What is God's Will?

November 30 (I Thes. 5:14-18)
It always amazes me the number of people who want to know things like God’s will for them about a job when they don’t do God’s will about things that are clearly spoken in His word. Equally amazing and somewhat scary is the number who tell me God speaks to them on a regular basis when they admittedly spend little or no time studying His word. Of course, I know "a" god speaks to them. The frightening and sad thing is they don’t know the difference in the voice of the god of this world and the God of Creation. It makes me truly sad when a married man with three young children tells me God got him a job 800 miles away making three times his current salary who has no intention of taking his family with him to that job. His excuse for not being at home each evening is that he gets a week or two off at a time, so he convinces himself he'll actually get to spend more time with his family. God has literally spoken His will in thousands of places in His word that few have ever read. Mega-church preachers make sure their church members know verses like, “I can d o all things through Christ who strengthens me,” and “With God all things are possible,” but they fail to teach those verses in context, and they don’t bother sharing verses like, “Wives be subject to your husbands,” or “Let the women keep silent in the church,” because such thoughts are politically incorrect and very unpopular in America.

Please be sure of this biblical truth if you don’t get much else yet. Your failure to obey the clearly revealed will of God only guarantees you will never know His will about what job you are supposed to have or what church you should attend. You are a walking blind man if you are not absolutely, unwaveringly determined through diligent reading, study, and prayer to understand God’s will in all those things He has revealed. Imagine, if you will, your son asking if he can go out with the friends this week with whom he got picked up last week by the local police and charged as minors in possession of alcohol. Would you let him go? Not if you’re sane. It’s utter foolishness, even pure fantasy, to think God will tell us His will about things like whether or not we should take a certain job offer when we demonstrate more interest in our own will by our failure to make godly activities a priority in our lives.

So, our point for today is that you are expected by God to study His word diligently so you can know what His will is in all matters about which He has spoken. He is patient and kind, so have no fear if you are a new believer and haven’t yet had sufficient time to read His book of admonitions and wisdom from cover to cover several times. Don’t start worrying He won’t take good care of you if you disobey a command you aren’t aware exists yet. That would be legalism. However, if you claim to have been a believer for several years and haven’t read his book from cover to cover several times, you really do have reason to be concerned. Actually, I think you should be terrified. If you’re not the least concerned about your abject failure to demonstrate your love for Him, you’re probably one of those false converts about whom He speaks in Matthew 7.

I can already hear the jeering from the crowd. Many are already shouting, “Away with him; away with him. He deserves to be crucified! For he has told us we need to obey God’s commands to be saved!” Not so! What I have told you is that if you are a child of the King, you “will” act like it. Children of the King desire more than anything else to know His will in all things pertaining to life, death, the resurrection, and the coming judgment You likely don't know that because you haven't read John 10 or the entire I letter of John. The only place we can get to know that will is in His word. If you are depending on your pastor to teach you such things, you are of all men, most to be pitied. First of all, if you don’t study diligently yourself, you have no idea if your pastor is teaching you the truth. You might as well be a Mormon or Catholic. Second of all, if you are not studying diligently you don’t know God’s will is that you study diligently (II Tim. 2:15). There are myriads of things you don’t know about God if you are not making it a daily priority to spend significant time studying God’s word. If you’re not feeding your soul on the matchless truths contained in scripture more than you’re feeding your body steak and potatoes or your spirit the ungodly foolishness from Hollywood, you’re likewise, of all men, most to be pitied.

I’ve discovered an interesting phenomenon: the more I study God’s word, the longer I walk with Jesus, the shorter my list of acceptable television programs, movies, and recreational activities becomes. For years I watched the charming “Samantha the witch” tweak her nose and do her magic. Then one day it hit me like a brick over the head, “There’s no such thing as a good witch!” I watched comedians use foul language for a while and then just got sick of their complete lack of intelligence. Their humor was crass, crude, and often directed at things like godliness and self-control. I watched police shows for a while, actually not realizing the reason I did so was because the violence was mesmerizing. Then I read in God’s word that ungodly men love to see violence. Now, I even turn off commercials that flaunt nakedness the moment I see they are doing that. I turn off news that shows or talks about anything I wouldn’t want a five year old to see or hear. I refuse to watch or read anything that glorifies magic, sorcery, and/or astrology. That’s not exactly true, however. I occasionally watch a show that’s getting a lot of attention publicly for the specific purpose of addressing to my brother’s and sister’s things in it that are a direct affront to God.

In closing, I will address a point I heard one of my favorite Christian talk show hosts provide and answer to yesterday. He is kind of like me about today’s topic. A caller accused him of being a puppet of God because of his stand on these kinds of issues. He denied it, but then admitted, and I’ll try to quote him accurately, “If that is true, I can assure you, I’m okay with being a puppet as long as God is holding the strings at the other end.” One thing I have discovered in the 38 plus years I have walked with Jesus. People who spend massive amounts of time reading and studying God’s word are usually in agreement on all of the critical issues found in it. I only know about twenty men of God who preach his word whom I also know, do in fact, spend massive amounts of time daily studying it. They seldom preach anything with which I disagree. Beloved, no preacher can tell you the half of what God wants to tell you. But you’ll never hear his voice if you fail to obey the one instruction that makes that possible, “Be diligent to show yourself approved unto God, a workman who needs not to be ashamed.” And that’s His word for us today.