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STEP IN
A Starting Place on the Journey
The Lord Is a Planner – Set your mind on this truth: Our God is a planner. He is not a reactor. He did not set this world in motion to be ruled by chance or wild, unchecked forces. Nor did He create you to live without hope and purpose.
If you will think about how precisely the Father has planned your redemption, your home in heaven, and your rewards—you have to realize how deeply He treasures you and how carefully He thinks about your future. He wouldn’t have gone to such lengths to provide for your salvation if He did not value you. Now think about this:
- Would God—having been so specific in all of His planning—suddenly just forget about you?
- Would He say, “Live your life the best you can. Just do what you can with what you’ve got”?
What we see consistently throughout history is that the Father wants to reveal His will. He also shows us the way into His plan for each of us—and that is through a relationship with Jesus.
Jesus is the ultimate key to knowing and living God’s will. Jesus provides you with access to the throne of grace, so you can learn His plan for you.
God is your example of the life of faith in every way (Romans 8:29). His Holy Spirit guides and empowers you (John 16:13-14 & 1 Corinthians 2:9–16). His prayers sustain you (Hebrews 7:25). His Word provides a light to your path.
It is about a profound, intimate relationship with God Himself—a relationship that results in a life that overflows with His wisdom, purpose, and power.
THE BIG PICTURE
Understanding What God’s Goal Is
What is important for you to understand is that the choices before you today are a part of God’s bigger picture for you.
The first principle is: Do not fear! Fear can blind you to God’s purposes and the very guidance you are seeking. Anxiety can cause you to lose heart, make bad decisions, and even give up completely. This is why Scripture often repeats the command: “Be strong and courageous, do not be afraid or tremble at them, for the LORD your God is the one who goes with you. He will not fail you or forsake you. The LORD is the one who goes ahead of you; He will be with you. He will not fail you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed” (Deuteronomy 31: 6, 8).
Therefore, set your heart to reject fear. Do not be afraid that you are unworthy of knowing His will. He makes you worthy (Romans 8:31–34). Do not fear that you are somehow disqualified from His love, plan, and protection. No one can take you out of His hand once you’ve accepted Christ as your Savior—not even you (John 10:28–29). Do not fear that you won’t or can’t hear God. He created you and can break through to you.
Understanding and believing that God speaks is one of the biggest differences between a person experiencing the extraordinary, fruitful Christian life and the one just practicing religion. Therefore, if you wish to know and walk in the Father’s will for you, this is the second principle you must set your heart on: You must believe that God speaks in a manner you can hear.
Not only is it imperative that you believe the Father that communicates with you, but you also must believe God speaks in a manner you can hear. Often we think, I’ve been listening and can’t hear a thing from the Lord.
There are generally three ways this can happen:
- God has spoken and you don’t like His answer, so you refuse to accept it.
- The Lord has spoken and you can’t believe His answer, so you think you heard Him wrong.
- The Father has not yet spoken because you don’t need to know yet. In other words, the Lord is willing to speak to you, but you have put artificial time limits on when He should. This is perhaps the most frustrating reason for people who are seeking God’s will. We believe we have both a need and a right to know information as soon as we ask for it. But often we need to wait because of purposes unseen to us.
The main subject of His communication with you is teaching you the central focus of His will, which is making you more like Jesus.
God’s goal for us is becoming like Jesus from Romans 8:29, which teaches: “Those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son.”
God wants us to reflect His character. He wants His spiritual fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control to flow through us (Galatians 5:22–23). To Him, that is always far more important than outward sacrifices.
We have to stop thinking we are making offerings to God and realize we are becoming a living sacrifice for Him. So this is God’s will for your life—for you to look like Jesus, which begins by presenting yourself as a holy sacrifice unto the Lord.
You can say something like this: “Lord, please make me sensitive and responsive to what You want me to understand.” Because this is exceedingly important if you truly desire to walk in God’s will.
