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God does not focus on giving people heartwarming devotional thoughts. He intends to save and radically transform lives.
Whatever your present circumstances, Blackaby prays this study helps you do the following:
- Believe and experience daily God’s infinite love for you.
- Hear when God is speaking to you.
- Identify God’s unmistakable activity in your life.
- Believe Him to be and do everything He promises.
- Adjust your beliefs, character, and behavior to Him and His ways.
- Identify a direction He is taking in your life, and recognize what He wants to do through you.
- Know clearly how to respond to what He shows you.
- Experience God doing through you what only He can do.
Only God can accomplish these things.
Consider God’s Nature:
God is love—His will is always best.
God is all-knowing—His directions are always right.
God is all-powerful—He can enable you to accomplish His will.
You must believe He will enable and equip you to do everything He asks you to do. Don’t second-guess Him.
When we announce what we think we can’t do in response to God’s initiative, we are actually saying more about our faith in God than we are about our own abilities. The fact is, either we believe God is all-powerful or we don’t.
The Wrong Question
Jesus considered God’s will to be His highest priority (see John 4:32-34). Following God’s will is also important for us. Often, when people want to know God’s will, they will ask, “What is God’s will for my life?” As one of Blackaby’s seminary professors, Gaines S. Dobbies, used to say, “If you ask the wrong question, you are going to get the wrong answer.”
The better inquiry is, “What is God’s will?” Becauser people are naturally self-centered, we tend to view the whole world—even God’s activity—in terms of our own lives.
Once we know what God is doing, we see what we should do. Our focus needs to be outward on God and His purposes, not inward on our lives.
Don’t Just Do Something
We are doers. We want to accomplish something. The idea of doing God’s will sounds exciting. Once in a while, someone says, “Don’t just stand there—do something.” Sometimes individuals or churches are so busy carrying out plans they think will help achieve God’s purposes that they don’t bother to find out what He actually wants. We often wear ourselves out and accomplish little for the kingdom of God.
Meanwhile, God is crying out to us, “Don’t just do something. Stand there! Enter into a love relationship with Me. Let Me love you and teach you about Myself as I work through you.” A time will come when action is required, but we must not short-circuit the relationship.
Jesus Is Your Way
Many self-professing Christians attend church services but don’t encounter God. They try to live the best life they can, just like an atheist might, but they don’t anticipate God guiding them in their decision-making. The unfortunate result is that many Christians live a religious life, but they never experience God.
Often people approach knowing and doing God’s will this way: They ask, “Lord, what do You want me to do? When do You want me to do it? How shall I do it? Where shall I do it? What will the outcome be?”
Jesus did not say:
- “I will give you the entire plan.”
- “I will give you a road map.”
- “I will tell you which direction to go and send you off.”
He did say, “I am the way” (John 14:6). Jesus knows the way; He is our way.
Real Christianity is not merely a religion; it is a relationship with a Person. Through this relationship, God reveals His will and invites you to join Him where He is at work.
The Scriptures are your Source of Authority, while the Holy Spirit is your personal teacher.
When you come to the Lord Jesus to seek His will for your life, which of the following requests more closely resembles the way you generally ask?
- Lord, what do You want me to do? When do You want me to do it? How shall I do it? Where shall I do it? Whom do You want me to involve along the way? And please tell me what the outcome will be.
- Lord, as You go with me, tell me what to do what step at a time. I will do it.
Isn’t the first response typical? We tend to ask God for a detailed road map. He says, “You don’t need a road map. You need to follow Me one day at a time.”
Jesus did not say:
- “I will show you the way.”
- “I will give you a map.”
- “I will tell you which direction to go.”
Jesus said, “I am the way.” Jesus knows the way; He is your way.
As you follow Jesus one day at a time, He will keep you in the center of God’s will.
Consider Abram’s call to do God’s will:
The Lord had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.
“I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”
So Abram went, as the Lord had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he set out from Harran. He took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, all the possessions they had accumulated and the people they had acquired in Harran, and they set out for the land of Canaan, and they arrived there.
