Knowing God's Will

Recently I had this conversation about knowing God's will and whether or not we come up with stuff on our own or if God is specifically leading us in a particular direction. I did some Bible studying and some internet searching just to see what other people had to say on the subject, although I already had my thoughts on it. This is a two-part blog. Here's what I've got:

*You can't "find" God's will. You just live and his will kind of finds you. Be concerned about serving God today than finding God's will for tomorrow.

*Some things aren't clear and there isn't necessarily a "will" for everything but God's given us principles & guidelines that we use for practical daily life. Living using/following those is his "will."

*God's plan isn't hidden or elaborate, it's all right there in The Bible for us. His will is:

-Be saved

-Pray

-Trust in Christ alone

-Read His Word

-Worship

-Give

-Sacrifice

-Disciple (yourself & others)

-Put off sin and put on righteousness

-Put away things that hold you down spiritually

-Fruits of the Spirit

-Grow, change & mold towards holiness like Christ

-This list could go on and on. See The Bible.

Being a visual learner I quickly came up with this tree idea of how God leads and/or doesn't lead us. It helped me but may confuse you.

Branch #1: We make a decision to do or not do something and God gives us the freewill to do so. He takes that decision and uses it to do great things and glorify himself and clearly you can see that His hand is all in it.

Branch #2: We make a decision to do or not do something, again, God has given us that freewill. Things just don't go well and they continue to not go well. This can be 2 different things; either, clearly that is not a path that God wants you to go down and you need to make some serious changes OR you should continue to go down it because that's Satan attacking a good thing that will/is glorifying God. No matter what here, God can use these trials/temptations for his glory in the long run.

Branch #3: God is clearly taking you down a path and you know so because the Spirit has shown you certain hints or spoken to you in a way that is so clear (through reading scripture, other people, dreams, visions, maybe even audible). You follow this path. Typically Satan jumps on this leading and of course it can either go down the tubes or God's totally all over it and Satan doesn't show his face (yeah, that doesn't happen). In all things, God wins.

Branch #4: For some reason (okay, well because of Satan), sometimes we go down the wrong path on purpose. We know something's wrong but we still make the decision to do it. From the get-go this is not God's intentions for you. Here you can go two ways again, either you allow God to enter and change things around or you continue down this path which leads death.

*Whatever God's will is, it is good.

*God's will is for everyone. It's about the body (The Church). It's The Church's responsibility to help one another find their place.

*His will isn't given in a map form (I'm quite guilty of this). It's given like a scroll, where one thing at a time is shown at a time that He thinks is best. Once in a while he'll show us a little peak into the future but for the most part it's a day-by-day thing.

To Be Continued...