This is a principle we need to grasp with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength: We are called to surrender everything to Him out of gratefulness for His mercy and compassion toward us. We do so because He loves us and knows what is best for us even better than we do.
When we have His mind, we also know His will. In fact, that’s what the last phrase of Romans 12:2 promises: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.” You will be able to scrutinize opportunities and ideas and judge whether or not they are worthy—whether or not they are from the Lord Himself. This is what it takes to be a living sacrifice, after all, to know God’s will, be empowered to carry it out in His way, and actually accomplish it for His glory.
What the Father envisions for you is “good and acceptable and perfect.” These three wonderful words should fill us all with confidence. So let’s take a look at them.
- God’s will is good. The Lord’s plan is morally honorable, excellent, and beneficial to you. Remember the promise of Romans 8:28: “We know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.”
- God’s plan for you is acceptable. It is both well pleasing to God but also satisfying to you. Philippians 2:13 asserts: “It is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.”
- God’s will for you is perfect. The Greek word teleios that is used is better translated as finished, brought to maturity, enabled to reach the goal, or needing nothing for completeness.
As Paul writes, “Do not be conformed.” This is a command: Fight the pattern of this world that would make you turn to your own resources rather than trust God. Likewise, “present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice… be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:1–2). Set your will to allowing Jesus to work in your mind, heart, and life. Give Him everything you are and hope to be. Invite the Holy Spirit to change you into Christ’s image—to tear down the old way of thinking so the new can grow.
DETERMINED VERSUS DESIRED
Understanding God’s Sovereignty and Our Free Will
There are two major aspects of the Lord’s plan—that which He has determined will happen and that which He desires to happen.
God’s Determined Will
Achieving His Sovereign Goals The first aspect of God’s plan we will look at is His determined will, which is the Lord’s operation in the world—or how He operates as the Sovereign of the universe. Psalm 103:19 tells us: “The LORD has established His throne in the heavens, and His sovereignty rules over all.” God’s determined or sovereign will is what will absolutely be done, regardless of what obstacles arise or what we do.
He has made several unconditional covenants that have revealed His plan:
- The Abrahamic Covenant. God promised Abraham, “I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great; and so you shall be a blessing; and I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed” (Genesis 12:2–3).
- The Land Covenant. Likewise, God told Abraham, “To your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt as far as the great river, the river Euphrates” (Genesis 15:18).
- The Davidic Covenant. In 2 Samuel 7:8–16, the Lord promised that He would bestow a very special blessing on David’s line. He said, “I will raise up your descendant after you, who will come forth from you, and I will establish his kingdom… I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.… Your house and your kingdom shall endure before Me forever; your throne shall be established forever” (verses 12–13, 16).
These covenants are unconditional—God brings them about regardless of what we do or decide. Likewise, we know that there are other unconditional promises throughout Scripture that He either has or will accomplish. Some examples are: “I will never again send another flood to destroy the earth” (Genesis 9:11).
“Each one of us will give an account of himself to God” (Romans 14:12). Everyone will stand before the Lord (Hebrews 9:27)—whether that be for judgment (Revelation 20:11–15) or for rewards (2 Corinthians 5:10).
“At the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:10–11).
The qualities we can extrapolate from God’s determined will are as follows:
- It is inevitable—it will happen. You can count on it.
- It is immutable—the Lord will not change His mind or His plan.
- It is irresistible—there’s no one who can alter, delay, or oppose what God has established.
- It is purposeful—the Father has wonderful, important, everlasting reasons for all His determined plans. They are not based on emotion or destructive whims. Rather, God has the crucial goals of eternity in view.
- It is comprehensive—the Lord considers and provides for every detail that you and I could think of and countless more that we could never imagine.
- It is unpredictable. This may seem a surprising characteristic considering that God has revealed so much of His determined will in Scripture. However, we should never believe that we can figure Him out or anticipate how He will accomplish His objectives. As He reminds us in Isaiah 55:8–9: “My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways… For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.”
God’s Desired Will: Leaving Room for Our Love
This is where you and I live every day—in the decisions we must make and in what the Father wants to do in our lives on a personal level.