What did God say? How specific was He? “Go from your land.” Go where? “To the land that I will show you.”
Many times, as with Abram, God called people simply to follow Him. He is much more likely to ask you to follow Him one day at a time than He is to spell out all the details before you begin to obey Him.
Jesus Is Your Model
Always go to the Bible and ask the Holy Spirit to reveal the truth of your situation. Look to see what God says and how He works in the Scriptures.
In Malachi 3:6, God says, “I, the Lord, have not changed.”
Consider the calling of Peter, Andrew, James, John, Matthew, and Saul. In some cases, God gave more details than in others. In every case, individuals had to stay close to God for His daily guidance.
Consider Jesus’ Example:
- The Father has been working right up until now.
- Now the Father has Me working.
- I do nothing on My own initiative.
- I watch to see what the Father is doing.
- The Father loves Me.
- He shows Me everything He is doing.
- I do what I see the Father doing.
This model applies to your life personally: watch to see where God is working and join Him!
Learning to be a Servant of God
God works through His servants.
Consider the story of the potter and the clay in Jeremiah 18:1-6, as it shows what a servant should do. In the story, the clay must do two things:
- The clay has to be molded. It has to be responsive to the potter.
- The clay has to remain in the potter’s hand. Suppose the potter molds the clay into a cup. The cup has to remain in the potter’s hands so he can use that cup to fulfill its purpose.
God wants to develop a growing, deepening love relationship with you. He wants to involve you in His Kingdome purposes.
God Works Through His Servants
You cannot stay the way you are and go with God.
Here are the seven realities of Experiencing God:
- God is always at work around you.
- God pursues a continuing relationship with you that is real and personal.
- God invites you to become involved with Him in His work.
- God speaks by the Holy Spirit through the Bible, prayer, circumstances, and the church to reveal Himself, His purposes, and His ways.
- God’s invitation for you to work with Him always leads you to a crisis of belief that requires faith and action.
- You must make major adjustments in your life to join God in what He is doing.
- You come to know God by experience as you obey Him, and He accomplishes His work through you.
We can identify three similarities in the lives of Bible characters through whom God worked:
- When God spoke, they knew it was God.
- They knew what God was saying.
- They knew what they were to do in response.
Moses offered many objections. He questioned whether God could do such a great work through someone like him (Exodus 3:11) and whether he was capable of speaking eloquently enough to accomplish the task (Exodus 4:10).
Moses faced a crisis of belief: is God really able to do what He says?
What Can One Ordinary Person Do?
James 5:17-18 says, “Elijah was a human being, even as we are. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops.”
Elijah was an ordinary person just like us. He prayed, and God responded powerfully.
When God healed the crippled beggar through Peter, Peter and John were called before the Sanhedrin (the highest Jewish court in the land). Acts 4:13 says, “When they (the Sanhedrin) saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus.”
Dwight L. Moody was a poorly educated, un-ordained shoe salesman who felt God’s call to preach the gospel. Early one morning, he and some friends gathered for prayer, confession, and consecration. They heard Henry Varley say, “The world has yet to see what God will do with a man fully consecrated to Him.”
Through this one common life, God began to do the extraordinary. Moody became one of the greatest evangelists of modern times. He preached in revival services across Britain and America, where hundreds of thousands came to Christ.
God delights in using ordinary people to accomplish His divine purposes. Paul said God deliberately seeks out the weak and the despised things because it is from them that He receives the greatest glory (1 Corinthians 1:26-31).
When you believe nothing significant can happen through you, you have said more about your belief in God than what you have declared about yourself.
How long was the public ministry of John the Baptist? Perhaps six months. What was Jesus’ estimate of John’s life? Jesus said, “I tell you, among those born of women, no one was greater than John” (Luke 7:28). None greater! John had six months completely yielded to God, and the Son of God declared that his contribution to the Kingdom of God was unsurpassed!
There are far too many people who settle for practicing sterile religion rather than enjoying a growing, vibrant, personal relationship with the living God.