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Knowing God’s will

In our Christian walk there are many decisions we have to make. Some of them major, some of them minor. But through them all we should be turning to God to find out what his will is in the matter. But how do we know for sure when we are seeking God's will that the answer is truly from him? Sometimes we can turn to other Christians for guidance and get different answers to the same questions. How do we know what is truly God's will for us?

We must first understand that God truly cares about our life and wants us to come to him for guidance. What you do with your life is of great importance to him. He has promised us in his word that he will make our path straight or in other words he will make it clear to us if we come to him as our Heavenly Father.

There are three things we need to understand about the will of God. There is the providential will of God, the moral will of God and the personal will of God.

The providential will of God is those things that God's going to do no matter what. For example when God was ready, He was going to send Jesus into this world. Another example - One day each one of us is going to stand before God and give an account of our life. These are just two examples of things that God is going to do no matter what. They are not dependent on our obedience or anything we can do. But all through history God has used men and women to accomplish His will. We need to be reading His word to see what He's up to and to see how we may be a part of it.

The second thing we need to understand is the moral will of God. This is those things God has commanded us to do no matter what. For example we don't have to pray to God “should I tell a lie”, we are already told in His word that we shouldn't. We don't need to pray “should I steal”, again we know the answer to that from God's word. God's will is that we remain morally pure. The more familiar we become with the moral will of God, the easier it is for us to determine the third item.

The third item is the personal will of God. This would be decisions like “should I take this job or that job, should I live here or there.” These decisions affect our personal life and God is very interested in them.

The more familiar you become with the providential will of God (what God's going to do anyway) and the more obedient you become to the moral will of God (the things we know were already supposed to be doing) the easier it's going to be for you to understand the personal will of God in your life. These are the standards by which all other decisions are made.

The problem with most of us is our unwillingness to follow through. It's not that God doesn't want to communicate. We say “I want you to show me what you want me to do so I can consider it”. God does not give us direction for consideration. God directs us assuming participation. God wants us to be in a place where we say yes to his will. When you get to that point personally you're going to hear loud and clear. God loves to give direction to his children, not for consideration but for participation.

Are we ready to participate. Let us study his word to become familiar with his providential will and his moral will so that we might be ready when he shows us his personal will for our life.

Many of the above points were taken from a DVD study called “Discovering God's Will” by Andy Stanley.

I would highly recommend this study for you and your small group.

Jim Rintoul

Bethel Bible Chapel

Shelburne

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