The Lord’s desired will is neither irresistible nor unconditional. Rather, God gives us choices so that we can exercise our free will in obeying Him. He does so for the purpose of having a genuine, loving relationship with us.
He is pleased and exalted when we obey Him because we know He is trustworthy, wise, and always acts in love toward us.
In Colossians 1:9 Paul writes: “We have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding.”
Therefore, whereas the Lord’s determined will is inevitable and unpredictable apart from what He has revealed in His Word, the Father’s desired will for your life is knowable in the circumstances you experience. And it requires you to make a decision about Who He is to you.
The author of Hebrews offers this prayer: “Jesus our Lord, equip you in every good thing to do His will, working in us that which is pleasing in His sight” (13:20–22).
We are going to look at the different aspects of His desired or permissive will and how we can walk in it.
God’s Universal Moral Laws Revealed in Scripture
Perhaps the most famous of these decrees are the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20).
These are issues we need not even pray about—we know they are always the Lord’s desire for us. Of course, there are many others. In the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5–7) we learn how to treat one another.
Likewise, we know that it is always God’s desired will that:
- We be saved (1 Timothy 2:3–4; 2 Peter 3:9).
- We be filled with the Spirit and walk according to His direction (Romans 8:4; Galatians 5:16, 25; Ephesians 5:18).
- We be baptized (Mark 16:16; Acts 2:38, 10:48; Romans 6:3–4; Galatians 3:27).
- We pray continually and give thanks in every situation (Deuteronomy 4:29; 1 Chronicles 16:10–11; Psalm 34:10, 105:4; 1 Thessalonians 5:17–18).
- We be sanctified (John 17:17; Romans 6:19; 1 Thessalonians 4:3–7; Hebrews 12:14).
- We serve the Lord (Deuteronomy 10:20; Psalm 100:2; Ephesians 2:10, 6:7; Colossians 3:23–24).
- We tell others about Jesus and teach them to follow Him (Matthew 28:19–20; Mark 16:15; 2 Timothy 4:2).
- We take part in His great plan to proclaim the gospel to every person in every nation, tribe, and tongue, to the ends of the earth (Matthew 24:14; Acts 1:8; Revelation 5:9, 7:9).
- We faithfully fulfill our important part in the Body of Christ, edifying others with the gifts God has given us (1 Corinthians 12:4–11; 1 Peter 4:10).
- We flee from all sexual immorality (1 Corinthians 6:18; Ephesians 5:3; Colossians. 3:5; 1 Thessalonians 4:3–5; 2 Timothy 2:22).
- We tithe and, indeed, entrust all we have to the God Who gave it to us (Leviticus 27:30; Deuteronomy 14:22; Malachi 3:10; Mark 12:41–44; Luke 6:38, 14:27–33; 2 Corinthians 9:6–8; 1 Timothy 6:17–19).
- We forgive freely as Christ forgave us (Matthew 6:14–15; Ephesians 4:32).
The Bible no longer condemns us, but it does bring us closer to God and leads us in doing His desired will. Scripture can and should:
- Deliver God’s message to us. This is why Psalm 119:105 says, “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.”
- Protect us. Throughout His Word, God is clear—His commands are meant to safeguard us and shield us from danger (Ps. 18:30). God’s commands are not meant to prevent us from enjoying life. On the contrary, they are meant to lead us to life at its very best.
- Carry out God’s judgment on sin. Hebrews 4:12 tells us: “The word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”
- Accomplish God’s will in our lives. Paul wrote: “All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16–17).
- Lead us to worship Him. We see this when the scribe named Ezra opened God’s Word and began to read it to the people in Jerusalem: “Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people… Then Ezra blessed the LORD the great God. And all the people answered, ‘Amen, Amen!’ while lifting up their hands; then they bowed low and worshiped the LORD with their faces to the ground” (Nehemiah 8:5–6).
