:17).

That we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ (John 6:29).

The salvation of the lost (2Peter 3:9).

The eternal security of all who believe (John 6:39, 40).

That we should honour the Son the just the same as we honour the Father (John 5:23).

That we obey his commands revealed in the Bible, that is, God’s will is our sanctification (1Thessalonians 4:3).

The first two of these God accomplishes regardless of our response.

The third and fourth he accomplishes by revealing himself to us and drawing us to himself.

The fifth is what he has promised and what nothing in the whole universe can reverse.

The sixth and seventh he accomplishes as by his Word and his Spirit he instructs us what to believe and how to live for his glory. And it is here that Paul’s statement in Romans 12:2 connects with God’s will:

That as we stop thinking as the world thinks we will be able to discern how God wants us to live.

That as we are being transformed by the renewing of our minds we will be able to discern how to live for God’s glory.

It is instructive to notice how Jesus taught. Many of his parables begin with a phrase that means ‘In the kingdom of heaven, this is how it is ...’ By these parables he teaches the values and priorities of his kingdom: the value of patience and persistence, the priority of the kingdom, the priority of grace, the value of repentance, the exceeding value of Christ, the priority of forgiveness, the priority of compassion, the value of hope, the value of the lost. These values taught by Jesus are the values of God. All of these things define the will of God for us.

But they are not the way the world thinks. As long as we hold on to human values and priorities we will never discern the good, pleasing and perfect will.

When we pray in the Lord’s Prayer ‘your will be done on earth as it is in heaven’ we are not just voicing a general prayer that covers everything, we are also, and importantly, committing ourselves to live according to God’s will today:

That today I will honour, and not dishonour, his name by the things I think and say and do.

That today I will submit to his kingly authority over my life, and do only the things that are appropriate in his kingdom.

That today I deliberately commit to obey his commands so clearly given in the Bible, and to live within the boundaries that he has already defined.

In a world bent on doing its own thing and pursuing its own pleasure and its own fame, such a commitment to obey Jesus Christ and seek only his glory is extremely radical. But that is the commitment to which he calls us.

You will find studies on this radical, counter-cultural Christianity here.
And studies on the will of God here and here.