God’s Planned Intentions for Your Life
The Father has given us spiritual gifts by which to serve and He has equipped us to accomplish His objectives.
God’s desired will is that we serve Him—and that we do so wholeheartedly. Whether we do and to the extent that we do is up to us.
God’s Plan for When We Make Mistakes
What happens to His will when we mess up?
No matter where you are, what you have done, or who you’ve hurt—whatever the mistake—when you acknowledge that you were wrong, you repent of your sins, and you submit yourself to God, He sets in motion a plan for you to get back on track.
It doesn’t matter if you are nine, nineteen, or ninety-nine—your heavenly Father always has a circumstantial plan for you—assignments for you to fulfill on your particular place on the path. He picks up the broken pieces of your life, and with the glue of His love and forgiveness He puts you back together and gives you a wonderful purpose.
God has always used imperfect people for His awesome purposes. He specializes in taking broken lives and turning them into joyful, productive, and inspiring trophies of His grace.
God’s Daily Activity in Your Life—His Immediate Will
He will bring verses to mind when you need comfort, renew your hope through the wonderful promises of His Word, give you direction, and convict you of sin.
God prompts you to obey His desired will on a daily basis. He is speaking to your heart, warning you about danger, and encouraging you to submit to His purposes.
Don’t ignore the still, small, quiet ways that the Spirit of God speaks to your heart. Because as you submit to the promptings of the Holy Spirit, you recognize His voice more and more. Eventually, you begin to perceive and understand spiritual realities that only a person who is in constant communion with the Father can perceive. As Isaiah 30:21 says, “Your ears will hear a word behind you, ‘This is the way, walk in it,’ whenever you turn to the right or to the left.” So yield to the Holy Spirit—submit to His promptings and depend on His ability to direct you in the daily matters.
GOD WILL SHOW YOU HIS WILL
Components of the Discovery
When it comes to our personal lives, yes, there are determined objectives the Lord will absolutely accomplish in and through us. However, for the most part, Jesus wants us to join Him out of love and obedience to His high and honorable purposes for our lives—or His desired will.
Decide right now to believe this simple fact—your Savior wants you to know His will so you can walk in it. How do I know this? First, it is God’s character to reveal His will to you.
In Psalm 32:8, He assures you, “I will instruct you and teach you in the way which you should go; I will counsel you with My eye upon you.” This is why you read about people such as David praying, “Teach me to do Your will, for You are my God; let Your good Spirit lead me on level ground” (Psalm 143:10).
This leads to a second point—that God promises to show you His will.
Here are eight points about how to discover God’s will with the letter C so that they will be easier to remember and implement in your life.
1. Communion with God Through Scripture
The Word is indeed central to knowing and doing God’s will. You cannot truly live the triumphant Christian life apart from it. Paul writes: “All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable” (2 Timothy 3:16).
You read Scripture and consider what the Holy Spirit may be communicating to you through it. Keep the following questions and concepts in mind:
Keep the following questions and concepts in mind:
- Lord, what do You want to communicate to me today?
- What is the context of what I am reading?
- What can I glean about what You desire to accomplish in me and through me?
- What are You revealing to me about Your character, relationship with me, and provision?
- Are there attitudes, beliefs, and habits that are undermining my well-being or relationship with You? Father, show me truth with which I can combat those wrongful attitudes, beliefs, habits, and strongholds, and set me on the right path.
- Are there any actions or steps that You are revealing to me through Your Word? How do You desire me to apply what I am reading?
2. Circumstances of Life
A second way God will speak to us is through the circumstances of our lives—through where He puts us, the situations we find ourselves in, and the people He places around us.
In his devotional book, My Utmost for His Highest, Oswald Chambers affirms this, saying: “We can all see God in exceptional things, but it requires the growth of spiritual discipline to see God in every detail. Never believe that the so-called random events of life are anything less than God’s appointed order. Be ready to discover His divine designs anywhere and everywhere.”
As children of a sovereign God, we are never victims of our circumstances. Our heavenly Father is always working through our details, losses, discouragements, obstacles, challenges, problems, opportunities, and victories to direct us on the path of His will.
3. Counsel of Godly Christians
Sometimes we simply need the help of other Christians to know what to do in areas we’re unaccustomed to. This is why Scripture admonishes us to teach one another with love, a good conscience, and a sincere faith (1 Timothy 1:5).
Proverbs 1:5 says, “A man of understanding will acquire wise counsel.” Likewise, Proverbs 19:20 instructs: “Listen to counsel and accept discipline, that you may be wise the rest of your days.” And always—no matter who gives you counsel—confirm what you’ve heard with the Living God in Scripture and through prayer. Always.
4. Conscience
Our conscience, which is the inner voice that acts as a moral filter for us. It is the alarm that goes off within us when we are tempted to do something that isn’t right or when we head in the wrong direction. Something within us senses when things are amiss.
What is important to understand is that the purpose of your conscience is not necessarily to guide you in decisions—that is not the reason it was given to us. Rather, the conscience’s main purpose is to protect you or stop you from proceeding on a sinful or dangerous course or to prompt you to do what is right. The unsettling alarm that sounds within us when we’re contemplating a disastrous decision is the Father’s way of safeguarding us from foolish choices.
The truth of the matter is that only a Christ-centered conscience can genuinely protect us. The conscience is reliable only when it is under His lordship.
5. Common Sense
6. Compulsion
This is a principle that we have seen in Philippians 2:13: “It is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.” The Lord gives you the strong desire or the impulse to do His will.
When you sense God is moving you in a particular direction or to do something, don’t try to reason it out. Just do what He tells you to do. Of course, it is always important to test where the impulses are coming from (1 John 4:1). If they are sinful, you know they aren’t coming from the Holy Spirit. Galatians 5:16 instructs: “Walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh.”
When you get closer to God, your understanding of your sinfulness increases—not because He is rejecting you, but because He is holy.
Your heavenly Father doesn’t desire for you to remain in the attitudes, behaviors, and strongholds that are destroying you. He wants to set you free so you can become all that you were created to be.
7. Contentment
A seventh way we are given to discern God’s will is through the contentment or tranquility we feel when proceeding on a course of action. Perhaps you have heard people say, “I just don’t have any peace about it,” when speaking about a particular decision. The principle here is that when you are either outside the Lord’s will or working against Him, you will feel spiritual friction that makes you uncomfortable. But when you are in the center of God’s will, you will feel harmony with Him—a peace “which surpasses all comprehension,” so to speak (Philippians 4:7).
More specifically, the supernatural peace Jesus promises us rests on our agreement with Him. This is why Colossians 3:15 tells us, “Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts.”
8. Communication with God Through Prayer
The eighth and final way God communicates His plans to us is through prayer.
God reveals His will to us through the circumstances of life, the counsel of godly Christians, your conscience, common sense, compulsion, and contentment. We must also communicate with God through prayer, so that He can make sense of what we are experiencing and understand how He desires for us to proceed.
All the other points—circumstances, counsel, conscience, common sense, compulsion, and contentment—come through these two practices. The Lord will work through your time in communion and communication with Him—through His Word and in prayer—to show how everything works together to reveal His plan for your life.
Remember who the Holy Spirit is. He is described in Isaiah 11:2 as “the Spirit of the LORD… the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and strength, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD.”
- He is the Spirit of the Lord, which means that everything He does will be consistent with God’s plans and character.
- He is the Spirit of wisdom—He helps us to live out what is right in the Father’s sight and conforms us to the image of Christ.
- He is the Spirit of understanding—He gives us supernatural discernment into our circumstances, allowing His fruit—“love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” (Galatians 5:22–23)—to flow through us. He is the Spirit of counsel—He advises us, showing us what to do in every situation and bringing to remembrance everything Christ taught us (John 14:26). He is the Spirit of strength—which means might and valor to do mighty deeds.
- He is the Spirit of knowledge—He provides the inventiveness and resourcefulness for the tasks He directs us to accomplish.
- He is the Spirit of the fear of the Lord—He teaches us how to honor, respect, and obey the Father.
You have exactly what you need to interact with Him—you have the Holy Spirit communicating to you and for you. Jesus leads you to do His will in a very special and powerful way in prayer.
The Lord God is able to speak to you clearly and empower you to do whatever He calls you to do. However, you do have to listen to Him. In your times of prayer, it is necessary to stop talking long enough to hear what Jesus has to say to you. Then, once you do, you must actively apply what He’s said to your life.
THE HINDRANCES
What’s Stopping Your Progress
We are so focused on our own needs and desires that we cannot hear what the Lord is telling us.
So when considering the pursuit of God’s will, we must be aware that our minds may be so full of thoughts about our particular goals that we become insensitive to the Lord’s warnings about them. We may also become deaf to all of the other issues the Father is attempting to address in our lives—the ones that are suffering because of our singular focus. How often have businessmen and -women been so focused on success at work that their families have fallen apart?
That is one of the main reasons the Lord allows people to go through great trials and seasons of brokenness—He is trying to liberate them of their self-will so they can recognize the hurt they cause themselves and their unhealthy dependencies on people and possessions that cannot last.
Knowing God’s will means understanding how He thinks about your situation.
The Lord answers whoever will seek Him and reveals Himself to those who long to know Him.
How do you overcome your busyness when there seems so much to do? Begin by asking God what is truly essential and ask Him to teach you how to choose His best. A person who has learned to walk in the Spirit has discovered the awesome practice of living out his relationship with God as he carries out his responsibilities. It’s always best to have a time set apart for interacting with Him—even if it is only ten minutes in the morning. But the truth of the matter is that we are always walking with the Lord.
Judges 16:20 tells us this sad truth: “He did not know that the LORD had departed from him.” Samson was so far from God that he never even noticed when His Spirit left him. What a tragedy! However, this is instructive to us. Because sometimes we are living our lives, engaging in sins the Lord cautioned us to avoid, and we don’t even really notice that we haven’t heard Him speak in a while. But then some trial or issue arises in our lives and we desperately need to hear from the Lord. We want His counsel and guidance. We long for His provision and grace.
As Stanley recalls, “Throughout my life, I have learned an important principle about God’s silences: Most of the time, when the Father is quiet it is because there is something within you He has already pointed out and He wants you to deal with it.”
The greatest treasure apart from knowing the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal Savior and having His Spirit indwell you is understanding God’s purpose and plan for your life. Don’t miss out on that awesome gift because of your self-will, the influence of others, ignorance of God’s character and principles, unbelief, feelings of unworthiness or guilt, busyness, God-directed anger, or willfully harbored sin. It is just not worth it.
The Father will not always speak to you in the way you expect—but He will speak to you. And once you truly hear His voice and experience what it’s like to walk in His will, you won’t want to live any other way.
CAN I BE SURE?
Committing to God’s Glorious Plans for Your Life
The truth of the matter is that at times the Lord will call you to do things that appear unreasonable to your human viewpoint.
We only have to look at King David and know that these three situations are often true in the lives of people walking in the center of God’s will:
- Doing the unreasonable. We know that God called David to fight Goliath, a Philistine warrior many times his size and weight and with much more military experience and preparation (1 Samuel 17).
- Waiting with no evidence of deliverance. David had been anointed as the next king and promised the throne of Israel (1 Samuel 16:13). However, there came a point when the sitting king, Saul, became so jealous of David that he commanded his servants to kill him (1 Samuel 19:1).
- Disastrous setbacks. Then there was the time when David settled in Ziklag—a city of Gath (1 Samuel 30). Sadly, while David and his men were away, the Amalekites raided Ziklag, burned their encampment, and captured their wives and children. David’s men were so devastated that they sought to kill him. So in the midst of his heartbreak over his family, David had to deal with the pain of betrayal and the fear of losing his life.
Here is a sevenfold test that will help you determine whether or not a particular decision or plan is God’s will for your life.
1. Is it consistent with the Word of God?
The first and most important point, of course, is whether or not what you sense God is telling you to do is consistent with the whole counsel of Scripture.
Often, when Stanley has taught this principle, people think that finding a verse of Scripture or two that justifies what they desire to do is sufficient. What is even more important is that we always take into account the whole counsel of Scripture—that we form our decisions based on principles that are found throughout God’s Word, rather than an isolated, out-of-context verse or two.
You can know for certain that it is never part of God’s desired plan for you to lie, steal from others, commit murder, or have an adulterous affair, because the Lord states that clearly in His Word (Exodus 20:13–16).
You know that “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law” (Galatians 5:22–23). The Lord’s plan can and should produce this fruit in you.
God’s plan will always drive you to His Word for guidance, courage, strength, confirmation, and wisdom. If something you are considering causes you to avoid Scripture for any reason, you can know for certain it is not His will.
2. Is this a wise decision?
Seven centuries before Jesus, the Greek poet Hesiod declared, “Idleness is a disgrace.” Two hundred years before Christ, the Roman playwright Plautus wrote:
Two decades before Jesus walked the earth, the Roman poet Horace penned: “Life gives nothing to a man without labor.” So the concept that laziness is unwise is one they would have recognized regardless if they’d read Scripture or not.
Christ often spoke of the wise stewardship of resources—of investing what a believer has in the kingdom of God and being a blessing to others (Matthew 25:14–28; Ephesians 4:28).
3. Can I honestly ask God to enable me to achieve this goal?
Is this a course of action that we can legitimately ask God to bless?
Stanley notes, “Throughout my life I’ve seen plenty of people who wanted the Father to bless schemes that would not bring honor to the name of Jesus but rather shame.”
If you do happen to manipulate your circumstances to the point that you acquire something outside of God’s will, the likelihood is that it will turn to ashes.
4. Do I have genuine peace about this path?
Is it really possible to walk through the storms of life and be at peace when everything around seems to be working against me?
In Greek the word peace, eirene, means, “to bind together.” Essentially, when you have the peace of God it is because you are joined with Him—in unity and agreement with His purposes and course for your life.
5. Is this decision appropriate for who I am as a follower of Christ?
In other words, would you recommend the choices you’re making to another Christian?
His objective in your life is to conform you to the likeness of Jesus (Romans 8:29). He is molding you to bear:
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- Jesus’ character
- Jesus’ power
- Jesus’ focus
- Jesus’ freedom
- Jesus’ heart
- Jesus’ mission
- Jesus’ obedience
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6. Does this fit God’s overall plan for my life?
The Lord has great purposes for you.
Your part in His plan is crucial. You have no idea whose eternity may change because of your faithful obedience to God. In light of this then, it is always important for you to consider whether your choices support or oppose His path for your life.
7. Will this decision honor God?
The Westminster Shorter Catechism of 1674 teaches: “Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy Him forever.”
Revelation 4:11 tells us: “Worthy are You, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power; for You created all things, and because of Your will they existed, and were created.” This is what knowing and doing the will of God is all about—revealing Him to others by exalting Him in our lives.
As you seek assurance of God’s will, consider these questions carefully and prayerfully:
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- Is it consistent with the Word of God?
- Is this a wise decision?
- Can I honestly ask God to enable me to achieve this goal or to support this course of action?
- Do I have genuine peace about this path?
- Is this decision appropriate for who I am as a follower of Christ?
- Does this fit God’s overall plan for my life?
- Will this decision honor God?
When you can say yes to these seven questions, you know you have confirmed God’s will.
You may be seeking the answer to a decision that God has not revealed to you yet.
This is because although the Lord cares about the choice that is weighing on your mind, His greater goal is to deepen your relationship with Him. So He doesn’t just want to answer a question in your heart; rather, He wants to form a pattern for you to relate to Him in every aspect of your life.
So, commit to doing God’s will—not only in the present decisions before you, but for your whole life.